What does the Tennessee House Bill 3517 REALLY say?

Tennessee House Bill 3517 would make changes to sections 39-13-107 and 39-13-214 of the Tennesse Code so that the resulting code would read:

39-13-107. Viable fetus as victim.

(a) For the purposes of this part, "another," "individuals," and "another person" include a human embryo or fetus at any stage of gestation in utero, when any such term refers to the victim of any act made criminal by this part, and when at the time of the criminal act the victim was pregnant.

(b) Nothing in this section shall be construed to amend the provisions of § 39-15-201, or §§ 39-15-203 39-15-205 and 39-15-207.

(c) Nothing in subsection (a) shall apply to any act or omission by a pregnant woman with respect to an embryo or fetus with which she is pregnant, or to any lawful medical or surgical procedure to which a pregnant woman consents, performed by a health care professional who is licensed to perform such procedure.

39-13-214. Viable fetus as victim.

(a) For the purposes of this part, "another" and "another person" include a human embryo or fetus at any stage of gestation in utero, when any such term refers to the victim of any act made criminal by this part, and when at the time of the criminal act the victim was pregnant.

(b) Nothing in this section shall be construed to amend the provisions of § 39-15-201, or §§ 39-15-203 39-15-205 and 39-15-207.

(c) Nothing in subsection (a) shall apply to any act or omission by a pregnant woman with respect to an embryo or fetus with which she is pregnant, or to any lawful medical or surgical procedure to which a pregnant woman consents, performed by a health care professional who is licensed to perform such procedure.

This bill changes assault and homicide law in Tennessee to replace the words, "viable fetus of a human being" with the words, "human embryo or fetus at any stage of gestation in utero".

In other words, an attack on a woman carrying an embryo or fetus, at any stage of gestation, whether or not that fetus or embryo is viable, is the same as attacking (or murdering) two people.  If the woman survives, but the embryo fails to implant due to the attack, then the attacker is guilty of murder.

The law doesn't state whether or not it matters if the woman knows she is pregnant.  It also doesn't state how police will determine that a woman is (or was) carrying an embryo.  It is possible that the stress of the attack may induce a spontaneous abortion that is, as I've said before, unnoticed by the woman.  

So this may be rather difficult law to enforce in many cases.

In my last post on this law, I went overboard in believing that this law would criminalize regular behaviors that actually endanger the child.  It seems to be restricted to acts of assault or homicide.  The woman seems to be exempt from her own acts or omissions - possibly through intent.

But this law does set a dangerous precident.  It claims that any ovum is the same as any person in cases of assult or murder.  It is not clear that a pregnant woman's intent to terminate her own pregnancy is not assault or homocide upon her embryo or fetus, moving her from the class of "mother" to the class of "attacker".

This law is also dangerous in that it could make a murderer out of someone who merely committed assault and happened to be unlucky enough for the woman to miscarry naturally.  An aggressive shoulder-bump in a crowd could result in manslaughter charges due to natural miscarriage.

 

What have I learned from this?  Hopefully I've learned to not jump the gun and let my emotions run away with me.  I forgot that experts often comment in areas where they are amateurs - and I am not an expert in law.  So the next time I comment on a law, I'll do my best to get expert advice.

Tennessee goes BATSHIT INSANE and attacks the rights of women.

UPDATE: 27 April 2012 - 

As they say legally, "mea maxima culpa".  I made a mistake here, so please accept my apologies.  

My friend Richard called me on it in the comments, and he's right.  I'll be making a new post on this over the weekend, and will link to it from here when done.

For now, know that this law does not criminalize a woman's actions (or omission of action) toward the fetus.

The rest of this post will stay here, as a lesson on letting emotions overcome reason.

----------------------------------------

You know, when I posted "If Abortion is Murder, then Coffee is Manslaughter", I had several people tell me that I was being silly.  That my little fictional story was merely a "slippery slope fallacy" not worth taking seriously.

Well, let me be the first to say, "I told you so".

Tennessee is trying to pass a law that will criminalize all spontanious abortion, known commonly as miscarriage.

The Tennessee House last week voted 80-18 to make miscarriage — or the killing of any fertilized egg — murder. Last night, the Tennessee Senate passed by a 28-2 margin a companion version of the bill. The bill specifically includes all embryos “at any state of gestation in utero.” Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Haslam has not indicated if he will sign the bill.

To be clear, this bill goes further than covering, say, a violent attacker harming an expectant mother who then, unfortunately, miscarries. This bill, House Bill 3517 and the Senate’s companion, makes anyone’s actions that presumably cause a miscarriage murder. Opponents of the bill question how law enforcement would actually enforce this law or determine if someone’s action was a direct cause of a miscarriage.

This bill removes the "viability requirement" that currently exists for protecting fetuses.  In other words, it doesn't matter if the fetus is "viable" - that it can survive outside of the womb with medical attention - it doesn't even matter if the fetus, or the fertalized ovum, would never become viable - for example if the blastocyst failed to implant.

If the Prosecutor thinks that he or she can make the case against a woman who miscarries due to second-hand smoke, or job stress, or for even "ordering and consuming three 'Doppio Espresso' drinks" at Starbucks, then that prosecutor could bring murder - or at least manslaughter - charges against the mother of that zygote.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but this is a BATSHIT INSANE bill!  No matter what the intent is, the actual outcome would be to force women of child bearing age into a special class, where high stress jobs are denied to them, where they are not allowed to roam anywhere or participate in any activity that might endanger their possible fetus.  Because doing so would leave them liable for possible murder charges.

This law provides prosecutors the ability to expand liability beyond the mother, so it may be that others around the woman in question could join in with murder or manslaughter charges.  The clerk that hands the woman that espresso, the boss at the high stress job, the trainer at the gym could all possibly be held liable at the discretion of the Prosecutor.

What if the woman miscarries after going to target practice at the local shooting range?  Could another shooting range customer be charged with manslaughter for that?  Will there be a multiplier on his sentence due to the use of a gun?

"Oh no, that's crazy talk!"  Yes, you might think that, but when I first wrote about coffee being equal to manslaughter I was told THAT was crazy, and yet here is a bill that would criminalize that!

This isn't a "slippery slope fallacy" - because we have evidence right here that politicians are trying to actually create this greased slope toward the removal of the basic human rights. This isn't paranoia - it is actually being attempted.

This is what Lewis Black calls, "Fuck Nuts Crazy".  Pure and simple. 

The creeping removal of women's right to privacy...

I hope that my readers are aware that the decision of Roe V. Wade was made as a balancing act - it balances the right of privacy with the State's interest in protecting prenatal life, and protecting the health of women.

The idea that a fertilized ovum is a person, deserving of the full rights granted to natural persons, is not a rational position to hold.

