Elsewhere in Canda: GSAs, Abstinence-Only Sex Ed, Parental Consent for Abortion

Gazillions of electrons will be spilled today poring over the entrails of the election in Quebec. Since I know little and understand less of QC politics, I'm turning my attention to some neglected stories from Alberta and Saskatchewan.

First up: Valiant but doomed effort to mandate Gay Straight Alliances in Alberta.

A motion from a Liberal MLA to mandate that schools support the establishment of student-led gay-straight alliances to help curb bullying and discrimination was defeated in the legislature Monday.

Calgary-Buffalo MLA Kent Hehr said in the debate that clubs that bring together gay and straight students help create a tolerant environment and have been demonstrated to reduce bullying of all types.
. . .
The Liberals and NDP supported the motion with the support of some PC MLAs. However, a majority of Tories and the Wildrose Party opposed it, with the final tally 31 to 19.

Sure, Conservatives will invoke "bullying" as their excuse when they really want to invade our online privacy, but actually doing something about it? Not if it offends the gord-fearing haters in their base.

Next up, also from Alberta, it seems those gord-fearing haters have invaded the sex ed programs of PUBLIC schools.

Back in 2012, a CTV investigation in BC got sex ed programs run by Christian "Crisis Pregnancy Centres" aka fake clinics booted from public schools.

Now they're spreading the hate and lies in Edmonton public schools.

While abstinence may be the only foolproof way to prevent pregnancy, local parents are worried it is the only form of birth control taught at certain Edmonton schools.

According to Edmonton parent and local activist Franki Harrogate the Pregnancy Care Centre — a local organization that offers counseling and guidance for unplanned pregnancy — has been teaching an abstinence-only model at some schools.

“They don’t provide comprehensive sexual education and it’s performed from a very sex negative (perspective),” Harrogate said.

A grassroots group in Edmonton trying to stop them. Here's the petition by Kathy Dawson.

In violation of the curriculum requirements (the CALM Guide to Implementation and the Education Act), students at an Edmonton public high school were recently taught gender stereotypes, inaccurate, incomplete, and biased information about sexuality in a Career and Life Management (CALM) class.

Sexually active students were shamed, non-traditional families were disparaged and LGBTQ questions were not answered. Parents were not informed of the presenter's identity or the specific content.

In response to letters, the Ministry of Education appears unwilling to intervene and the Edmonton Public School Board is not acting to change its policies around parental notification or to ensure that only quality comprehensive sex education is taught in public schools as per curriculum requirements.

Background
Edmonton Pregnancy Care Centre is a Christ-centred anti-choice ministry that is not a medical facility. They present the “Wait! Let’s Talk Sex!” (Abstinence only program) to 60 Edmonton Public Schools (that includes students in grades 7, 8, 9 and CALM 20). Edmonton Public Schools is fully aware of the content of these presentations and continues to allow teachers to select this “ministry” to indoctrinate vulnerable youth. Edmonton Public Schools is refusing to mandate that parents be informed about presenters and content as part of the parental consent procedure for sexual health education. Only 18 schools bring in comprehensive sex education presenters.

The presenter I saw in 2013 appeared to focus on abstinent, heterosexual teens while misrepresenting and omitting sexuality information. The following is a partial list of fundamentalist anti-choice, anti-feminist, anti-male, anti-birth control, anti-gay, medically inaccurate and biased doctrine I heard:

-refused to answer questions relating to LGBTQ
-scientifically inaccurate information about fetal development, abortion and emergency contraception
-misused research on oxytocin bonding
-misled youth about contact with babies surrendered for open adoption
-misled youth about birth control and condom effectiveness
-presented a divorce rate at 70%
-provided inflammatory and misleading information about Planned Parenthood
-misrepresented the effectiveness of over the counter pregnancy tests
-presented gender stereotypes that were sexist to all genders
-misrepresented boys as HPV (human papillomavirus) carriers-stated 60% have it under their finger nails

In addition to this bosh, the Christian sex expert is clairvoyant.

More from the petition:

This presenter claimed that she could look students in the eye and know if they were having sex.

Abstinence only sex ed is not only medical and scientific bullshit, by all credible assessment measures, it simply does not work.

And now to Saskatchewan, where as we reported recently, fetus fetishists are gamely trying to introduce "parental consent" regulations for abortion to Canada for the first time.

So, how's their letter-writing campaign going? Not too well (scroll down to March 10).

PARENTAL CONSENT Law
Saskatchewan MLAs say they are getting few e-mails.

We see that petitions are getting downloaded and many petitions are getting signed. They should be hitting the floor of the Legislative Assembly soon.

HOWEVER, MLAs are saying they are getting very few e-mails.  We need to STEP it up.  We need to BOMBARD our MLAs with everything we have to get this very basic and "friendly" law passed in Saskatchewan.

