sexual morality

What's moral is to educate your children about becoming responsible adults. Responsible adults should use contraception unless they want to make babies. The moral thing to do is to encourage contraception -- not just to prevent pregnancy, but to prevent the spread of disease.

"Christians" preaching abstinence-only need to grow the f*!k up.

dotCommonweal:

In addition to its very, very complete coverage this morning of Eliot Spitzer’s downfall, the NYTimes carried what I consider a related report: 25 percent of U.S. teenaged girls have one or more sexually transmitted disease.

In addition to an account of the CDC’s report, the Times deployed its usual public health analysis of the problem, quoting head of Planned Parenthood thus: “’The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure,’ Ms. Richards said, ‘and teenage girls are paying the real price.’” She recommends ever more thorough sex education. But has that worked either?

And then there’s the question of condoms, about which the FDA says: ”latex condoms are ‘highly effective’ at preventing infection by chlamydia, trichomoniasis, H.I.V., gonorrhea and hepatitis B. The agency noted that condoms seemed less effective against genital herpes and syphilis. Protection against human papillomavirus ‘is partial at best,’ the report said.”