I've written about this before - human gestation is not straightforward.  A fertilized ovum is at best a potential person, and declaring it a person worthy of full rights of a natural person is problematic at best.

I've described what can happen at the worst - where declaring a blastocyst to be the same as a natural person leads to ridiculous tyranny where coffee could be a form of manslaughter.

Well, it's happening:
The "creeping criminalization of pregnant women" has begun.

Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her fetus was diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.

The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.

Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."
She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer that? I'm a good mother."

Abortion vs. Personhood

Sometimes I read about atheists who wish to ban abortion. A few have even given their support for a Personhood amendment.
And I have to wonder - have they thought this through?
I will be the first to admit that a fertilized ovum is "human". But then, so are my skin cells. The real argument is over what is a "person". I'll get to that.
First, let's discuss how we all came to be. (And for you biologists out there, feel free to correct this poor electrical engineer! I'm sure I screwed up something!)
Fertilization is the fusion of gametes, (sperm and ovum) to form a zygote. The zygote goes through "cleavage" (cell division) to form a Blastula. After about 5 or 6 divisions it is called a Morula, at which point it starts to form a hollow ball of cells around a center of liquid. Once the ball is formed it is called a blastocyst. The inner cell mass of this ball starts to form structures that will later define the fetus.
Up to this point, the blastocyst has not adhered to the uterine wall - when it does, it is called implantation. At implantation the cells are called an embryo until about the 8th week, when it is then called a fetus. Implantation happens between 6-12 days after fertilization.
I won't go into the development of a fetus here.
A baby is what we call a human that has been born. Newborn is the designation of a human from birth to several weeks old, and infant is the designation usually given from one month to 12 months.
Now let's review miscarriage.
Miscarriage (also known as "spontanious abortion") is actually very common in humans. Especially before implantation of the blastocyst. There is only a very narrow window of opportunity for the blastocyst to implant, and this window can be affected by various things.
The problem at this stage is that the blastocyst is about 32 cells in size, and if a miscarriage happens it often seems just like a woman's normal menstrual flow. Sometimes it is thought to be a little heavy, but not always.
No one seems to know the exact rate of miscarriage in humans because it is difficult to identify when it happens.  Depending on who you ask, or which study you read, miscarriage rates are said to be anywhere between 30-50% of all fertilized ovum. (Wikipedia, New England Journal of Medicine, WebMD, University of Ottawa, MedicineNet)
Most miscarriages happen in the first trimester. Miscarriage is less likely to happen in the second trimester or later, and is usually due to problems with the uterus, umbilical cord, or placenta.
What makes miscarriage MORE likely?
There are things that a woman (and even the father) can do to increase the likelihood of miscarriage.
Older parents are likely to miscarry due to poor genetics. Smoking increases the likelihood of miscarriage - even if only the father smokes!  Drug use is also an increased risk (but we knew that, right?) Antidepressants can cause a failure to implant.
IUDs, which mostly prevent pregnancy by preventing fertilization also prevent blastocysts from implanting in the uterine wall. Also in some few cases the combined oral contraceptive pill (the most common birth control pill) will cause the blastocyst to fail to implant.
There are studies that show a correlation between exercise and an increased risk of miscarriage in the first trimester, with more and heavier exercise leading to greatly increased chance of miscarriage.
There are correlations between caffeine use and miscarriage, and stress and miscarriage too.
So what happens if we define a fertilized ovum to be a person?
There is no argument that a baby is a person. Personhood is usually granted after birth. (Although this isn't always true. In some countries it has been common to not officially acknowledge or even name a baby until a year after birth - due to high rates of infant mortality.)
But what if we grant a fertilized ovum the same rights to personhood that you and I reading this text on a screen enjoy?
If a mother spontaneously aborts, or miscarries, we will need to determine to what degree the mother (and perhaps even the father) is culpable for the death of that "person" in a similar manner that we now do with born persons.
In the death of a non-born person, we must ask:

• Was the woman sexually active, and not using any form of birth control that prevented fertilization?
  • If so, was she living a lifestyle that is risky to the unborn?

Depending on how these questions are answered, the woman may be guilty of manslaughter, or negligent homicide. There are already cases of women charged with drug trafficking and child neglect due to their use of illegal drugs during pregnancy.

• What if the woman willfully consumes caffeine during pregnancy, in the hopes of triggering a miscarriage? Or joins a cross-country track team for the same reason?

There are cases where women have been charged with murder for attempting to end their unborn child's life. Whether the method of murder is a pellet gun or a 10 mile run might not matter.  (Wikipedia)
Obviously, if a fertilized ovum is the same as a person, AND it deserves the protection of the State, then some restrictions must be placed upon women of child-bearing years.
These restrictions might include:

1. No high-stress jobs. (Sorry about your dreams of becoming a District Attorney!)
2. No sports. (Perhaps women athletes could guarantee that they are not sexually active?)
3. No using the Birth Control Pill or IUDs. (Spermicide and condoms should be fine.)
4. Frequent pregnancy testing. (If you don't know you are pregnant, how can you protect your baby?)

I'm sure other protections may occur to the reader.
Roe V. Wade
So why is Abortion legal? Why did Roe V. Wade make it legal?
One of my religious acquaintances told me that Roe V. Wade was decided in order to allow woman to "avoid the consequences of sex".
In reality, Roe V. Wade is a privacy issue. It's about personal liberty. The restrictions that I enumerated above are invasions into a woman's liberty and privacy. They are a form of tyranny.
A family with two children may decide that "2 is enough" and then use birth control methods to prevent future pregnancy. But not all birth control methods are 100% effective, so it is still possible for the woman to become pregnant again.
Perhaps such a pregnancy will endanger her health, perhaps it will kill her. Or maybe the family is on the financial edge and cannot afford another baby - maybe it cannot even afford a full term pregnancy.
Roe V. Wade recognizes that the mother may decide to have an abortion. The decision made by the Supreme Court recognized that it is her private right to make such a decision. The court also decided that it was better that the mother do it safely, instead of using a risky method.
And risky methods of abortion abound. Ask any woman who remembers what abortions were like before 1973.Women died.
But the State also recognizes that it has a responsibility toward the unborn too. This is why Roe V. Wade talks about the viability of a fetus. If the fetus is viable, it is right to protect it. Viability could be as early as 24 weeks with artificial support.
At 24 weeks the pregnancy is obvious and miscarriage is unlikely to occur.
Last thought: In-Vitro Fertilization
"In vitro" means "within glass" and refers to the fertilization of ovum outside the mother's body as a treatment for infertility.
Usually several embryos are cultured before being transferred back to the mother. This is done because some embryos are not as viable as others (the best are chosen for transfer back) and because not all embryos will implant in the mother. Usually only 2 or 3 embryos are transferred back to the mother, with others held back until it is known that implantation occurs.
Usually there are several embryos that are left over from the process. These can be cryopreserved, but are often discarded - usually by the decision of the family.
If every embryo is a person, deserving of full rights of personhood, then IVF will need to change dramatically, or be made unlawful.
So, where are you in the debate on abortion?

