Archive for the 'Sexuality' Category

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH).

In partnership with Planned Parenthood, ICAH is part of a coalition called the Illinois Campaign for Responsible Sex Education. (ICAH and the ICRSE apparently operate out of the same office, as they have the same mailing address.)

The Campaign’s goal is to strip all funding of abstinence education for Illinois schools and instead require them to use so-called comprehensive sex education programs.

You may also remember that two years ago, ICAH’s annual fundraiser was held at the headquarters of Playboy magazine in downtown Chicago. I took part in a protest of the event, and wrote about it here.

Tickets to the adults-only event cost $75, and those who kicked in an extra $50 were also entitled to “a tour of the Playboy offices and art collection” as well as a VIP reception with Christie Hefner.

Christie Hefner (the daughter of Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy), has been its CEO since 1982. It was she who decided that the company could make more money by producing increasingly harder-core pornography — something that even her father was reluctant to do for a long time.

ICAH’s 2007 fundraiser — also an adults-only event — featured a stripper and was held at “Chicago’s premier liquor spa”.

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At a campaign stop in Johnstown, PA this Saturday, Barack Obama was asked, if he were elected president, how his administration would deal with HIV/AIDS and preventing STDs in young girls.

Obama responded:

– or we give them really expensive surgery and we don’t spend money on the front end keeping people healthy in the first place. So when it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include — which should include abstinence education and teaching the children — teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include — it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals.

But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.

First, regarding this last part: If Obama really is interested in not withholding information from teenagers that will help them avoid getting an STD, what kind of information is he talking about? (more…)

I’ve said before that it’s fairly common for us to get hate mail at Pro-Life Action League/Generations for Life. We’ve especially gotten a lot the past several months during the ongoing fight against Aurora Planned Parenthood.

Many of these messages criticize us for fighting Planned Parenthood because, you know, abortion isn’t the only thing Planned Parenthood does.

One guy who wrote us last month plainly said — and these are his exact words — “Yes, it is wrong to kill babies but you can’t say that all Planned Parenthood does is kill babies.” (more…)

From LifeSite:

A new American study has implied that any or all types of “sex education” significantly delays the start of sexual activity in teens. But what some news media is downplaying is that the research made no distinction between abstinence education and more mainstream “comprehensive” sex education based on contraception.

In the study, students were understood to have received sex education if they had either or both types of instruction.

Read the whole thing.

Related

• And They Expect to Be Taken Seriously?
• Sex Education Fundraiser to Feature Stripper
• More Evidence that “Comprehensive” Sex Education Is a Bad Idea
• Have a Listen
• What Really Goes On In “Comprehensive” Sex Ed Class
• Very Sad
• Playboy in Bed with “Comprehensive” Sex Ed
• When did Playboy Become Respectable?
• Abstinence Ed. Failure Story Debunked

As you do your Christmas shopping, do yourself a favor and don’t buy anything from Abercrombie & Fitch.

This morning we got an an e-mail telling us about some of their new T-shirts.

One has the message, “Make love not babies”, and another has the message, “Awkward mornings beat boring nights”.

This isn’t the first time they’ve gotten themselves in trouble, and it probably won’t be the last.

Should Planned Parenthood be charged with distributing pornography to children?

American Life League/Rock for Life thinks they should.

I think they’ve got a good argument:

HT: Jill Stanek

There are several things I’ve been wanting to post about for a while now, but I’m just getting around to it now.

Here are a few of those “several things”.

Exposing the Truth about Pornography

Bishop Paul Loverde of the Diocese of Arlington (Virginia) has a must-read column titled “Letters from Teens about Pornography”, in which he includes excerpts from dozens of letters he has received from teenagers in response to a pastoral letter he wrote last year titled, Bought With a Price: Pornography and the Attack on the Living Temple of God.

Bishop Loverde’s column begins:

Recently I have been hearing a lot about pornography.

The mail I have received on this issue from Catholics and others around the country gives me hope, even as it confirms the gravity of the threat this scourge poses to us all.

Here is what one high school senior wrote

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Last week Aurora Planned Parenthood blogger Veronica wrote:

Are you just as frustrated by the Aurora situation as I am? I know you are! Are you also frustrated by the general animosity towards women’s bodies and our reproductive rights? We’re in luck!

Then she posted information about an upcoming townhall meeting:

The Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, and the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum present…

Understanding Reproductive Justice:
Reclaiming Choice and Broadening the Movement

Thursday, October 11
5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
800 South Halsted Street
Chicago
Free and open to the public.
Reservations are required.

For more information or to reserve your place, contact the Illinois Caucus
for Adolescent Health online,
by e-mail, or by calling 312.427.4460 x233.
Reservations must be made by October 9

The event’s page is here.