Use the Easy-Mail program - it is quick, easy and takes less than a minute, unless you choose to personalize the content of the letter.  PLEASE, DO IT NOW!!!

Hee. They thought this was going to be quick and easy. After all, who could argue with this "very basic and friendly law"?

Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, for one, wrote her own letter to Saskatchewan MLAs.

Dear Saskatchewan Members of the Legislative Assembly,

Two anti-abortion groups have recently launched a campaign to enact a law in Saskatchewan requiring parental consent before a minor can have an abortion (http://sk.parentalconsent.ca/).

The attached new Position Paper (also available here http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/postionpapers/58-Parental-Consent.pdf) demonstrates with comprehensive evidence that if a parental consent law for abortion was passed by any Canadian province or territory, it would contravene and reverse current medical policies and ethics around the consent of minors to healthcare, violate their constitutional rights to bodily security and privacy, and increase risks to their health and safety.

In Saskatchewan, a parental consent law for abortion would be particularly harmful and counter-productive, as it would disproportionately impact the high numbers of marginalized youth in your province, as the following facts attest:
• Child poverty rates in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the highest in Canada, according to Saskatoon Health. Saskatchewan also has a significant Aboriginal population (11.3%) that has historically experienced enormous economic and social hardships, much of which continues to this day. 
• Saskatchewan has the second highest rate of teenage births in Canada (29 per 1,000 women aged 14-19), second only to Nunavut. A parental consent law for abortion would increase these rates even more, thereby continuing the cycle of poverty and dysfunction that so many are trapped in.
• The Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel Report: For the good of our children and youth (http://saskchildwelfarereview.ca/CWR-panel-report.pdf) documents that “Saskatchewan has high rates of alcohol dependency and abuse, the second largest concentration of youth gang members on a per capita basis, and high rates of child poverty, youth crime, incarceration, disability, family violence, and mental health problems.” In addition: “Caseloads of children in care keep growing, and the outcomes for children and families are not acceptable. … The majority of clients of the child welfare system are Aboriginal – First nations and Métis. The percentage has been growing over recent decades and seems likely to continue on that path.”


Given the environment of poverty and inequity that too many Saskatchewan youth live in, and the evidence submitted in the attached paper, we ask you to please reject any possibility of a parental consent law for abortion. Instead, we urge the Saskatchewan government to follow the recommendations of the above-noted report from the Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel, which urged all levels of government to address the poverty-related conditions that drive child neglect and other social problems. These include making “significant improvements to the income support, affordable housing, and disability service systems used by Saskatchewan families.” We believe this would be the best way forward to protect Saskatchewan youth and improve their futures.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Joyce Arthur

In addition to the letter, ARCC produced a position paper (pdf) on parental consent laws and what a nightmare of privacy and human rights violations they would entail.

In Canada, as ever, the sexual two-step continues. One step forward, two steps back.

Upcoming blogposts on the forward (New Brunswick) and back (*sigh* Woodworth Rides Again).

Abstinence is "the best form of -- uh --"

Gov. Rick Perry confronted with statistics on increased teen pregnancy rates in Texas.

During an October 15, 2010 televised interview with Texas Tribune reporter Evan Smith, Perry's response was to reaffirm that "abstinence works." The audience laughed and Smith pointed out the state's abysmal teen pregnancy rate. "It works," insisted Perry. "Maybe it's the way it's being taught, or the way it's being applied out there, but the fact of the matter is it is the best form of -- uh -- to teach our children." Smith asked for a statistic to suggest it works [...]

From here.

Abstinence Is Back

In all the hoo-haw over abortion coverage in the seemingly endless debate over healthcare reform in the US, something slipped under the radar.

Remember back in May when sensible people celebrated Obama's axing of the totally useless abstinence-only sex ed?

Well, it's baaaaaack.

A little-noticed provision of the health legislation has rescued federal support for a controversial form of sex education: teaching youths to remain virgins until marriage.

The bill restores $250 million over five years for states to sponsor programs aimed at preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by focusing exclusively on encouraging children and adolescents to avoid sex. The funding provides at least a partial reprieve for the approach, which faced losing all federal support under President Obama's first two budgets.

"We're very happy to see that funding will continue so the important sexual health message of risk avoidance will reach American teens," said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, a Washington-based lobbying group. "What better place to see such an important health issue addressed than in the health legislation?"

But the funding was condemned by critics, who were stupefied by the eleventh-hour rescue.

"To spend a quarter-billion dollars on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that have already been proven to fail is reckless and irresponsible," said James Wagoner of the Washington group Advocates for Youth. "When on top of that you add the fact that this puts the health and lives of young people at risk, this becomes outrageous."

Just one more little way that reproductive health in general and women's rights in particular suffer when the angry white men stomp their little feet and threaten to hold their breath.

Charming, isn't it?