Serena Joy casts her vote for Colorado to become the "Republic of Gilead"

I saw this on the Pharyngula blog, so there is a good chance that most of my readers have already seen this.

There is an initiative to amend the Colorado state constitution to redefine "person" to include any fertilized ovum.

From the PDF link to this law:

Amendment 48
Definition of Person

1. Ballot Title: An amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term "person"
2. to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as "person" is used in those
3. provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice,
4. and due process of law.
5. Text of Proposal:
6. Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Colorado:
7. SECTION 1. Article II of the constitution of the state of Colorado is amended BY THE
8. ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION to read:
9. Section 31. Person defined. AS USED IN SECTIONS 3, 6, AND 25 OF ARTICLE II OF
10. THE STATE CONSTITUTION, THE TERMS "PERSON" OR "PERSONS" SHALL INCLUDE ANY
11. HUMAN BEING FROM THE MOMENT OF FERTILIZATION.

It bears repeating that this is A REALLY BAD IDEA!

At one point in time I spent a few weeks hanging out on a "pro life" forum, asking questions, putting out my views, and being used as the local Internet piñata by those who rabidly supported the notion that any fertilized ovum had the exact same rights as any human.

I came to the conclusion that most of the followers in this movement have their hearts in the right place, but their ideals are NOT based upon reality, and if implemented can cause a great deal of harm. As for the leaders of these movements, it seems to me many of them jealously guard their leadership positions because of the authority that is granted through their organizations. (Randall Terry is a good example of how even this power corrupts.)


Miscarriage happens in as much as 20% of all recognized pregnancies, and maybe as often as 50% of all pregnancies. The lifestyle of the woman increases the risk factors of miscarriage, so it is possible, or even likely that a woman could be charged for manslaughter due to her risky lifestyle. Stress, exercise, prescribed medication for illness may all cause sub-optimal conditions that cause a blastocyst to fail to implant.

For example, sprinter and two time Gold medal winner Torri Edwards might, if she were sexually active during training for the 2008 Olympics, be guilty of "manslaughter" for failing to recognize that her training regime would make her much more likely to spontaneously abort. Under this law, Edwards wouldn't be allowed even the use of birth control pills, and would have to rely on mechanical methods of contraception - or abstain.

Perhaps Colorado would knock itself out of any future Olympic considerations when it announces that not only will olympians be checked for doping, but women atheletes will be subjected to daily pregnancy tests. We don't just take an athelete's word that they are not using drugs - so it is logical that we wouldn't take their word about sexual activity either.

And why would it stop only at the Olympic level? You could easily make the case for mandatory pregnancy testing at the college level too.


I've written before about what could happen when we define a fertalized ovum as a person. It is not a pretty picture, and it is the first step to declaring women to be a second-class citizen. The outcome would be a world much like that of "Handmaid's Tale". Any woman who votes for this amendment is voting against her own freedom.

But it is such a "modest" proposal!

I saw this via The Agitator blog, and couldn't help but make the comparison.

A state representative in Louisiana is proposing sterilization for poor women:

State Representative John LaBruzzo of Metairie said many of his constituents are tired of paying for children from poor families and that is why he is considering proposing legislation that would pay women on government assistance $1,000 if they choose to be sterilized.

“You have these people who are just fed up with working their buns off to try to provide for their own family and being forced by the government o provide for others’ families who just want to have unlimited kids,” he said.

LaBruzzo said he is studying voluntary sterilization for women whose sole financial support comes from the government in the form of welfare or other public assistance. His idea would be to give the women $1,000 if they had their tubes tied.

Where have we seen ideas like this before?

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
...

I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants; the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.

When you treat people as a means to an end, you are simply treating them as a commodity.  So I see no difference between the two completely voluntary positions put forth by Representative LaBruzzo and Jonathan Swift.

Well, except that LaBruzzo is being serious, and Swift was writing satire.

Christian girls kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, forced to marry their kidnappers

This is a horrible thing. In Pakistan the two pre-teen daughters of a Christian father were kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. The kidnappers married the girls.

According to the story in the Ecumenical News Service, Switzerland, as found in the Religion News Blog:

On 12 July, a judge in Pakistan’s Punjab province ignored pleas that Saba Younis, aged 12, and her 10 year old sister, Anila Younis, who went missing on 26 June from the small town of Chowk Munda, had been kidnapped while on their way to their uncle’s residence and ruled that their conversion to Islam was legal.

The kidnappers, who had married the girls, had also filed for custody of the girls at a local police station on 28 June, asserting that the sisters had converted to Islam and their father no longer had jurisdiction over them.
...

The Muzaffargarh district court on 12 July said the disputed conversion of the girls was legal, and it was this ruling that left the local Christians stunned.

“We will move the [Lahore] high court to challenge this order,” said Maria, who works as the programme coordinator for Pakistan’s Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement.

The Pakistan Minorities Concern network said in a statement that Younis Masih, the father of the kidnapped girls, was threatened by the local police when he went to complain about the kidnapping of his daughters. The statement noted that the village has only a few Christian families living among 150 Muslim families, and said that police refused to support the Christian family.

Apparently this has happened before:

The Pakistan Minorities Concern network ... pointed out that in 2005, nearly 50 Hindu girls and 20 Christian girls were kidnapped and the majority had been forcibly converted to Islam.

“This is a travesty of justice. But unfortunately, this is the practice here,” lamented Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan, which groups four Protestant churches. Azariah said, “The courts never help us.”

I make no bones in my blog in pointing out that Christianity and Islam are both equally illogical, are both harmful and not very rational positions. I haven't taken the position that one is more violent than the other. I haven't studied the history of violence of both religions, but from what I have read I would guess that depending on the decade in question, Christianity could compare with or surpass Islam in terms of violence and the suppression of Human rights.

But this is just vile. If you are Muslim, if you believe in the Islamic faith, and you do not protest the kidnapping and violation of these girls - well then I don't care how "moderate" you may be. If you are Islamic and you are NOT protesting, then you are enabling this behavior.

If you're Muslim and you agree with this sort of behavior, then I believe that your particular brand of philosophy should be scrubbed from the Earth. Preferably through education, but if necessary then through more strenuous methods.

I'm not letting the Christians off easily either. If your Christian philosophy insists that Homosexuals is "curable" through religion, and that atheists should be denied any position in government, then I think your beliefs are almost as despicable, because they will eventually lead to similar tyranny.

