Youth Advocacy Group Denounces Government Plan to Cut Abstinence-Only Education
(Link): Youth advocacy group denounces gov’t plan to cut abstinence-only education
By Samantha Kamman
August 5, 2022
An organization that teaches youth to avoid unsafe sexual behaviors has denounced a recent decision to eliminate federal funding for abstinence-only sex education programs.
Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee announced the release of the proposed Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2023.
The proposed appropriations act eliminates funding for Sexual Risk Avoidance education (SRA), which promotes abstinence until marriage, for the 2023 fiscal year.
The explanatory statement summarizing the budget argues that SRA is “ineffective” and withholds pertinent information about sexual health from teenagers.
Mary Anne Mosack, president and CEO of Ascend, an organization that advocates for SRA training to help youth form healthy relationships, argues that the program should be funded.
In a Monday statement to The Christian Post, Mosack said parents should be given a choice regarding their child’s sex education.
“Teaching clarity over confusion in a culture of sexual accommodation demands that we are clear, intentional and sufficiently loud enough for youth to hear over the noise of chaotic, disoriented messages about sex, relationships and marriage,” she said. “How adolescents learn and process this important part of their natural development is key to their healthy decision-making skills.”
Mosack contended that adolescents need to know the biological facts concerning puberty, reproduction and disease transmission and that youth should understand the benefits of delaying sex until marriage.
“They need to know the red flags of sexual coercion and dating violence,” the SRA proponent said. “They need to know the risks of teen sex, not just to physical health but to mental, emotional and spiritual and ethical health.”
…Mosack added that sex education is “about more than just not getting pregnant or contracting an STD” and that students “need to hear the message that sex is always about more than sex.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which was released in 2016, reported that about 41.2% of high school students in the U.S. admitted to having sexual intercourse, a decrease of 5.6% compared to its 2013 survey.
Despite former President Barack Obama’s administration funding Comprehensive Sex Education programs over SRA, the CDC report found an increase from 2009-2015 in the number of sexually active students who did not use contraceptives during sexual intercourse.
…”Policy makers must place an emphasis on SRA education, rather than an approach that normalizes teen sex,” Valerie Huber, then-CEO of Ascend, told The Christian Post in 2016 in response to the CDC report.
“Parents should be encouraged to set the high expectation that their children reserve sex for marriage. School sex education classes should reinforce the healthy behaviors being made by more and more teens. And churches, local agencies and every other entity that has an influence over America’s youth should rethink the message they are sending to teens about sex. Are these messages normalizing teen sex or normalizing waiting?”
Related:
(Link): Secular Sex Ed Failures, Secular Sexual and Biological Ignorance
(Link): The Sexual Revolution Has Backfired on Women by S. Moore
(Link): Where the Sexual Revolution Went Wrong by Maria Albano
(Link): CDC Report: Virgin Teens Much Healthier Than Their Sexually Active Peers (2016 Report)
(Link): Why Sex-Positive Feminism is Falling Out of Fashion
(Link): Anal Sex Ruined This Woman’s Relationship
(Link): The Insidious Reason Women Have Fewer Orgasms (2022 Study)
(Link): Abstinence and ‘Purity Culture’ Are Often Conflated but Aren’t The Same, Tim Keller Explains
(Link): Abstinence Groups: New Sex-Ed Study Misses Point of Urging Teens to Wait
(Link): Where the Sexual Revolution Went Wrong by Maria Albano
(Link): Atheist Video About Being a Virgin of Sexually Abstinent – My Critique of the Atheist’s Critique
(Link): We’re Casual About Sex and Serious About Consent. But Is It Working? by J. Zimmerman
(Link): Teen Vogue Magazine Promoting Anal Sex (2017)
(Link): CDC Report: Virgin Teens Much Healthier Than Their Sexually Active Peers (2016 Report)
(Link): Inconsistency on Feminist Site – Choices Have Consequences
(Link): Teenagers Given Condoms at School Likelier to Become Pregnant and Get STDs / STIs: 2016 Study
(Link): A Day In The Life Of An Abstinence Ed Teacher by S. Gomez
(Link): The Myth of Safe Sex by D. Foley
(Link): We’re Casual About Sex and Serious About Consent. But Is It Working? by J. Zimmerman
(Link): I’m a Virgin, So Why Am I Being Slut-Shamed? by Ashley Iaconetti
(Link): No, Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity and Sexual Purity (they attack both concepts)
(Link): The Christian and Non Christian Phenomenon of Virgin Shaming and Celibate Shaming
(Link): Sex, Love & Celibacy by Dan Navin [who is a Christian homosexual celibate]
(Link): Craigslist confessional: I’m in my 40s, never married, and a virgin—but I’m happy by Abigail
(Link): CDC Reports Rare Lesbian HIV Transmission Case
(Link): Living Myths About Virginity (via The Atlantic)
(Link): Virginity Lost, Experience Gained (article with information from study about virginity)
(Link): When Adult Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments
(Link): An Example of Mocking Adult Virginity Via Twitter (Virginity Used As Insult)
(Link): No, Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity or Sexual Purity
(Link): Stop Pretending Sex Never Hurts, By D.C. McAllister
(Link): Slut-Shaming Is Bad—But The Overreaction Against It Also Hurts Women by J. Doverspike
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