The data is in, and we can see abstinence-only sex education having its impact as teenage birthrates rise.
« When Inaccuracy Hurts | Main | The War on Intellectual Property Violations »
Results
06 Dec 2007 10:09 am
Comments (10)
I expected this post to containt he usual Yglesian advocacy of teen sex. The pro-teen-sex punditry niche is something Broder and Friedman can't do -- you've got the market cornered.
On the other hand, it'll get a little creepy as you get older.
I expected this post to containt he usual Yglesian advocacy of teen sex. The pro-teen-sex punditry niche is something Broder and Friedman can't do -- you've got the market cornered.
On the other hand, it'll get a little creepy as you get older.
I think as long as Matt stays away from Derbyshire's beat he'll be able to avoid creepiness. Advocate sex *for* teenagers, not *with* them.
eagle613,
Given that the pregnancy rates for black teens and white teens both went up, do you really not see that the rates would have gone up even had hispanics been totally ignored? Or is the idea that more black teens are having babies with illegal immigrants?
Hmmm, I would have thought that all of the anal sex the abstinence-only crowd were having would have kept pregnancy rates down.
I've been following this report since the 1990s and 2006 was by far the worst year on a broad front of demographic issues, well beyond teen pregnancy.
Consider that the number of babies born to married women went up 0.5% but the number born to unmarried women went up 7.6% (in one year). (The increase in teen births is only a minor factor in that).
That's just a formula for social decay.
This is called nature re-asserting itself.
Changes in diet in recent history mean that teens are susceptible to getting pregnant earlier in their growth cycle than in past generations. Centuries ago, teens had irregular ovulation from puberty until about age sixteen. Today, they ovulate down to age eleven or even younger due to diet changes.
Nature doesn't give a damn. You get capable of bearing children when your genetics say so, not when George Bush or Barbara Walters says so. Trying to suppress that is a losing battle.
And the concept of abstinence at all is just breathtakingly stupid.
As for sex between teens and adults, Playboy once noted that back in the 1920's, most of the sixteen-year-old married girls were married to guys in their 20's.
Age of consent varies widely in US states, down to 14 in Hawaii. Age of consent in England is 16 - which is why the guys at Superiorpics.com go wild over 17-year-old Emma Watson and 17-year-old Hayden Panettiere.
Silly post, as:
(1) It's 'the data are in' - 'data' is a plural noun.
(2) Teaching 'abstinence-only' sex education is dumb, as has been determined in studies that directly and carefully examine its effects. The teenage birthrate, on the other hand, is more complicated and includes other factors.
(3) Posts like this tend to get really weird comments.
On display in this post is the usual game of blaming something on an ideological hobgoblin.
The same data will be used by the "other side" as proof of what happens when "religion is taken out of the schools" or something else equally predictable.
Really disgusting how we can't discuss anything anymore without immediately driving it down the same 2 worn out ruts.
Kafka-
The fact that two sides consistently say the same things does not mean that they need to be taken equally seriously.
The rise in abstinence only education coincides with the levelling off and rise of teen pregnancy.
taking religion out of the schools explains the steady rise in teen pregnancy from 1991 to present. But of course that didn't happen.
So at least we should insist that the other side make their boilerplate answer appeal to something that happened at the right time.
Comments closed December 20, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
No - the reason for the increase in teenage pregnancy is the massive inflow of illegal aliens. Check the data - the teen pregnancy rate for hispanics is approximately 83 per 1000. For blacks its in the low 60s, and whites in the mid-20s.
Posted by eagle613 | December 6, 2007 10:49 AM