Medical Students for Choice

In 1973 the United States Supreme Court ruled that laws preventing abortion in the United States violated our constitutional right to privacy. Due to "Due Process" as outlined by the 14th Amendment, all State and Federal anti-abortion laws that outlawed abortion were overturned.

In this ruling, the Supreme Court established a woman's right to decide what happens to her own body - at least up to the point in which the fetus is able to live outside the mother's womb. And in the case where a woman's health is endangered, even a viable fetus may be aborted.

My personal feelings about abortion is that it should be rendered unnecessary. If I were given a magic wand to wave, I'd give every woman the biological ability to physically reverse a pregnancy and reabsorb a viable fetus - at any point, at will.

But since I can't do that, I want to do the next best thing. I advocate safe contraceptives that would make it darned hard for a woman to become pregnant until she decides to do so. I advocate teaching men and women about contraceptives and contraceptive methods before they grow to child-bearing age, so they can be prepared to make those decisions.

I also advocate that abortion must be kept safe, legal and affordable for all women.


That this basic human right - the woman's right to choose - is under attack is really no surprise. Protests, graphic images, pharmacists refusing to fill emergency and standard contraceptives, even religious whackos physically attacking and killing abortion providers and their staff - all of these actions have become matter-of-fact, prosaic.

But there is another front on this war against woman's rights. Anti-abortionists are actively working to prevent medical students from receiving education in abortion methods. This isn't good - this isn't just a denial of women's rights - but it is also dangerous to women's health. The medical techniques involved are not just about abortion, but also include therapeutic procedures such as a D&C or Vacuum Aspiration.

Blocking training in these methods is as stupid as blocking training in cosmetic surgery - because only self-centered people would ever get cosmetic surgery, right?


Pesky Apostrophe is one of my favorite blogs. It's on my "must read" daily list of blogs. "Pesky Mac" talks about a lot of things on her blog, including woman's reproductive rights. She has a lot to say about religious people who work against abortion. I think it is well worth your time to read her blog.

Pesky Mac has asked her friends, family and acquaintances, in a personal email, to take a look at non-profit organizations that promote training in all aspects of women's medicine - including abortion. I agree. I think this deserves the attention of my readers.

So no matter what your view is toward abortion, take a moment to look at my favorite organization - Medical Students for Choice. Read about the shortage of abortion providers, and what the lack of training means to everyone.

I'm asking you to also consider donating. And who knows, you might become a small part of an important discovery - maybe even the invention of a perfect contraceptive.

If abortion is murder, then coffee is manslaughter.

Don't ask me how it happened, but for some strange reason last night, my computer became a sort of time machine. Instead of the Internet of 2008, for about an hour I was connected to the Internet of 2015. (I think it had something to do with leaving that can of Bean Dip on my overheated wireless router.)

It's difficult to get the tenses correct when talking about future events, so pardon any lapses.

So, being the curious type of person that I am, I decided to peruse several online news sites. Right away, I found out that Roe V. Wade had been overturned in 2012. After that ruling, several sweeping changes were made to “support the rights of the unborn.”

From an article in the New York Times online I found out that there was a Supreme Court ruling on Scheidler V. California where life was determined to start from the moment of conception – at the point where the sperm met the egg. Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Alito wrote in this majority ruling, “... and so the right to life is finally extended to all humans, from the moment of conception, and these smallest of humans must now be extended equal protection by law.”

I then wandered into someone's blog who has been documenting the massive fallout of litigation that has come from these Supreme Court rulings. For example, most radical right to life groups have always asserted that “the pill” was an abortificant in that it would, in a few cases, cause a fertilized ovum (or blastocyst) to fail to implant in a woman's uterine wall. With the overthrow of Roe V. Wade and the new definition of life that includes conception, they decided to test this case. Although there are many pharmaceutical manufacturers that produce estrogen and progestogen oral contraceptives, Wyeth was selected as the pharmaceutical company to sue, probably due to having headquarters in New Jersey.

In this case (Donna Schinder V. Wyeth, Morris County courthouse) Schinder won an immediate injunction against Wyeth, preventing them from manufacturing, transporting, or selling “the pill”. Wyeth appealed to the State, and finally to the Supreme Court, and lost. The Supreme Court ruling handed a further win to pro-life supporters by saying that the willful use of “abortificants” was tantamount to murder.

At about this same time, bills were introduced jointly in the House and Senate that made it illegal to manufacture, transport or sell any products that were intended to interfere with the normal progression of embryo development, starting from the point of conception. This joint bill was quickly signed into law by President Huckabee, and all oral contraceptives became immediately illegal in the United States. Along with illegal narcotics, customs agents started searching for illegal birth control pills. (I couldn't figure out if they started training “contraceptive dogs” or not.)

There were still forms of legal contraceptives available. Condoms, spermicide, diaphragms. And as usual, groups like the American Family Association and the Family Research Council campaigned against them, somewhat successfully. For example, Condoms were then sold “behind the counter” by law in many states. In a few Southern states they can only be sold to those older than 21, with a valid ID.

In 2014, the first cases of “embryo death or endangerment” under these new laws were opened against women in several states. There have been cases prosecuted in the past involving "Fetal Rights", and the use of drugs like cocaine, but under the new fetus protection laws the cases took a different course.

The first of these happened in Charlotte, North Carolina, where a manager of a Starbucks coffee shop called the police on a pregnant woman for ordering and consuming three “Doppio Espresso” drinks on premises. The case, “The City of Charlotte V. Linda Johnson” ruled against the defendant, who was charged with “willful child endangerment” for “knowingly using a substance likely to cause miscarriage.” Mrs. Johnson, in her first trimester, was in divorce proceedings at the time of her arrest, and admitted during interrogation that she no longer wanted “that bastard's baby.” She was sentenced to 18 months in jail, and she was required to forfeit her newborn to Child Protective Services upon birth.

There were a lot of cases like this across the USA.

But I found I was more disturbed by other cases.

For example, In Vitro Fertilization in the United States will come to an abrupt halt. This is because IVF is a sort of 'gamble' wherein several of a woman's eggs are fertilized and introduced to the womb in the hopes that a couple of them implant. Those that do not implant are 'washed out' naturally. This was called “gambling with life” in a popular prime-time news show that also had an in-depth expose on the rate of death of embryos frozen for future implantation, called “Snowflake Babies”. Overnight medical insurers refused to cover IVF, and a team of Federal Prosecutors was formed to look into the IVF industry.

