> "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Deborah Harrell wrote: > >> JDG wrote
<some snippage> > >> Secondly, even the recent study of "virginity > >> pledges" found that > >> abstinence-only education was successful in > >> prolonging the first incident > >> of intercourse and had fewer sexual partners - > which may well both be worthy goals. > >Cite? Please not a partisan organization, as I do > >not cite from, frex, Planned Parenthood on > contraception > >issues, except to point out their bias. > Last, I checked the NY Times was not a partisan > organization, but thanks > for the vote of confidence, Deborah... John, you have in the past several times used sites that clearly have an agenda, WRT medical information, without stating such; I make an effort to find impartial sites, or state what I perceive to be a bias in cites (frex a Planned Parenthood site stated something ridiculous like 'up to 85% of all pregnancies cause significant side-effects,' and I scoffed that *if* one included constipation, that _might_ be a true statement). > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/10/health/10VIRG.html The title of this article: Study Finds That Teenage Virginity Pledges Are Rarely Kept "Among teenagers who pledged not to have sex before marriage, a majority did not live up to their vows, according to a national study reported here on Tuesday. The teenagers also developed sexually transmitted diseases at about the same rate as adolescents who had not made such pledges. "But a pledge to refrain from premarital sex, the researchers found, did tend to delay the start of sexual intercourse by 18 months. The adolescents who took virginity pledges also married earlier and had fewer sexual partners than the other teenagers surveyed, said Dr. Peter Bearman, the chairman of the sociology department at Columbia University and the lead author of the study. "Of the 12,000 teenagers included in the federal study, 88 percent of those who pledged chastity reported having had sexual intercourse before they married, Dr. Bearman said at a scientific meeting in Philadelphia on preventing sexually transmitted diseases. "The researchers tested the participants for three common sexually transmitted infections � chlamydia, gonorrhea and trichomoniasis � and found that the rates were almost identical for the teenagers who took pledges and those who did not. "Yet the teenagers who had taken pledges were less likely to know they had an infection, raising the risk of their transmitting it to other people, said Dr. Bearman and Hannah Br�ckner of Yale University, the other author of the report. "Dr. Bearman said that telling teenagers "to `just say no,' without understanding risk or how to protect oneself from risk, turns out to create greater risk" of sexually transmitted diseases... ^^^Advance apologies: READ THAT LAST STATEMENT AGAIN. "...By age 23, half the teenagers who had made virginity pledges were married, compared with 25 percent of those who had not pledged, the study found. Dr. Bearman said he did not know whether the teenagers who had broken their pledges did so initially with their fianc�s or with others, because the data had not yet been analyzed. "But he said, "After they break their pledge, the gates are open, and they catch up," having more partners in a shorter time." ^^^Again, *read* *that* *sentence* *again.* "Lack of condom use was an important factor in the higher-than-expected rates of sexually transmitted diseases among the pledgers, the study found. Only 40 percent reported having used condoms in the most recent year of the study, compared with 60 percent of the teenagers who had not pledged..." "...The findings challenge a number of assumptions underlying the policies of the Bush administration and private groups that encourage virginity pledges as part of promoting abstinence before marriage." ^^^Delaying age-of-first-intercourse by 18 months may be worthwhile, but it might be offset by that "After they break their pledge, the gates are open, and they catch up," having more partners in a shorter time. > >> In addition, it is worth noting that > >> non-abstinence programs > >> tend to overlook the fact that condoms are not > >> effective at preventing a number of serious > STD's. > >Cite? > Surely you don't need a cite for this? There are > all sorts of STD's > transmitted by other mechanisms than the man's > ejaculate. If you're going to say that something is "not effective," I expect percentages. Yes, I need a cite. And note that posts in this thread have listed at least two ways to get an STD without having sex at all. Debbi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