Republican family values.

LuLu at Canadian Cynic: Republican family values. brings this gem to our attention.

What I find perplexing is not the tactic that the fundamentalist religious right might champion as a double whammy - a strike against homosexuality and safe, responsibility-based sex education - but the reasons that the Republican leadership claim as the source of the problem.

Consider the following. DAMMIT JANET! comments the sub-text (our annotations are italicized).

A few minutes into his speech, Schwartz moved to the topic of pornography, calling it a “blight” and a “disease” that parents’ “sons” would encounter. (But not their daughters who might be coerced, likely by older men, to re-enact the brutalizing scenarios?) Noting that he was about to get “politically incorrect,” Schwartz said that it is his “observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people”:

SCHWARTZ: But it is my observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. (If you exclude Pat Robertson and his thousands of acolytes.) They speak badly about homosexuality. (Peer pressure and bullying?) And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. (Given the choice between being beaten or killed by their peers and likely rejected by their family, the boys who feel the stirrings of their homosexuality will bury those feelings and over-compensate with violence against class-mates who are 'sissies'.) They don’t want to fall into it. (But they just might commit suicide.) And that’s a good instinct. (Survival? Yes that is a good instinct.) After all, homosexuality, we know, studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that it's genetic and all those studies have proved it's not genetic. (Scientific studies are bogus if they don't support his beliefs.) Homosexuality is inflicted on people. (No. It is a scientifically documented sexual orientation. The bigotry of fundamentalist religious conservatives is inflicted on people.)

Schwartz then recalled “a very good friend” of his “who was in the homosexual lifestyle for a long time,” saying that he “had good conversations about, about the malady that he suffered.” (Your words? - likely not his, but then again if your gay male friend is a Republican he has learned to use the words of his persecutors judiciously to placate them.) He then relayed “an astonishingly insightful remark” his friend had made about the relationship between pornography and being gay:

SCHWARTZ: And one of the things that he said to me, that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark. He said, “all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. (Schwartz, you are really clueless. Your astute "very good friend" is telling you that most porn is androcentric and gynophobic.) Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.” (And your "very good friend" just told what he knew you wanted to hear.) You know, that’s a, that’s a good comment. (And it's all part and parcel of your "very good friend's" lifelong strategy of how to escape from the murderous hatred of schoolyard and religious rightwing bullies.) It’s a good point and it’s a good thing to teach young people. (Your sons, you mean. The girls get to attend Purity Balls with their daddies.)

Schwartz then added a slight caveat, saying, “if it doesn’t turn you homosexual, it at least renders you less capable of loving your wife.”

Or more likely to grow up to become a Republican politician who gets caught with his pants down.

From the 'No Shit, Sherlock' File

Teenage birth rates higher in more religious states

Rates of births to teenage mothers are strongly predicted by conservative religious beliefs, even after controlling for differences in income and rates of abortion. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Reproductive Health have found a strong association between teenage birth rates and state-level measures of religiosity in the U.S.

But the researchers were struck by how much religiosity and teen birth go together.

"The magnitude of the correlation between religiosity and teen birth rate astonished us. . . . Our findings by themselves do not, of course, permit causal inferences. But, if we may speculate on the most probable explanation, we conjecture that religious communities in the US are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."

Yeah, that abstinence-only sex ed works real good.

You must remember this

A kiss is just a kiss.


And sex minus condoms often equals unintended pregnancy.


Bristol Palin was quoted this week:

"Girls need to imagine and picture their life with a screaming newborn baby and then think before they have sex. If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex. Trust me. Nobody."

Funny how Sarah Palin blows hot and cold about the exploitation of her family. If she does it, that's okay, right?


But anyone else? Yep, yep, you betcha, pitbull with lipstick time. David Letterman was able to apologize in the nick of time; Sarah was all set to suck the marrow from his cadaver.


More here about why Sarah Palin's family is a growth industry.

Abstinence Axed!

Yay! More evidence of a return to sanity in the Excited States. President Obama will eliminate funding for that 'boondoggle of historic proportions', aka abstinence-only sex ed.

His budget for 2010 will provide at least $164 million for science- and evidence-based sex ed and will ax the $160 million wasted per year on faith-based -- as in 'cross-your-fingers and pray' -- sex ed. He had already cut abstinence-only funding by $56 million and now ALL federal funding will be kaput.

LifeShite quotes Leslee Unruh, president of Abstinence Clearinghouse, a gang of fraudsters who promote this claptrap.

"I believe there will be a political backlash for those who oppose these life saving abstinence programs. The enemies of sexual integrity programs will feel the heat from the army of youth who have seen the light through these programs as they approach voting age," she added.

Huh? Heat? Light? Army? Enemy?

What's going on here?

Oh. Right. Munnee.