Another disturbing case (still in the works as of my connection to the year 2015) involved a high profile Texas state prosecutor as the defendant. Mrs. Jerri Lancaster is being investigated in 2015 by the State Attorney's Office (her employer) for publicly acknowledging that she is attempting to conceive while in a high-stress job. Even today we know that stress is a risk factor for pregnancy, in some cases a blastocyst will fail to implant in the uterine wall due to stress in the mother. Mrs. Lancaster's public announcement was seen by Texans to be a sign of “negligence” toward her future unborn child.

The fallout of this case may have a profound affect on the types of jobs that women of child-bearing years are allowed to hold.

This really started to worry me. Were women going to be forced out of the workplace and back into the home, so they wouldn't be guilty of possible “negligence”? How would the state reduce the numerous risk factors for the epidemic of "spontaneous abortions"? How would the State be able to ensure that an active woman of child-bearing years with a stressful life wasn't pregnant?

I tried to find out, but at that point my wireless router failed, and there was an acrid smell of burnt bean dip in the house. I went to bed and dreamed about the complete loss of Woman's reproductive rights - it looked like something from "The Handmaid's Tale".

It wasn't until this morning that I realized that I could have downloaded 7 years of future stock market trends and sports scores. Somehow I don't think it's much of a loss – wealth wouldn't make me happy in this future world.

More support for Abstinence Plus sex education

Remember Linda Klepacki, the analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action? She's been having a bad time of it lately. I just got another Citizen Link alert from her trying desperately to spin the latest blow to funding the Federally supported Abstinence Only sex education program. The Title V block grant program that supplies almost 88 million dollars a year toward Abstinence Only education is due to expire at the end of June, and the many recent setbacks to Abstinence Only education seem to indicate that the possibility of renewal is doomed.

Abstinence Only sex eduction, as you may recall, promotes abstaining from sex until marriage, and discourages the use of contraceptives – either by not mentioning them at all, or by exaggerating their risks and failure rates. Abstinence Only sex education teaches that sex outside of marriage is not only immoral, but that severe emotional and physical costs may also result. Proponents of Abstinence Only sex education claim that Abstinence Plus sex education (which stresses abstinence, but includes information about safe sex and contraceptives) actually encourages teenage premarital sexual activity.

No one denies that abstinence is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted disease. It is clear, however, that teaching abstinence does not seem to result in increasing the practice of abstinence among teens.

The latest blow against Abstinence Only sex education is a new study to be published Thursday in the American Journal of Sociology. This study, released by the University of Minnesota sociology department, strikes down the claim that premarital sex always results in severe emotional trauma. From the Minnesota Daily:

... while some girls who became sexually active without being in a committed relationship before the age of 15 suffer from depression in their lives, a majority did not. Researchers found the same for boys under the age of 14.

From USA Today:

The latest analysis by Ann Meier, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, found that those who are most vulnerable to depression or low self-esteem are girls who had their first sex before 15 and boys under 14.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health of 8,563 students in grades seven through 12 during the mid-1990s, Meier compared mental health measures of teens who were virgins during the study with teens who lost their virginity during the study.

"Among those who had sex, only about 14% experienced increases in depression or decreases in self-esteem," she says. "In terms of depression, these are relatively modest increases. For 86%, it had no big effect."

Meier points out that this study does not, by any means, give a “green light” to premarital / teen sex. From the Minnesota Daily:

[Meier] said there are no positive effects from losing virginity early, and although the section of people who have mental problems is lower than once expected, it is still a relatively large number of young people.

... the broader implications of the study are that early sex can have a negative psychological effect on girls, and schools should have more comprehensive sexual education.

Linda Klepacki spins the study in this way:

For this study to state that teens 15 and younger tend to be less committed in sexual relationships demonstrates its incredible disconnect from reality. Research shows us that young girls are much more likely to be pressured into sex by much older boys than older teen girls. The term 'statutory rape' is more apropos for 14-year-olds having sex than the term 'committed.'

The Citizen Link alert then states:

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 63 percent of sexually experienced 12- to 19-year-olds wish they had waited longer before having sexual intercourse.

To which Klepacki responds, "Is this statement not a direct result of an emotional response?”


There are a couple of odd things here. Klepacki and Citizen Link are willing to identify the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, but they don't identify who did the “research” that young girls are pressured into sex by older boys. Instead she goes straight on to use the emotionally laden word “rape”. It took me almost a minute to realize that she didn't back up her assertion of the likelihood of rape.


I can almost feel sorry for religious conservatives on this issue. They've suffered a lot of setbacks lately. The 8 year study by the Mathematica Policy Research corporation which was commissioned by Congress to find the effectiveness of Abstinence Only education showed that:

... youth in the four evaluated programs were no more likely than youth not in the programs to have abstained from sex in the four to six years after they began participating in the study. Youth in both groups who reported having had sex also had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same average age.

After the report was released, Democratic leaders in Congress indicated that they would probably drop funding for Abstinence Only sex education, labeling it a “colossal failure.”

I've already blogged that on May 24th, the San Jose Mercury News reported that the overwhelming majority of Californians prefer that comprehensive sex education be taught to their kids in school.

However, that shouldn't be surprising since a January 2004 survey of the general public and of parents by the Kaiser Foundation over the subject of Sex Education in America found that the 94% of parents thought it was appropriate to teach school age kids about methods of birth control. The same study indicated overwhelming agreement by parents that it was appropriate to teach about abortion, how to use a condom, masturbation, homosexuality, and oral sex. (link to PDF)

To add insult to injury, a new book written by Mark Regnerus, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, shows that teens that profess evangelical beliefs and who have pledged to remain virgins until marriage manage to delay sex for only a period of 18 months, on average. Slate's article on the professor's book states:

Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. They tend to lose their virginity at a slightly younger age—16.3, compared with 16.7 for the other two faiths. And they are much more likely to have had three or more sexual partners by age 17: Regnerus reports that 13.7 percent of evangelicals have, compared with 8.9 percent for mainline Protestants.

Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and other proponents of Abstinence Only are clearly out of touch here. They are out of touch with scientific reality and with popular parental opinion. Most parents remember what it was like to be a teen, and so they do the smart thing of taking a “belt and suspenders” approach toward teaching their children about sex. They want to teach their kids to abstain, and at the same time they want to reduce and control the possible consequences of sex.

The Abstinence Only crowd keeps telling the parents that they don't need the suspenders – but that just doesn't make any sense.

Comprehensive Sex Education Wins in California

Teaching 'Abstinence Only' education is like teaching 'Just Hold It' potty training.
- Roy Zimmerman

Yesterday the San Jose Mercury News reported that the overwhelming majority of Californians prefer that comprehensive sex education be taught to their kids in school. Also known as “Abstinence-Plus” or the ABC strategy, comprehensive sex education is based on reducing the likelihood of harm to young people by educating them about the risks of sexual intercourse and how to avoid those risks. This is at odds with Abstinence Only education, which is often combined with quickly ignored Virginity Pledges and is noted for misstating the health risks of contracting sexually transmitted diseases while wearing a condom.

