dreamer_easy | Reproductive freedom stuph

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Gakked from

repro_rights: Lawmaker: Abstinence Programs Misleading. There's a book about Creationism called "Telling Lies for God"; clearly this strategy is not limited to that controversy. Telling young people that condoms are useless means death, disease, teen pregnancies, and abortions - and American taxpayers are footing the bill for these dangerous lies. If kids are too needlessly *frightened* to have sex, are they in fact virtuous, oh my brothers?

What infuriates me is that teaching abstinence is perfectly sensible *if* you also teach other methods of avoiding STDs and unwanted pregnancy. Before condoms and effective contraception, warning kids to abstain was perfectly reasonable; there just weren't a whole lot of other options, and syphilis and childbed death were a terrible risk. The evil wasn't shagging, the evil was the disease and death and poverty that could result from shagging. Teaching kids now that the only safe way now to avoid those evils is to abstain isn't just literally outdated, it's a *lie*, and it kills. No parent should rather their child died than lost their virginity.

The full report on federally-funded abstinence-only lies and distortions is available online.

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At the other end of the process: Adoptions Australia 2003-04, a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. The annual number of adoptions has been declining for thirty years; there are fewer Australian kids needing adoptions, partly because there are fewer unplanned pregnancies. As there's no increase in abortions, that must mean improved contraception, and better knowledge of it, is making the difference.

Australia's fertility rate has remained steady for the last six years.