Recently in Comprehensive Sex Education Category

A study put out by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy has found evidence that the majority of teens at risk of unwanted pregnancy are not from low income and/or single parent families.

via Susan Reimer for the Baltimore Sun.

According to research conducted for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, only 28 percent of those who report having given birth or fathered a child as a teen lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty line.

And just 30 percent of those who report having given birth to or fathered a child as a teen say they were living with a single parent.

We are not only wrong - and probably bigoted - about whose teens get pregnant. Those of us in middle-class, intact families have our heads seriously in the sand if we think it can't happen to us.

This doesn't change that low-income families are disproportionately at risk of unwanted or teen pregnancy, but it certainly changes the demonized media image of the poor, black, single, teenage mom, so readily available to the national imagination. Looks like all those family values indoctrinated via abstinence-only education programs are not working out so well for all the "intact" families of America.

A reminder to take five minutes today between 10 and 4 to call Congress and tell them we need to cut funds for failed abstinence-only programs and fund comprehensive sex education. It's time to take the clowns out of the classrooms and give young people accurate information about sex and sexuality.

Check out this previous post for more information. Call-In Day is organized by Choice USA, SYRF, SIECUS, Advocates for Youth, and Catholics for Choice. Below, a video from my friends Kierra Johnson and Edith Sargon from Choice USA asking you to call your Senators.

(Transcript after the jump).

Script and talking points for calls also after the jump.

October is Sex Ed Month of Action and organizers from Advocates for Youth, Catholics for Choice, Choice USA, Law Students for Reproductive Justice, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, Sierra Club, and Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom are joining forces to tell Congress it's time to finally get rid of failed abstinence-only programs and fund comprehensive sexuality education.

You can find information and tools for organizing a Call-In Day here. You can also sign on to a petition in support of the REAL Act which would authorize funding for comprehensive sexuality education.

This is a crucial moment for comprehensive sex ed. For the first time in a while we should have the support in the White House and Congress to de-fund abstinence-only programs and support real, accurate education about sex and sexuality. However, politicians in DC are continuing the same old fight despite overwhelming evidence that ab-only doesn't work. Electing people who say they agree with us is only the first and easiest step in bringing about political change. The real hard work comes after elections, when advocates need to hold officials accountable, push them to support our issues, and create a climate where that's the most expedient political move for them to make. The time is now: let's finally make federal funding for comprehensive sexuality education a reality!

Kate Marsh, 27, is the Public Liaison Officer for Children by Choice, a pro-choice organization in Queensland, Australia. Children by Choice is a small organization that, in addition to advocating for reproductive rights, also offers pregnancy counseling.

In the last few months, Queensland's abortion laws have been thrust into the spotlight, thanks in large part to the case of Tegan Leach, a 19-year-old Queensland woman who is being charged for self-inducing a medical abortion using drugs bought overseas. Her boyfriend, who helped her procure the drugs, is also being charged.

The case has brought much-needed attention to the fact that despite the relatively common occurrence of abortion in Australia (in 2002, 25.2% of Australian pregnancies ended in abortion, which is comparable to the US's 24.5% in 2001), there are in fact very few circumstances under which abortion is legal in Australia. And as Marsh notes, the Leach case has led to a decrease in access as doctors around the country, fearing, criminal prosecution, have ceased to provide some forms of abortion.

As an Australian who has always understood the abortion debate in my homeland to be barely-existent, and Australian women's rights to be secure, the case has been eye-opening and upsetting. However, it was a pleasure to interview Ms. Marsh, who has been an outspoken advocate for legislative change on these issues. You'll notice that throughout the interview, I've had to engage in a small amount of cultural translation in order to make Marsh understood to Feministing's mostly American audience. Also, you may also notice that I've stubbornly used Australian spelling for this interview - just this one - in Ms. Marsh's honour.

And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Kate Marsh.

I am loving Glee. As a kid I thought life was a musical (and I never grew up). This show feels like it was made for me. It's so gay. It's got Jane Lynch as a delicious villain who loves social hierarchies and is constantly claiming gender discrimination. There might be more musical talent on display than in the High School Musical movies. And unlike those films, which push a conservative Mormon "family values" agenda, Glee has already shown itself to share some of my politics. Bullying is depicted in a way rarely seen in pop culture: Quinn Fabray constantly aims transphobic insults at Rachel Berry. Bulimia and body image issues are covered. And in the second episode the show takes on abstinence only programs and comprehensive sex education.

Glee takes place at William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, the kind of public school where the principal's pastor gives him a list of acceptable songs for the Glee Club to sing. The school has a Celibacy Club, led by Quinn, that demonstrates abstinence is about a lot more than not having sex: programs in U.S. schools push a religious ideology, teach conformity to the compulsory gender binary, and censor information about contraception. Celibacy Club meetings start out divided by gender before the students "come together to share [their] faith." We're shown just how little these young people actually know about sex. While talking about cheerleader's skirts (all the female members of the Celibacy Club are cheerleaders) Puck, one of the guys, says, "Santana Lopez spun open her [skirt] the other day and I swear I could see her ovaries." Funny? Yes. Also, scary. There probably actually are high school guys who don't know what ovaries are or where they are located. I feel really bad for any woman who sleeps with a guy so clueless about her anatomy. The cheerleader motto about the skirts is: "It's all about the teasing and not about the pleasing." Talk about teaching conservative gender roles. Women are supposed to attract men using their sexuality, but not give men what they want: sex. Abstaining is women's responsibility because desire for sex is supposedly a male trait.

