Category Sexual Purity

What are the Girl Scouts Supporting?

Ed 4 Comments

A disturbing news item was recently published by the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) about the activities of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). It would appear that WAGGGS worked in cooperation with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to distribute a brochure entitled “Healthy, Happy and Hot” at a “no-adults-welcome panel” during a United Nations week-long event (the annual Commission on the Status of Women).

So, what’s so disturbing? Well, firstly, here’s a sample from the brochure quoted from the C-FAM article (click here to read the brochure for yourself; click here to read the C-FAM article):

The brochure claims, “Many people think sex is just about vaginal or anal intercourse… But, there are lots of different ways to have sex and lots of different types of sex. There is no right or wrong way to have sex. Just have fun, explore and be yourself!” The brochure goes on to encourage young people to “Improve your sex life by getting to know your own body. Play with yourself! Masturbation is a great way to find out more about your body and what you find sexually stimulating. Mix things up by using different kinds of touch from very soft to hard. Talk about or act out your fantasies. Talk dirty to them.”

Secondly, although the brochure is targeted at young people with HIV, the problem I have with this is that WAGGGS and IPPF are encouraging sexual immorality and promiscuity around the world via the United Nations. Not only that, but you need to remember what these organizations also consider to be a part of “women’s reproductive rights”–abortion-on-demand. I wrote about that last year in my post entitled Exporting Death.

Thirdly, there’s a slap against pro-lifers from the IPPF brochure:

Some healthcare workers and service providers think that young people or people living with HIV should not have sex. They may let their personal opinions get in the way of providing good information and services. Remember that you have sexual and reproductive rights.

Well, that just makes sense as Planned Parenthood in the US is the largest abortion provider, accounting for approximately 305,300 abortions in 2007 (click here to see their annual report, go to page 9). That’s 25 percent of the estimated 1.2 million abortions performed in the US every year.

The question to ask is this: what is the relationship between  WAGGGS  and your local Girl Scout troop that sells you cookies? The Girl Scouts of the USA has been a full member of WAGGGS since 1928 and are supportive of the policies and positions of WAGGGS (click here to see the member status of GSUSA).

And before I could even get this post written, another related item of interest flashed before my eyes. The Susan B Anthony List blog comments on a UN report entitled “Power, Voice, and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific.” Here are two interesting excerpts from that report as quoted in the SuzyB blog (click here for the entire blog):

“Females cannot take survival for granted,” the report says on page 42. “Asia has the highest male-female sex ratio at birth in the world, with sex-selective abortion and infanticide [emphasis mine] leaving approximately 96 million missing women in seven countries. In most regions, women comprise 51% of the population, but only 49% in Asia-Pacific.”

While the world average for the life expectancy of women is 1.06 years longer than that of men, Asia’s ratio of female-to-male life expectancy is below this average. “This discrepancy stems from a lifetime of gender discrimination, starting from the deliberate abortion of female fetuses [emphasis mine].”

I think it’s curious that the UN is decrying sex-selective abortions in Asia when it was the UN who helped China set up its one-child policy (click here to read Forced Abortion in China). Their own ideologies are contradictory when, on the one hand, they protest sex-selective abortion in Asia and yet, on the other hand, actively support and work with organizations like Planned Parenthood, one of whose main goals is the promotion of abortion-on-demand.

Maybe it’s just me, but…shouldn’t organizations that purport to help girls develop their self-image stop supporting programs that destroy the self-images of girls, and ultimately result in a world-wide cultural view that objectifies girls and women?

How do we turn a blind eye to an organization that might be helping our daughters in our own backyard, but is destroying our values and hurting “all daughters” on a global scale?

[Updated 12 Mar 2010, 1331 EDT]

News the Public Needs to Know

Ed

The Washington Post published two articles this week that bolsters the pro-life side of the argument in two areas: abstinence and end-of-life issues.

The first article appeared on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 regarding a recently published study on abstinence-only education programs. Researchers conducted a study between 2001-2004 that had four groups of children involved. Here’s an excerpt from the Washington Post article (click here to read the entire article):

Students were randomly assigned to go through one of the following: an eight-hour curriculum that encouraged them to delay having sex; an eight-hour program focused on teaching safe sex; an eight- or 12-hour program that did both; or an eight-hour program focused on teaching them other ways to be healthy, such as eating well and exercising. The abstinence-only portion involved a series of sessions in which instructors talked to students in small groups about their views about abstinence and their knowledge of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. They also conducted role-playing exercises and brainstorming sessions designed to correct misconceptions about sex and sexually transmitted diseases, encourage abstinence and offer ways to resist pressure to have sex.

Over the next two years, about 33 percent of the students who went through the abstinence program started having sex, compared with about 52 percent who were taught only safe sex. About 42 percent of the students who went through the comprehensive program started having sex, and about 47 percent of those who learned about other ways to be healthy did.

The abstinence program had no negative effects on condom use, which has been a major criticism of the abstinence approach.