From the article:

Almost 90 percent of California parents - no matter their politics, religion, location or level of education - want comprehensive sex education for their children, according to a first-ever statewide survey on the subject.

The results of the poll from the Bay Area's Public Health Institute, funded by the California Wellness Foundation, and to be released today , show that 89percent of parents support a sex education program that includes information about contraception and protection from sexually transmitted diseases, as well as abstinence.

What's more, widespread support for such a program crossed all sorts of cultural fault lines. Among evangelical Christians, 86percent said they support comprehensive sex education. The subgroup with the lowest support, at 71percent, were the "very conservative."

The “Focus on the Family” group have been having fits over Abstinence-only funding at a Federal level. I receive their “Citizen Link” alerts, and have noticed an increase in urgency about Abstinence-only. In their May 23rd “Daily Update” they urge their followers to reauthorize this funding, blaming liberals and Democrats for not immediately reauthorizing it. From the alert:

Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said liberals want to protect Planned Parenthood’s monopoly on federal sex-education funding. She cited a study by Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation, that showed for every dollar abstinence education receives, Planned Parenthood receives $12.

So, it's the evil liberals fault again, with their evil family planning and belief that adults should have the tools required to take charge of their own reproductive organs.

Further from the email alert:

Sex education that encourages premarital sexual activity has proven effective in helping to spread disease, Klepacki said, including:

* 18.9 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) each year.

* 15- to 24-year-olds representing nearly half of all new STD cases in 2000.

* 822,000 pregnancies among 15- to 19-year-olds in 2000.

“These numbers haven’t changed since I began teaching abstinence in 1979,” Klepacki said. “How many government studies do we have to have to know that being sexually active in your teen years is not safe?"

Notice the loaded wording? Abstinence-plus education in no way encourages premarital sexual activity. This is just pure bullshit. Comprehensive sex education promotes abstinence as the ideal, but recognizes that many young people will not be able to achieve that goal, as studies have proven. So, in order to reduce the possibility of harm, comprehensive sex education includes teaching safer-sex practices, and teaching about the risks involved with sex, which include pregnancy, disease, psychological trauma, and potential socioeconomic consequences.

Also notice the misrepresentation of data. First, Klepacki says that the numbers haven't changed in 28 years, which I would call progress, considering that America has increased its population by over a third during that time period. Second, the US Department of Health and Human Services study on Abstinence Education programs clearly indicates that: (PDF link)

[Abstinence-only] and control group youth were equally likely to have remained abstinent. About half of both groups of youth reported remaining sexually abstinent, and a slightly higher proportion reported having been abstinent within the 12 months prior to the final follow-up survey (Executive Summary pg xvii)

So clearly the Abstinence-only crowd must share blame (if any) for sexually promiscuous young adults.

I'm proud of California for rejecting Federal funding for Abstinence-only education in favor of comprehensive sex education. And this poll goes a long way toward drowning out the few very loud voices from those with a religious agenda. These people teach a form of sex education based on fallacious reasoning and poor analogies and they advocate unworkable Virginity Pledges. And then organizations like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family go on to quote pure pseudo scientific “peer reviewed” reports that support their beliefs.

The truth is that young people will do their own thing, regardless of Abstinence-only vs Abstinence-plus education. The difference between the two is that Abstinence-plus education is more likely to better inform a young person about the risks of sexual intimacy so that they may better protect themselves against the consequences.

Roy Zimmerman goodness

I've been going through the Roy Zimmerman music vids on Youtube - He's got such a great way of pointing out idiocy. His throwaway line about Abstinence only education was very good. ("Teaching 'Abstinence Only' education is like teaching 'Just Hold It' potty training.")

I think this is probably my favorite:



Okay, Roy is going on my Amazon Wish List

Let's examine the proof that Abstinence Only education programs actually work

I have a long post today that was spurred by the article that Abstinence Only education doesn't work. How odd - religious conservatives keep saying that it DOES work - so I wanted to find out why they would say such a thing. I decided to see if my favorite religious fundamentalist lobbying organization could shed some light.

Tony Perkins, President of James Dobson’s Christian lobbying organization “Family Research Council”, is a big advocate of Abstinence Only education programs for teens and pre-teens in public schools. On 23 March ’07 he wrote on FRC.com:

… stacks of peer-reviewed research are showing the direct impact of abstinence education, including a peer-reviewed study on America's largest and oldest abstinence program, Best Friends.

In Adolescent and Family Health, Dr. Robert Lerner's analysis of urban D.C. participants found that, "Despite the fact that [these students come from schools that]... are located in Wards that have higher rates of out-of-wedlock births, girls who attended the program are substantially less likely to...have sex than a comparable sample... The relative odds of 120 to 1 of a [high school] Diamond Girl abstaining from sex is a result so strong that it is unheard of in practically any empirical research."

“Stacks of peer-reviewed research” validate Abstinence Only education according to Mr. Perkins. This is the opposite of what is reported in March 8th’s edition of CitizenLink.com, a news publication of James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family”. This edition of CitizenLink quotes Linda Klepacki, R.N., M.P.H., who is an analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action:

What they are saying is that, in order to be medically and scientifically accurate, you must be verified and supported in your research by peer review," she said. "Abstinence education cannot get into peer-review journals because the journals are controlled by far-left liberal organizations that do not allow us to publish. That automatically eliminates abstinence-only education, from their standpoint.

How odd. Is it just me, or does it seem like Dobson’s left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing? Are there really stacks of peer-review proof that Abstinence Only education really works, or are all the evil secular progressives using their Black Helicopters to prevent the overwhelming evidence from being reviewed in Lancet or Science?

And what about the peer-review journal, Adolescent and Family Health? I decided to do a little research on the AFH journal. It would seem to me that a good way to make sure that a peer-reviewed journal is unbiased is to check on who runs it, who supports it, and how long the journal has been in business. So I started with the AFH ethics policy which states that:

A conflict of interest may arise when an individual, organization, or other entity has the opportunity to benefit either by monetary gain, employment, or policy position, from an article published through the Journal.

There is no mention of conflicts of interest due to religious idealism. This journal doesn’t seem to care that research may be accepted or rejected due to purely religious preconceptions.

The Editor in Chief of the AFH journal is Doctor Alma L. Golden. In order to hold this position Dr. Golden should have no political bias or scientific preconceptions so that she may evaluate all research with an open mind. Unfortunately Dr. Golden has a history of bias and preconception. Dr. Golden developed a taste for politics as an advocate for children’s health insurance in Texas. She then became a founder of the abstinence advocacy group, S.A.G.E. Advice. As the medical director and presenter of S.A.G.E. Advice, Dr. Golden not only advocated Abstinence Only, but also discouraged teaching the use of condoms. (Powerpoint link to S.A.G.E. presentation by Dr. Golden.)