Rachel attends a Celibacy Club meeting and during a ridiculous activity with a balloon this exchange happens:

Rachel: Did you know that most studies have demonstrated that celibacy doesn't work in high schools? Our hormones are driving us too crazy to abstain. The second we start telling ourselves that there's no room for compromise we act out. The only way to deal with teen sexuality is to be prepared. That's what contraception is for.

Quinn: Don't you dare mention the "C" word.

Rachel: You want to know a dirty little secret that none of them want you to know? Girls want sex just as much as guys do.

Male student: Is that accurate?

Like I said, I love this show. Not only do they show some of the ideology taught in abstinence only programs, they offer a passionate and compelling argument for education about contraception.

Glee really might be the anti-High School Musical. While that series of movies models abstinence and heterosexual gender norms, Glee is actually engaging with issues in an intelligent way. And the show is hilarious, moving, and full of fabulous musical numbers at the same time.

You can watch both episodes of Glee online here.

Apparently because scientists think men won't take it. According to an article in Science Progress, outdated ideas of who's responsibility birth control and contraception is, has put the burden on women's shoulders.

Via Broadsheet.

Let's pretend you are a straight couple, in a monogamous long-term relationship, and you don't want a kid. Consider your options: A woman can choose from 11 forms of contraception -- including barrier methods like the diaphragm, permanent sterilization, and that holy grail of the sexual revolution, the pill, and its more recent and even more foolproof sisters in hormonal birth control, the ring and injectibles. A man can choose two: condoms or a vasectomy.

Right, so according to science, if you are woman it is your problem if you get pregnant or end up with an STD, so it just makes sense if you take care of the birth control. Doesn't sound very scientific does it. Furthermore, the financial burden, time constraints and side effects of hormonal birth control on women has another implication on not only time, but unfair burden.

Via Lisa Campo-Engelstein at Science Progress

Not being responsible for some or all of these economic, health-related, and other burdens is a significant boon for men. Men typically do not have to dedicate time and energy to contraceptive care, pay out of pocket for the usually expensive and sometimes frequent (often monthly, or at least four times a year) supply of contraceptives, acquire the knowledge about contraception and reproduction needed to effectively contracept, deal with the medicalization of one's reproductive health, endure the bodily invasion of contraception, suffer the health-related side effects and the mental stress of being responsible for contraception, and face the social repercussions of their contraceptive decisions (such as whether to use a particular contraceptive or to switch contraceptives), and the moral reproach for contraceptive failures.

What both Lisa Campo-Engelstein from Science Progress and Amy Benfer at Broadsheet acknowledge is that this outdated ideology not only leads to the false belief that men wouldn't take contraception, but also leads to a disempowerment of men taking responsibility for contraception. As in, they benefit from the structural belief that it is a woman's responsibility and it is a lose-lose all around. To counter that narrative would take a leap of faith on behalf of women and an insistence by the science community around the effectiveness of male birth control and the corresponding research, development and distribution of such measures. So, it is possible, but sex education, the science community and health care providers would have to overcome the sexism endemic in the way we teach and distribute contraception.

As Miriam mentioned in the health care reform roundup, Representative Lois Capps (D-CA) introduced an amendment to the House health care reform bill that would create a Healthy Teen Initiative. Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check shares the story of this amendment, the result of work by a coalition of sexual health advocates to expand the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative proposed in the president's budget. Advocates were concerned by the limited scope of the president's initiative, which, as I discussed previously, would exclude information about and strategies for preventing the spread of sexuality transmitted diseases.

The Healthy Teen Initiative would authorize $50 million to fund program models that have been proven -

to delay initiation of sex; to decrease number of partners; to reduce teen pregnancy; to reduce sexually transmitted infection rates; or to improve rates of contraceptive use.

Although a wide variety of entities could apply, "including schools and community-based and faith-based organizations," I hope this new language would make it impossible for abstinence only programs to access these funds.

This initiative is a big improvement over that originally proposed by the president. While the Healthy Teen Initiative is not explicitly about funding only comprehensive sexuality education, it could be an important step in the transition from supporting failed abstinence only programs. Yes, I am still bothered by the inclusion of language that presumes certain forms of teen sexuality should be prevented without concern about whether young people are having sex at a certain age or with a certain number of partners in a way that is personally healthy and consensual. But the need for education about sexually transmitted diseases and contraception is great and this initiative would be an important first step. I am also happy to see this included in health care reform, a symbolic recognition that teen sexuality is a health issue, which has been masked by the focus on religion and morality.

Choice USA, an organization representing the voice of young people in the reproductive justice movement, recently launched a campaign to promote comprehensive sexuality education (full disclosure: I have done some consulting related to this campaign). Executive Director Kierra Johnson said of the Healthy Teen Initiative, "Sex education is preventative health care. The Healthy Teen Initiative is a smart move and the right move to ensure young people have access to information and medical services that can keep them healthy and save their lives. I applaud the Committee's work to ensure full and comprehensive health care to teens and the millions of young people who are uninsured in this country."