There's a blog attached to the Abstinence Clearinghouse site. It SHRIEEEKS: You're Gonna Lose Your Job!!!!

And how is this stimulating the economy by putting thousands of people who work for Title V and CBAE programs out of work? Life is easy when it’s other people’s money you’re spending - and it’s fun until it’s gone. What do they call that again?

Oh yeah…socialism.

If I were an American parent, I'd be doing handsprings and cartwheels knowing these lying, ignorant fundy jerks were no longer allowed to tell my children anything, let alone how to conduct their private lives.

Teen pregnancy: no longer shameful, still a concern.

It may be that the intense media visibility awarded to Bristol Palin’s unintended pregnancy will bring about a shift in public attitudes towards teen’s sex education.

Sarah Palin’s extreme and fundamentalist views on sex education, rape, and recently, on bombing abortion clinics have given these issues prominence in the US presidential election campaign. A successful fund raising initiative for Planned Parenthood in the US was launched by email. Thousands of thank you cards were sent to the Republican VP candidate in acknowledgement of her pivotal role in provoking US citizens to donate to Planned Parenthood.

Shortly after Palin’s nomination, e-mails began circulating suggesting that pro-choice women make donations to Planned Parenthood in her honor. As of this week, Planned Parenthood has received more than 40,000 donations in Palin’s name, totaling more than $1 million.

And tabloids reported that Jamie Lynn Spears may have unintentionally become pregnant again. Regardless of whether the rumour is founded or not, the public reaction seems to indicate that nobody believes in that quaint saying ‘Ignorance is bliss’ any longer. Even the young yet wise-cracking Juno took responsibility for her mistake and took charge of her choice.

A sensible, well-informed young woman observed the media frenzy around the Palin and Spears unintended pregnancies and wrote a well-researched article about concerns regarding adolescent sexuality.

Every year in the U.S, over one million teenagers become pregnant. Most recently, pregnant teens have flooded Planned Parenthood health centers. Last year, Planned Parenthood centers provided sex education to 1.2 million teens and adults. This year will yield roughly 750,000 pregnant teenage girls, which is a number 12 times more than that of people diagnosed with AIDS in 2008, as well as the total number of persons expected to die from some form of cancer this year.

In regards to percentages, this averages out to about 11 percent of all U.S. children being birthed by teens this year. By the time a teen has reached the age of 19, seven in ten teens have experienced at least one sexual encounter. … It is important that sex education be definitely enforced within schools and should not only approach the idea of sex and teens from an abstinence-only standpoint. According to an analysis of more than 115 studies researched by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (NC), teen sex education programs proved ineffective when including only abstinence-only material, by which teens were neither encouraged nor influenced to abstain or delay sex until a more age-appropriate time.

According to Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, effective sex education is based on “medically accurate information” that is both abstinence-based and also teaches contraception and proper sex initiation, which has proven to be more effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Richards argues that for the past eight years, roughly $1.5 billion or more of taxpayers’ money has been “wasted” on ineffective abstinence-only programs. Richards also demands that education and initiation of sex education must change with the next administration because the current policies have proven unsuccessful. “When it comes to sexuality education, there should be no debate. The only way our children can be prepared is to be informed; this isn’t about ideology, it’s about the health and safety of our kids.”

First posted at Birth Pangs

PREVENTION as well as Devotion

We recently learned that Levi Johnston, who got Bristol Palin in a family way, attended the Republic National Convention with a new tattoo to flash. As proof of his devotion it is said that he had the name Bristol permanently inked on his left ring finger.

Unfortunately, the reality of Bristol’s pregnancy demonstrates that Abstinence-only sex education often fails. Perhaps Levi should also get the word condom tattooed on his johnson.

As a reminder of his devotion, of course.

First posted at Birth Pangs.

Unintended pregnancy: Ooops, I did it again!

This is from the ‘we-just-could-not-make-this-stuff-up’ files. Remember Jamie Lynn Spears? The National Inquirer (your blabbing friends sold you out, JL) is reporting that yup, she is pregnant again. Birth Pangs knows that this is one of the predictable outcomes of teaching Abstinence-Only programs to randy adolescents. For example, this:
The unplanned pregnancy came as a shock to Jamie Lynn, who’d been breast-feeding her infant daughter Maddie Briann, insiders say.

“Jamie Lynn believed she couldn’t get pregnant while she was breast-feeding,” said the close source. “She’d expected to have her period by early September.” A home pregnancy test came back positive and Jamie Lynn cried her eyes out, said the source.

Her mother Lynne was livid when she found out, divulged an insider.

Say Lynne, why didn’t you give Jamie Lynn the real facts of life, especially since she likely knows by now that it isn’t The Great Crawfish who delivers babies to happy homes in the middle of the night. Or whatever it is that mamas in Louisiana tell their children when they are 5 years old.

First posted at Birth Pangs.