How informed the choice?

Sheila Liaugminas


The legal wrangling over South Dakota’s informed consent law hasbeen both bizarre and revealing. At core, it’s a battle between thepowerful abortion movement which operates under the mantle of ‘choice’,and the pro-life movement which is working mightily to give womenenough information to make an informed choice.

When South Dakota legislators passed a law requiring abortionproviders to inform women that they are carrying not a blob of tissue,but an already existing human being, among other highly relevant factsand the possiblerisks ass ociated with the procedure. PlannedParenthood got an injunction to prevent that law’s enactment byconvincing judge Karen Schreier that such disclosure violates theabortionists’ rights of free speech. Schreier decided that outweighedthe women’s right to information.

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/how_informed_the_choice/q

A parent's guiding influence

Mark Gregston
A parent's desire to hold on to a child's innocence in his early years is normal and necessary. Early childhood is obviously not the right time for them to know certain things. But kids today are exposed to negative influences at earlier and earlier ages, and it is often out of a parent's control.
Age 16 used to be the benchmark for teens. It was the age most could begin to drive, and when given a set of car keys, the influence a parent has on how much of the world their teen experiences changes dramatically. But today, a younger teen has the keys to "drive" on over to some of the seediest places on earth, with the click of a mouse button. The Internet has changed everything.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=640998

'I need to wait'

Christopher Blunt

Surprisingly good messages about teenage sex and parenthood surface in an MTV series.
Culturally conservative messages about premarital sex have surfaced in an unusual place: MTV. The music-television network’s new reality series, 16 and Pregnant, follows sixteen-year-old American girls through five to seven months of their pregnancies and the experiences of young motherhood.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/i_need_to_wait/

US teen sex statistics show ‘disheartening’ trend

Carolyn Moynihan

Birth rates among teenagers are on the rise again in the United States after large declines between 1991 and 2005, according to a report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Other sexual health indictors also have flattened or worsened in what the CDC calls a “disheartening” reversal. Predictably, there are calls for “better sex education” -- meaning more stuff about condoms and pills, evidently.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/us_teen_sex_statistics_show_disheartening_trend/

£6m drive to cut teen pregnancies sees them DOUBLE

By Daniel Martin

A multi-million pound initiative to reduce teenage pregnancies more than doubled the number of girls conceiving.
The Government-backed scheme tried to persuade teenage girls not to get pregnant by handing out condoms and teaching them about sex.
But research funded by the Department of Health shows that young women who attended the programme, at a cost of £2,500 each, were 'significantly' more likely to become pregnant than those on other youth programmes who were not given contraception and sex advice. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1198228/6m-drive-cut-teen-pregnancies-sees-DOUBLE.html

Throwing oil on the blaze of teenage sex

Carolyn Moynihan

From the country that brought you the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe -- television ads for condoms and abortion. Will the British government never get it? The more “harm reduction” they go in for, the worse the problem gets.
Friday last saw the end of a three-month consultation by the government’s broadcasting standards watchdog, the BCAP, on a proposal to allow abortion clinics to advertise on TV before 9pm. Condom ads, currently confined to one channel, would also be shown in the earlier time slot. Pro-life pregnancy counselling services could also advertise -- if they could afford it -- but would have to make it clear that they do not refer for abortion, “so that delays do not result in medical complications,” as one news report puts it. It would be too bad, wouldn't it, if women had time to think about what they were doing.
http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/throwing_oil_on_the_blaze_of_teenage_sex/

Fewer U.S. teens report being sexually active

By Anne Harding
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The percentage of U.S. teens having sex showed a "dramatic" drop between 1992 and 2002, while there was a similarly striking rise in the use of contraception by those who were sexually active, a new analysis of national US data shows.

However, very recent increases in teen pregnancy -- after a decline lasting more than a decade -- show that more work needs to be done to help improve teens' reproductive health, according to Dr. Jennifer Manlove and colleagues from Child Trends in Washington, D.C.

http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_teens_sexual.html

The Real Pregnancy Crisis

W. BRADFORD WILCOX

Earlier this month, Bristol Palin turned herself into a poster child for the nation's continuing effort to prevent teenage pregnancies. She made the rounds on the morning TV show circuit and spoke at town hall meetings to drive home the point that other teens shouldn't make the same mistake she did. Ms. Palin's campaign could not have come at a better time. According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. -- after witnessing a 14-year decline in teenage childbearing from 1991 to 2005 -- saw the number rise from 2005 to 2007. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, about 450,000 adolescents gave birth.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124294779002345281.html

Teen pregnancy still a growing trend

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

Out-of-wedlock births have reached a record high.

Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy says roughly four out of ten births now occur outside of marriage. He believes the more it becomes normative behavior, the more teens will not see it as out of the ordinary. Plus, he points out that teens see other teenagers, relatives, and celebrities doing so, so they believe it is okay for them.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=499896

'Plan B for girls' court decision hailed as triumph of science over politics

Carolyn Moynihan

With new bosses about to take over at the US Food and Drug Administration, a New York judge has ordered the federal drug regulator to make the morning after pill available to 17-year-olds and to review whether to make the emergency contraceptive available to all ages without a doctor’s order. Judge Edward R Korman’s 52-page decision is the outcome of a lawsuit by the Centre for Reproductive Rights against the FDA’s 2006 decision to deny girls younger than 18 access to the Plan B pill without a prescription.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/plan_b_for_girls_court_decision_hailed_as_triumph_of_science_over_politics/

NC's 'Healthy Youth Act' healthy in name only

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow

The vast majority of North Carolina school districts teach abstinence until marriage -- but one family advocate in the Tar Heel State says a backdoor approach is under way in the legislature to push an agenda that promotes promiscuity.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=466794

Parents' rights paramount in Calif. school district

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow
One school district in California has bucked the trend and opted to protect parental rights. The board of trustees of the Vista Unified School District voted unanimously to require that pupils obtain parental permission before leaving campus for "confidential medical services" -- including birth control and abortions.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=459736

Birth report bodes poorly for children, society

Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow

A spokeswoman from Concerned Women for America says the findings outlined in a new report on U.S. births in 2007 highlight a disturbing trend in American society.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=458082

Sermons on Sex Cause A Stir in Alabama

Apparently a new series of sermons is getting quite a lot of attention in Good Hope, Alabama.

It's one thing for a church in a big city like Dallas or Atlanta to tackle the ticklish topic of sex. It blends in with the urban scene.

It's another thing when a small-town congregation puts up billboards with the phrase "Great sex: God's way" on rural highways to promote a sermon series. You can't even legally buy beer in Cullman County, and a preacher is talking about S-E-X on Sunday morning?

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Blog/Default.aspx?id=450694

Like a Virgin: The Press Take On Teenage Sex

WILLIAM MCGURN

The chain reaction was something out of central casting. A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don't. Lo and behold, when they crunch the numbers, they find not much difference between pledgers and nonpledgers: most do not make it to the marriage bed as virgins.
Like a pack of randy 15-year-old boys, the press dives right in.

"Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex," screams CBS News. "Virginity pledges don't mean much," adds CNN. "Study questions virginity pledges," says the Chicago Tribune. "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds," heralds the Washington Post. "Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data," reports Bloomberg. And on it goes.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120095259855597.html

Study Links Explicit Lyrics to Teen Sex

A new study raises the issue of whether or not listening to sexually aggressive lyrics prompts teenagers to have sex at an earlier age. See Breitbart. The study, in which researchers at the University of Pittsburgh graded the sexual aggressiveness of song lyrics, used songs on the US Billboard chart by popular artists.

First, the investigators graded the song lyrics from the least to the most sexually degrading. Then they asked 711 students, aged 15 to 16, at three local high school about their sexual behavior and their music preferences.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Blog/Default.aspx?id=436184

Teen Pregnancy on the Rise

After More Than a Decade of Declines, CDC Reports More Teens Giving Birth
By RYAN OWENS and SIDNEY WRIGHT IV

Carmen Sauceda, a 17-year-old high school athlete from Dallas, once dreamed of attending college, but with a newborn baby girl, those dreams will have to take a backseat to motherhood.

Carmen Sauceda, a 17-year-old high school athlete from Dallas, who is one of what the CDC says is a growing number of teens becoming mothers.(ABC News)
The gifts she recently received at her baby shower have done little to calm her anxiety, because she doesn't think she's ready.
"I don't feel like an adult. But now I have to act like one for my child," Sauceda said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6981558&page=1

Sex-ed leaflet: ‘Don’t mention morality’

Carolyn Moynihan

A leaflet urging parents not to put advice about sex to their children in a moral framework is about to be released through pharmacies in the UK with the support of the government’s minister for children, Beverley Hughes. It comes in the wake of the case of Alfie Patten, a 13-year-old boy who fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/sex_ed_leaflet_dont_mention_morality/

Children having children: sex ed blamed

by Carolyn Moynihan

A gamin-faced schoolboy who has apparently fathered a child with his 15-year-old girlfriend is the talk of Britain, a country with the highest rate in Europe of pregnancies among unmarried teenagers. Alfie Patten, who is just over 4ft tall and looks younger even than his 13 years, was only 12 when he got Chantelle Stedman, who was then 14, pregnant. The birth of their child, Maisie Roxanne, last week has occasioned outrage and hand-wringing in equal proportions. The consensus among the more enlightened commentators is that the event is no surprise in a society saturated with sexual messages, including a type of sex education that talks almost exclusively about having sex “safely” and barely mentions “relationships” let alone the marital meaning of sex or abstinence.

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“Finding True Love in a Hook-up World”

Written by: Sean McDowell

If you were like King Solomon in the Bible and could have any one wish come true, what would you wish for? When I pose this question to my students they often say things such as, “to be rich,” “to be famous,” or “to find the perfect mate.” But of all the responses I have heard, the words of Ashley, an 18-year-old high school senior, stand out most vividly in my mind. After I spoke on sexual purity at a Tuesday-night youth group, she came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, “If I could have one wish in life, it would be to go back four years ago and hear this same message. I might not have ruined my life.” Ashley simply said thanks, and then walked away.

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