S.A.G.E. Advice incorporated in 2001 as a non-profit group and started receiving large grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is suspiciously odd that in October 2002, Dr. Golden was appointed to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (DASPA). According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

Dr. Golden [will oversee] the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) within [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] Office of Public Health and Science. OPA advises the Secretary and Assistant Secretary for Health on a wide range of reproductive health topics, including adolescent pregnancy, family planning and other population issues. OPA also provides policy and administrative direction for the Title X Family Planning Program and the Title XX Adolescent Family Life Program.

Is this a conflict of interest? Louise Witt, in an article in the April 14th edition of Salon points out the conflict of allowing an Abstinence Only advocate to oversee the OPA:

The Office of Population Affairs oversees Title X, which provides federal funds for family planning and reproductive health services, and Title XX, which funds research and projects on teens' sexual issues. In Bush's 2003 fiscal budget, the administration requested a 33 percent increase, or a total of $135 million, for the office's community-based abstinence-until-marriage programs. As one lobbyist for a women's health group put it: "It's the fox guarding the chicken coop."

Well, the person who runs the journal of Adolescent and Family Health certainly seems biased to me. How about the people who support it? According to their website, AFH is a journal for the Institute for Youth Development (IYD), which was founded by Shepherd Smith and his wife Anita. Mr. Smith testified before the House of Representatives in March of 2003 in order to advocate Faith-Based Abstinence Only education and to discourage the promotion of condoms.

According to the IYD overview:

Since its inception, the Institute for Youth Development has been dedicated to ensuring the best possible future for America’s youth through the promotion of a risk avoidance message regarding five unhealthy risk behaviors: drugs, alcohol, sex, violence and tobacco.

“Risk avoidance” seems to be another way of saying “abstinence” to me. And the IYD agrees on its FAQ page:

IYD supports a comprehensive approach to sexual abstinence. In fact, we believe that the abstinence approach should apply to all risk behaviors associated with the use of alcohol, drugs, tobacco and violence.

The IYD FAQ page even has a blurb on the effectiveness of Abstinence education:

IYD believes that abstinence is indeed an effective approach to addressing adolescent sexuality. This message is being embraced by teens throughout the nation as evidenced by the 2001 Centers for Disease Control Youth Surveillance Survey. This survey indicated that 54% of teens have not had sex as compared to 45% in 1990. So, the survey indicates that teens are choosing to abstain from sexual activity. This year, the CDC reported that birth rates for unmarried teenagers continued to decline. Teens that choose abstinence are totally protected from the consequences that can dramatically alter their lives and their futures.

This blurb is very misleading. The IYD is quoting from the CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” a survey of trends in America. The survey they quote from is the “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance” survey. By comparing two of these surveys the IYD notices that sexual activity among adolescents declined, which resulted in fewer births. There is no indication of why there was a reduction of sexual activity – but Abstinence Only advocates are quick to take credit for it, and the IYD quotes it as an “effective approach.” This seems circular to me.

The people who run the journal, Adolescent and Family Health seem biased to me, as does the organization that supports it. So how long has the journal been in business? The journal’s welcome letter is dated January 2nd, 2001 and is published twice a year. After 2003 publishing of the journal becomes erratic. The last dated issue was in 2005. There is one undated issue after that. You can see the issues here, but you'll need a free registration to read their abstracts.

So what about the “Stacks of peer-reviewed research” that Tony Perkins writes about? Well, there seems to be only one. In Volume 3, Number 4 of the AFH journal, a submission by Dr. Robert Lerner is titled, “Can Abstinence Work? An Analysis of the Best Friends Program.” The full text of this particular article can be read under a free registration, even thought the other articles must be read under a paid subscription. How odd - this feels like a magician's force to me.

I’m not a statistician, nor am I a psychologist or medical doctor. I am somewhat familiar with peer-reviewed articles and basic laboratory procedures. So perhaps I’m being arrogant when I say that this submission reeks of poor science. Perhaps someone could check me on this.

A good way to judge that the results are sound is to examine the methodology, here is what I've found. The Best Friends program for girls was founded in 1987 and runs in over a hundred schools across the USA. Instead of analyzing the program in all of these schools, Dr. Lerner restricts his analysis to those in Washington DC only. Dr. Lerner doesn’t randomly pick test subjects and control subjects, instead he picks schools that have more or less comprehensive data. The Best Friends program requires students to fill out data sheets at the beginning of the program and the end of the year. Dr. Lerner compares this data to the state’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS) for the District of Columbia; this seems to be his control group’s data. Dr. Lerner never indicates how many students are in his study at any point. The Best Friends program data is self-reported by the students, there is no discussion about adjusting that data for reporting bias, and there was never even the thought of an attempt to gather original, neutral data for the purpose of analysis.

At this point, I can see that Dr. Lerner’s data is nothing more than the purest shit, absolutely useless for science. But Dr. Lerner goes off on several pages of text and tables, performing statistical masturbation. With this sort of scholarship, it is no wonder that Dr. Lerner's article didn't make it into a more mainstream publication like Lancet or Science. This article would have rightly been rejected out of hand as substandard by any of my laboratory professors.


And this is it. This is the often cited but never discussed peer-reviewed killer study that shows that Abstinence Only education works, that Abstinence Only is the only way to educate adolescents. This is nothing more than junk science in a biased journal supported by religious flunkies with a religious and political agenda.

The amount of dishonesty here should be astonishing, if it were not so common among religious conservatives.

Blogger for James Dobson’s Family Research Counsel can’t tell the difference between shop class and sex ed class

I’ve mentioned before the problem with abstinence-only sex education is that it really doesn’t teach anything about sex other than students should be “against it”. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when one of James Dobson’s crew gets sex education mixed up with shop class.

The big story going around right now is about two sixth-graders at the Warren Township's Raymond Park Middle School who had sex while in shop class, with a teacher present. I can understand how a shop teacher might miss such a thing, not only are class sizes too large but as I recall from my 7th grade wood shop class it was a very noisy environment, with big bench desks and lots of equipment to hide behind. If the instructor is busy cutting up pieces of wood on a table saw, wearing goggles and ear protection, it would be easy to miss other “activity” in the class.

Of course, the school district’s biggest mistake was trying to cover it up. From the news article:

Middle school students having sex in a busy classroom while a teacher is present? Warren Township Associate Superintendent Jeff Swensson confirmed it's true. It's been kept under wraps since November.
…

"Two students were involved in inappropriate conduct in a lab class last semester. We have investigated the matter and taken appropriate action. The school corporation considers the matter closed and will have no further comment."