It’s not surprising that Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area is promoting this event, as they’ve partnered with one of the host organizations, the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH), to form a coalition whose goal is to strip all funding of abstinence education for Illinois schools and require them to use so-called comprehensive sex education programs instead.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember ICAH.

Last year, ICAH held its annual fundraiser at Playboy’s executive offices. (more…)

The new Planned Parenthood abortion clinic under construction on June 28 in Aurora, IL [Photo by Eric Scheidler]

There’s an article in today’s Chicago Tribune — titled “Abortion clinic built under radar” — that confirms information we got several weeks ago that Planned Parenthood is planning to slyly move into a building currently under construction in Aurora, IL.

The building is located next door to a Dominick’s grocery store and other businesses, and there are homes a block away.

If it opens, this huge 22,000 square foot building will be one of Planned Parenthood’s largest abortion clinics in the country.

The Planned Parenthood location is close to homes and shopping [Photos by Eric Scheidler]

As Eric said in an article on the Pro-Life Action League site, “They tried to sneak into Aurora with this massive new facility, but we found them out. Now they’ll try to sneak into our schools and lure in our children. We won’t let them.”

We’ve already begun making a series of plans — including leafleting the surrounding community, talking directly to the contractors, holding a community meeting with Jim Sedlak of STOPP Planned Parenthood, and protesting at the site on August 22. (more…)

Here is the press release we sent out about tonight’s ICAH fundraising event:

Sex Ed Fundraiser to Feature Stripper

CHICAGO, June 7 — The Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH), one of the state’s leading advocates of “comprehensive” sex education, will host an adults-only fundraising event tonight in Chicago that promises a “Neo-Burlesque Performance” by former Miss Exotic World Michelle L’amour, a stripper whose website disclaims that it “is not intended for viewers under the age of 18 and should not be viewed by such”.

“Isn’t it ironic that ICAH is holding an adults-only fundraiser featuring a stripper who has an adults-only website,” commented John Jansen, co-director of Generations for Life, a Chicago-based youth outreach, “yet at the same time they expect parents to trust them to know the best way to teach their children about sex.” (more…)

Currently, a group called SisterSong is holding a “reproductive justice” conference in Chicago.

On the website for the conference — which has the amazingly unoriginal title “Let’s Talk About Sex!” — the group says:

Since the right to have sex is a topic rarely discussed when addressing reproductive health and rights issues, SisterSong believes that sexual prohibitions are not only promoted by moral conservatives in this country, but also by reproductive rights advocates who fail to promote a sex-positive culture.

Apparently, SisterSong doesn’t believe it’s good enough to simply be pro-choice; in their view, it’s also necessary to oppose “sexual prohibitions”. What exactly these prohibitions are, they don’t say, but if, as they claim, having sex merely for pleasure “is a human right”, then, hey, anything goes! (more…)

The Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health is at it again.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember ICAH. In partnership with Planned Parenthood, they’re part of a coalition whose goal is to strip all funding of abstinence education for Illinois schools and instead require them to use condom-based sex education programs.

Last year, ICAH held its annual fundraiser at Playboy’s executive offices.

That event — view the invitation here [PDF] — included a VIP reception with Playboy CEO Christie Hefner, the daughter of Hugh Hefner, who founded the magazine in 1953. Several years ago, Christie decided that the company could make more money by producing increasingly harder-core pornography — something that even her father was reluctant to do for a long time.

This year, ICAH’s annual fundraiser — an adults-only event, of course, just like last year’s — is being held at Stone Lotus, “Chicago’s premier liquor spa”. (more…)

Earlier this month, I was interviewed for a Catholic radio show broadcast on a Christian radio station in northeastern Oklahoma. In the interview, I talked about why “comprehensive” sex education programs are a bad idea.

The interviewer, Cyndi Kane, has just let me know that the podcast is available here.

(A few months ago, I spoke on this topic in more detail at TeenSpeak 2007. CDs of that talk, titled “What Are Adults Thinking? On ‘Comprehensive’ Sex Ed”, can be ordered here [PDF].)

Previous Coverage

• Playboy in Bed with “Comprehensive” Sex Ed
• What Really Goes On In “Comprehensive” Sex Ed Class
• Very Sad

Last week, the Indianapolis Star reported:

Two sixth-grade students who engaged in sexual activity during an industrial technology class have been expelled from Raymond Park Middle School, Warren Township Schools Superintendent Peggy Hinckley said Tuesday.

This is another one of those stories where I hardly know where to begin. I guess I’ll start with some general thoughts:

We live in a culture that assumes teaching abstinence is unrealistic.

If that’s true — that is, if it’s true that it’s unrealistic to expect that kids will abstain, that means it’s always unrealistic to expect that kids will abstain. (more…)

Wendy Shalit at Modestly Yours has an eye-opening post about a “comprehensive” sex-ed class at a middle school in Thornton, IL.

Here are the details: (more…)