The lead researcher made a statement that can be seen as almost reconciliatory towards pro-lifers who have fought for abstinence-only education programs.

“I think we’ve written off abstinence-only education without looking closely at the nature of the evidence,” said John B. Jemmott III, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who led the federally funded study. “Our study shows this could be one approach that could be used.”

The second article was published on Thursday, February 2, 2010. A study was conducted on 54 patients in a “vegetative state” to see if their minds were working or not. The study found that some of the patients could indeed hear, react, and respond to outside stimulation. Here is an excerpt (click here to read the entire article):

One by one, the men and women were placed inside advanced brain scanners as technicians gave them careful instructions: Imagine you are playing tennis. Imagine you are exploring your home, room by room. For most, the scanner showed nothing.

But, shockingly, for one, then another, and another, and yet two more, the scans flashed exactly like any healthy conscious person’s would. These patients, the images clearly indicated, were living silently in their bodies, their minds apparently active. One man could even flawlessly answer detailed yes-or-no questions about his life before his trauma by activating different parts of his brain.

“It was incredible,” said Adrian M. Owen, a neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council who led the groundbreaking research described in a paper published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. “These are patients who are totally unable to perform functions with their bodies — even blink an eye or move an eyebrow — but yet are entirely conscious. It’s quite distressing, really, to realize this.” …

“This should change the way we think about these patients,” said Nicholas D. Schiff, an associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. “I think it’s going to have very broad implications.” …

As many as 20,000 Americans are in a vegetative state, meaning they are alive and awake but without any apparent sense of awareness, and 100,000 to 300,000 are in a related condition known as a minimally conscious state, in which they exhibit impaired or intermittent awareness. It is unclear what proportion of these patients would be affected by the study’s findings.

The message of pro-life Americans remains the same: all life is precious and valuable regardless of its state of being. For decades Americans have witnessed our values hijacked by a culture that tells us over and over through the popular media that the value of human life, both born and pre-born, is based on what that life contributes or “brings to the table.” “They” set the measuring stick by which “they” determine that value, and “they” use science to bolster their argument for promoting death as a “kind” and “worthy” alternative to life. What will they say as science refutes one of the very yardsticks they use to determine whether it’s time to pull the plug on someone’s beloved family member? Who do you want advocating for your loved one if they end up in a state where they are calling out for your help and compassion but their voices are locked inside them and you cannot hear their cries?

Over-the-counter Plan B for 17-year-olds

Ed 2 Comments

Earlier this month, I told you about the court ruling forcing the FDA to allow over-the-counter sales of Plan B to minors. It has now been reported that the FDA will not challenge the court’s ruling. I guess what’s really telling appears in this Washington Post article: the FDA has “approved sales to 17-year-olds at the manufacturer’s request.”

Maybe it’s just me, but…I thought the whole purpose of a regulatory agency is to act as a “check and balance” to the industry that it regulates. Why is the FDA approving anything at the request of the manufacturer?  Is the FDA supposed to be safeguarding the public or helping the pharmaceutical company make money?  The question that I have which the FDA still has not answered is this: if a high dose of hormonal birth control is safe for self-diagnosing and self-medication, why is a prescription still required for the regular dose of hormonal birth control? In fact, why do low-dose hormonal birth control, such as Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, need a prescription, yet a HIGH DOSE of hormonal birth control is now going to be available to minor children without a prescription?

It still doesn’t make sense to me…unless you frame it all in the context of a hidden agenda.

The Gloating Begins

Ed

The Guttmacher Institute is touting the newly re-found leadership role of the US in promoting reproductive rights around the world–including abortion (see my blog,  “Exporting Death”).

Maybe it’s just me, but…why does it seem that those who want to promote reproductive health and rights around the world don’t ever want to promote the one sure-fire way that someone won’t get an STD or get pregnant: abstinence? Why is it that they won’t teach that it’s okay to not have sex but they will teach that you should be able to indulge in complete sexual freedom despite potential consequences and get an abortion for any reason at any time  if you do get pregnant?

This Just Doesn’t Make Sense

Ed

I have really bad pollen allergies. I also have severe allergic reactions to cats.  Getting married to a woman who had two cats and moving to Virginia (where my nose constantly runs because of the pollen) was a bad combination.  So, I’ve been taking Claritin-D every day since 2007.

One of the main ingredients of Claritin-D is pseudoephedrine and because pseudoephedrine is the main component in the illicit production of methamphetamine, I have to produce identification when purchasing my Claritin-D. Now if you have allergies like I do, then you know the drill: go to Wal-Mart, stand in line at the pharmacy, take out your driver’s license, and let them scan it. Now there’s a record of what I bought and how much I bought.  Presumably, if I tried to go to another Wal-Mart immediately, the computer will scan my ID and inform me that I just bought all the Claritin-D that I need for now at another store and Wal-Mart won’t allow me to purchase more drugs.

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