How the Trump administration is sabotaging sexual education in America - Polidicks

https://mashable.com/article/trump-sex-education/#b0Qstyudvsqf When Americans talk about sex ed, it's typically as a punch line. But the awkward laughter distracts us from a less humorous reality: Sex ed is an ideological battle for a small but vocal group of Americans who believe that abstinence until marriage is the only right approach. The long-simmering conflict, decades in the making, escalated rapidly once Donald Trump took office and appointed abstinence-only-until-marriage partisans to administration positions where they could influence the federal government's priorities for sex ed. That might seem so far removed from what happens in America's classrooms that it's inconsequential. Indeed, states, counties, districts, and schools determine what students are taught. But the federal government plays a critical role when those players don't have the will or resources to ensure that young people learn about sexual health. That's exactly what Congress designed the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) to do. The initiative is the result of bipartisan legislation passed in 2010. Funded at $101 million annually, it's the federal government's biggest investment in educating adolescents and teens about their sexual health. It was designed to support evidence-based interventions that were measurably successful and rigorously tested, and to provide funding for promising new interventions. Trump's 2018 budget proposed eliminating the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program altogether. And among his appointments to the Department of Health and Human Services was Valerie Huber, formerly the president of an organization once called the National Abstinence Education Association. Now named Ascend, the group urges youth to "...avoid all sexual activity, hopefully until they marry." A few months before her appointment to HHS, Huber wrote a March 2017 op-ed for the Hill arguing that the approach of teen pregnancy prevention programs like the kind being supported by the federal government "typically normalizes teen sex." Then, in July 2017, HHS suddenly informed 81 grant recipients that their TPPP funding would be eliminated, only three years into the five-year grant. It didn't take long for health officials, researchers, and educators all over the country to feel the effects. Several grantees, along with advocacy organizations like Public Citizen and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, sued the administration, arguing that the termination of TPPP funding was unlawful. A federal judge sided with grantees in four of those lawsuits in May, forcing the administration to continue funding their work through 2020. In April 2018, HHS announced a new funding opportunity for TPPP that would require grantees to focus on "sexual risk reduction" or "sexual risk avoidance," the latter of which is a rebranding of abstinence-only-until marriage. The administration describes sexual risk avoidance as teaching "participants how to voluntarily refrain from non-marital sexual activity." Critics say programs based on that goal often promote harmful gender stereotypes, omit key information about sexual health, and offer medically inaccurate information. Lawsuits filed against the government following the April announcement argued that the administration's new requirements violated the Congressional intent behind TPPP, and federal judges agreed. HHS declined to comment to Mashable on whether it would appeal the rulings.

we mean girls now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5xkxTfVLSA

Abstinence until marriage is now the ideal. Uh... hasn’t this always been the case in many places, especially amongst religious groups/families? Getting back on topic: why the fuck would you pull funding from something which is supposed prevent teen pregnancy? NOBODY BENEFITS FROM TEEN PREGNANCY.

Lol if you tell teenagers not to have sex they will have had three kids by the time they get home.

"just don't have sex". I heard that argument back then under soviet occupation. Basically - sex does not exist, period. Don't try to understand it comrade blah blah blah

Absolutely pathetic coming from a man who has cheated on his wife multiple times with porn stars, but completely expected nonetheless. it's yet another bone being thrown at the Evangelical right to guarantee their continued support.

The army does. The path through life for shittons of unwanted kids who grow up poor is joining the rank and file of the US Army, which only helps the people making munitions and equipment. It also keeps youth mothers docile, they can't readily be an activist or a protester if they get knocked up in high school and have to deal with the results. Hell, they often cant find the time for college either, which means more under educated wage slaves the GOP can prey on and brainwash. Lastly it panders to the religious right who will happily vote for the party pushing abstinence regardless of the side effects. These people are assholes.

You need to be an asshole to win these days.

its the same thing they do for abortions. Prevent people from having abortions and don't do a damn thing with social services and adoptions, in addition to making birth control and contraceptives harder to obtain an I think it was colorado, they just didn't do the republican dogma, taught sex ed, made birth control available and miraculously without increasing abortions their teen pregnancy rate dropped dramatically. the GOP only ever offers simple solutions to complex problems and when they don't work they ignore it.

[quote]abstinence until marriage[/quote] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwSts2s4ba4

I forgot to say earlier that even by their own logic this doesn’t make any sense. If the GOP are so against abortions, wouldn’t preventing teen pregnancy in the first place cut down abortions a fair amount? access to birth control <-> abortions Pick one

Contraception is murder because you're killing sperm. This is actually what they think.

More religious radicals forcing their beliefs on us

for gods sake I thought we were done with this shit in what, 2010?

no the sperm is just sperm, because that'd be inconvieniant for men, its womens eggs that are unborn children. Kind of convieniant for the party who's pretty much completely male dominated now.

This guy cheated on his wife though. And had kinky watersports sex. What.

Ban periods.

Reminder that the events of the alleged pee tape are not watersports but two Russian hookers pissing on the bed the Obamas slept in during their visit(s) to Moscow. Trump was not physically involved in the peeing and watched from the side, allegedly. Also, Trump allegedly cheated on Melania by having Stormy Daniels spank him with a rolled-up magazine with his own photo on the cover, among other things. That's more embarrassing than just getting a handy or something.

You are as ignorant as the people you hate. No one believes that, and it has never been the reason any Christian group was against contraceptive usage.

My school drills abstinence into us all the fucking time and sucks the dick of waiting until marriage in every health class. It feels so outta place in a public school

Its not like they haven't tried.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk

Meanwhile my High School in Cali let our sex ed department set up an activity during a fair where you have to put a condom on a banana while wearing beer goggles. Sounds weird as shit but to be fair 5 years since I graduated and no one I know in my year's class has had to sacrifice education to raise a kid.

Oh no I'm so sorry for trash talking the poor oppressed catholics oh no im sorryyyyyyyyyyyy

Imagine being this childish.

Imagine whining about Atomic's post then not even bothering to try and debunk it, instead settling for accusing them of being a child.

...Meanwhile in states that banned sex ed...

I don't understand this anti-intellectual sentiment, how is learning more (factually correct) things ever a bad thing.

Trump said it himself, he loves the poorly educated.

I'm not going to put effort into debunking a patently rediculous claim with zero support provided. Funny that you didn't go after him for providing no evidence for his initial claim. I guess that's to be expected, though. Absolute idiocy is embraced as long as it generally agrees with you.