Your tax dollars promoting "absitence until marriage"

This just in from Feminist Daily News Wire:

"Healthy Marriage" Funds Improperly Used to Promote Abstinence

A report issued on October 27 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that some recipients of grants from the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Initiative—run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—have used the funds impermissibly for abstinence-only education.

"HHS officials told us that abstinence education was not allowable under the Healthy Marriage program," reads the report, "but we observed during our site visits and review of grantee data several Healthy Marriage grantees operating programs that focused on abstinence education."

The study, which was requested by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), also found that HHS—operating under a shortened deadline process—"did not fully examine grantee's programs as described in their applications."

Both programs are designed to serve low-income and minority groups. The Healthy Marriage programs, targeting teenaged youth primarily, are supposed to promote marriage and relationship activities; the Responsible Fatherhood programs, targeted at incarcerated parents, are designed to provide parenting skills. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 appropriated $150 million in grants each year from 2006 through 2010 to implement the Initiative. But it diverted funds from programs designed to support those living in poverty, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), to programs promoting marriage.

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Who the Heck Was Jerome LeJeune?

In last week's Planet Jackson Hole, Right to Life of Teton County had an ad quoting Dr. Jerome LeJeune. "After fertilization has taken place, a new human being has come into being," reads the quote. Dr. LeJeune is credited in the ad with receiving "the world's highest award for work in the field of genetics."

I was dubious. Especially with all those creepy salamander feet imprints on the border of the ad.

So I decided to investigate. It turns out Dr. LeJeune was a real person and indeed a celebrated French geneticist who discovered the chromosome abnormality in humans that causes Down syndrome.

He was also staunchly "pro-life" and a friend of Pope John Paul II, who appointed LeJeune to the Pontifical Academy for Life. If we assume the "world's highest award" to be the Nobel Prize, LeJeune was never awarded it, though many thought he should have been.

If you google Dr. LeJeune's name, you'll come up with a host of anti-abortion websites and blogs. He appears to be THE scientist of the anti-choice movement. He set the groundwork for other anti-choice physicians to manipulate science to fit their own world view, and with disastrous consequences. Case in Point: the "The Pill Kills" campaign by the American Life League which will stage protests across the nation on June 7. They campaign is designed to frighten young women into thinking they are "killing" "pre-born" babies when they take a contraceptive pill. Based on Dr. LeJeune's logic that a human life begins at fertilization, the American Life League has worked out a twisted logic that the Pill prevents fertilized eggs from attaching to the uterine wall, thereby "killing" the "human" that zygote would be. According to Planned Parenthood, there is no evidence that the pill works this way. It works the way we've always known it to work, by preventing fertilization in the first place. Basically the whole "The Pill Kills" campaign is directed at the rare "breakthrough" pregnancies that can occur while taking the Pill. Once again, the anti-choice movement is trying to chip away at women's reproductive rights by creating hysteria around rare events (as they did with late-term abortions.)

In any case, I really hate this debate over when life starts anyway. It's beside the point. American women have the constitutional right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and just like we have the constitutional right to use the Pill. Join in on Planned Parenthood's June 7 celebration of the landmark Supreme Court decision to protect the use of birth control. They'll be taking a giant Pill to Capitol Hill!

And read this excellent Feministing post for more info on why the Pill Kills campaign is a load of horseshit.

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What eight years of abstinence-only education gets you....

Numerous media outlets are reporting soaring STI rates among women, particularly young women. In fact, the CDC now estimates that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. Right to Life of Teton County even noted this in a recent ad. However, RLTC continues to promote abstinence as the solution. Umm, haven't we tried that for the past eight years? The result is a staggering increase in the number of women with sexually transmitted infections. Some of these infections could lead to infertility. How is this pro-life?

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Jon Stewart takes on Abstinence-Only Sex Ed

Thanks to Feministing for posting this clip from Comedy Central.

BTW, have you seen this hymen graphic from the abstinence-only camp?
















And here's the prettier version with a tag line fit for real women and girls: "May all who enter here be invited, respectful, and pleasure-giving!"