Their are two sides to the contentious abortion debate. One side views abortion as the murder of a defenceless human. The other views abortion as the right of woman to do as she wishes to her body. One side wants the government and the courts to ban abortions, while the other side believes abortion should be the choice of the woman carrying the fetus. Pro lifers want the government to ban abortion while the pro choice crowd wants government to stay out of the bodies of women. That makes me wonder what pro choicers think about drug laws. But that is a discussion for another time.
I believe the pro choice argument that it is their body and their right to do whatever to their body is a misnomer. It is their body, but their body is acting as a vessel for another life. The act of an abortion troubles and disgusts me morally, however my beliefs about abortion do not align me with the religious extremism and indoctrination that is paramount in the pro life crowd. In terms of abortion and sex education related to the act, the pro life crowd has failed.
When you look at the teen pregnancy numbers in the United States you will see that failure is clear. 52.1 percent of each 1,000 fifteen to nineteen year old women in the United States get pregnant each year. That number is astronomical considering how much the religious right tries to force schools to teach abstinence only in schools. To the religious right the simple mentioning of contraceptives is a front to their doctrine and when you are trying to push your beliefs on the entire public education system you can't have an opposing view expressed.
The religious right believes that sex should solely be between man and wife. This is a strong belief they have pushed onto high school children in schools, church and in the public square. With the teen pregnancy rate in America that is far above the rates of other country their message has fallen on death ears through mis information, lies and the culture we live in which pushes sex onto our children.
A report published by the Texas Freedom Network pointed out the mass inaccuracies in abstinence only education in Texas public schools. According to the report 40% of school districts in the state spread false information about condoms which included outrageous failure rates and the lie that the A.I.D.S virus passes through latex. 10 % of those school districts imposed strong religious messages into their sex education which told students that their perfect partner was one whose first love was “ Jesus”. By pushing Christian beliefs on students and by falsifying information on condoms the religious right is lying to American children who are using the bad information to make bad decisions.
The fact of the matter is that since the sexual revolution we have learned that we like sex. That is proven by the study published by Lawrence B Finer. In his report titled “ Trends in Premarital Sex in America 954-2003” Finer concluded that 95% of those in the study had premarital sex. Those who didn't have sex for the first time until the 20's or later, 81% had sex by the time they reached their mid 40s. Marriage in our society is not needed for us to feel the need to have sex. We find a person we are attracted to and we strive to have sex with them. It is in our biology and those Christian purists try in vain to fight our biology. We do not think of God when we think of sex and that is why religious tyrants force their beliefs on us and our children in our schools.
The realities of our sexuality is what the Religious Right are fighting and their strategy in the fight is to play dirty. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo is one of the dirty players in the game of sexual health. As the Catholic church's spokesman on family affairs in 2003 he claimed that “Relying on condoms is like batting against your own death”. When the World Health Association responded with the fact that “ condoms provide a highly effective barrier against the transmission” of H.I.V and other sexually transmitted diseases and infections Trujillo called them liars.
The Catholic church has proven that they care more about the doctrine than they do about human life. More than 20 million people in the world have died from A.I.D.S yet they still preach abstinence which of course is 100% affective against unplanned pregnancy and disease, but is incredibly unrealistic. When Archbishops and other members of the Catholic hierarchy blame condom use for the spread of sexual diseases they are being incredibly dishonest and the rhetoric is having a detrimental affect on their followers who mistakenly believe in the words of the Catholic church when they say condoms do not curb the consequences of sex.
According to the CDC 71% of teenagers admitted to talking to their parents about condoms and when parents have those discussions with their children teenagers are 3 times more likely to use condoms when they engage in sexual acts which encourages safe sex practises in future sexual relations. That is noted in the report with teens who used condoms when they first had sex are 20 times more likely to use condoms in future sexual relations.
Honesty and frank discussions with children leads to safer sexual practises. By simply telling a child not to have sex until marriage and by saying condoms don't work they are leading their children to a life of misery. Promoting the use of condoms is promoting smart sexual decisions amongst our youths. The spreading of false information has led to bad sexual decisions amongst our children. Back in 2008 the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center noted that oral and anal sex is on the rise amongst teenagers and young adults who do not use condoms. A lot of the children who engaging in those sex acts believe that they can not get diseases from oral and anal sex so they use that false information when their hormones act. The lead author of the report claimed that the lack of honest sexual information presented to our children has driven this dangerous trend.
This false information leads back to abortion when children who were fed the lies and have parents who refuse to talk to them at all about sex. This leads to bad sexual decisions and unwanted pregnancy. The Christian purist will blame this on sexual perversion and the Liberal fascination with killing babies, but that is not the story. If children were told the truth from the start to the end how many abortions would happen yearly in the United States?
We still have teen pregnancies that are at a tragically high rate and the Christian Right is losing the battle. Between 2000 and 2003 abstinence only education funding rose to 120 million dollars which was only a small number compared to the spending of 176 million in 2006. In that time teen pregnancy rates in the U.S rose. In 2006 teen pregnancy rates rose by more than two percent than the previous year. That shows how much the Religious Rights pushed abstinence only education is a failure. These kids feel societal pressure of being labelled sluts and whores which drives them to the abortion clinic.
The abortion rate during this period rose by 1% according to that study. In another study 1.21 million abortions occurred in 2008 which was more than the rate in the last survey in 2005. What do the numbers tell you? We have failed in properly educating our children when it comes to sex and the Religious Right has failed in their mandate to restrict sexual freedom in cadence with “ God's Law”.
In their battle against the feminists and Liberals they have lost. Abortions have not ended and desperate women are not choosing adoption, they are choosing abortion. It is about time the religious zealots remove themselves from the pulpit and face the reality that we love sex and we must make the proper decisions no matter what we decided they should be. Abortion in my view is wrong, but I am not so ignorant to believe that religious fundamentalism is the key in reducing abortion. Proper sexual education is and if we don't want to end the life of a fetus we must tell our children the truth and install abstinence as well as safe sex education in their minds. Without honesty our children and young adults will continue to abort innocent children.
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