Associate Superintendent Jeff Swensson told Eyewitness News off camera the teacher didn't know what was going on because another student acted as a "look-out." But once the teacher discovered the behavior, immediate action was taken. Swensson says the students involved were recommended for expulsion. But he did not say whether the board followed that recommendation.

And now we come to Dobson’s FRC errand-boy, Jordan Flournoy, who says:

In Indianapolis, Indiana, middle school "sex education" has reached an entirely new plateau. What for months remained a jealously guarded secret at Warren Township’s Raymond Park Middle School has now been shockingly exposed: Two 6th grade students engaged in sexual intercourse during class – under the nose of an oblivious teacher.

At the middle school, so-called “shop class” afforded the students the opportunity of learning through experience. Apparently books simply aren’t realistic enough for certain subjects.

Oh my – of course, it is all the problem of that darned “Liberal” sex education classes! Why didn’t I see this before? If they had been taught “Religious” sex education then sex would have never occurred in this classroom because the dear children would have never realized that “Tab A” goes into “Slot B”. Ignorance is Power!

Flournoy continues:

We have a serious problem on our hands when the instructors of America’s next generation are sanctioning public “educational” sexual intercourse. Have our moral sensibilities been desensitized to the point that we no longer assent to even the most basic codes of ethics?

First, speaking as an Atheist, I find it highly immoral that the school district kept a lid on this. I have to wonder if the parents knew? Did the district inform them? The teacher's failure to notice isn't nearly as damning (metaphorically speaking) as the resulting cover up by school and district.

Second, speaking as an ex sixth-grader, and as someone who had wood shop in Junior High and in High School; teachers who pay attention to the students while doing several cuts on a table saw soon end up with fewer fingers. Speaking as a geeky nerd, I can assure you that students in a wood shop class would take this sort of opportunity to pick on the geeky nerds in the class. If my wood shop classes had girls in them it might have distracted the students who picked on the geeky nerds.

I think this problem could be solved with an extra teacher in the class. It only makes sense anyway – the equipment can be life-threatening, and an extra teacher trained in first aid and CPR might make all the difference. High schools have assistant coaches, why not assistant shop teachers?

I also think that Floumoy is demonstrating the inherent dishonesty of Christian fundamentalism with his condemnation of sex education. By conflating an out-of-control classroom situation with (non-religious) sex education he gets a lot of mileage from innuendo and hand waving. And he doesn’t even consider that his premise may be incorrect - perhaps Raymond Park Middle School uses abstinence only sex education, perhaps not. I don’t know for sure.

And I’m fairly certain that Floumoy doesn’t know either.

Fundamentalists eating their own over global warming

Evangelical lobbyist Richard Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is getting his hand slapped by members of the Arlington Group for his statements about Global Climate Change and Population Control. Cizik recently told the media that it is indisputable that human activity has contributed to global warming and has encouraged evangelicals to make it a top issue.

The NAE president used to be, until very recently, the Reverend Ted Haggard, who you may recall stepped down after being exposed as an idiot by Richard Dawkins and as a hypocrite by a male prostitute. Haggard’s knowledge of nature and the scientific method were both shown to be lacking in his talk with Dawkins, so I’m not surprised that the NAE has shown similar scholarship and has chastised Cizik for saying that climate change and overpopulation were things that we should all worry about.

But the NAE isn’t doing enough, so yesterday our fun loving Arlington Group members wrote a polite letter to the NAE calling for Cizik’s resignation. From the letter: (PDF link)

Mr. Cizik not only believes that global warming is an indisputable fact, but he also holds related views that he has not been willing to reveal to the membership at large. In an alarming speech he delivered to the World Bank in May of 2006, he said: “I’d like to take on the population issue, but in my community global warming is the third rail issue. I’ve touched the third rail but still have a job. And I’ll still have a job after my talk here today. But population is a much more dangerous issue to touch. We need to confront population control and we can -- we’re not Roman Catholics, after all, but it’s too hot to handle now.” We ask, how is population control going to be achieved if not by promoting abortion, the distribution of condoms to the young, and, even by infanticide in China and elsewhere? Is this where Richard Cizik would lead us?

Finally, Cizik’s disturbing views seem to be contributing to growing confusion about the very term, “evangelical.” As a recent USA Today article notes: “Evangelical was the label of choice of Christians with conservative views on politics, economics and biblical morality. Now the word may be losing its moorings, sliding toward the same linguistic demise that “fundamentalist” met decades ago because it has been misunderstood, misappropriated and maligned.” We believe some of that misunderstanding about evangelicalism and its “conservative views on politics, economics and biblical morality” can be laid at Richard Cizik’s door.

Infanticide? Okay, yes I know that the "one child" rule in China has resulted in infanticide for baby girls, but honestly, are these people asking if Cizik will promote infanticide? What kind of slippery-slope mudslinging is that? Still it's nice to see Christians flinging mud at each other for a change.

Oh dear. The fundamentalists don’t like the label anymore, and now they are worried that Cizik will mess up their cherished label of “evangelical”. I’ve got news; fundamental religious groups are going to be seen as nutty as long as they continue to preach against science, against human rights, and as long as they keep turning a blind eye toward the environment while sitting in the hip pocket of political leaders who successfully pander to religion and big oil at the same time.

There is no misunderstanding about evangelical fundamentalists – I understand quite well that you have “faith” in knowing what is best for me. Who knew Big Brother would carry a cross?

I can only hope that these religious groups continue to attack each other like this. It helps me in my small bid to make the world a better place when these religious groups start eating their own.

The false dilemma of the "Gum Game" - Abstinence and sex education.

I’m getting so tired of conservative religious black and white thinking. I have friends and strangers both tell me that what I call a system of rational thinking will inevitably lead to horrors. The popular belief is that if anyone gives immorality an inch, it will take a yard. And then they define what is or is not immoral.

Recently a county in Maryland halted a faith-based abstinence only education program that was taught in high schools there. They halted the program because part of the lesson contained the “gum game”, where students were asked to chew the same piece of gum. This was in an attempt to show that students would succumb to peer pressure, even when they were sharing mouth germs in gum. The sharing was strictly voluntary, and I assume that students with bleeding gums were excluded. The germs were no different than those you get while kissing.

One of the parents of a Montgomery County student was overcome by the ‘ick’ factor and complained, resulting in the halting of all abstinence only education from groups who used this game. Of course the religious crowd who believes they have a divine right to tell you and me how to live has bemoaned throwing the baby out with the bathwater – they acknowledge the game is unsanitary and shouldn’t be used, (even though it didn’t bother them for the last 9 years) but say they should still be allowed to teach abstinence.

The gum game analogy shows the weakness of black and white religious thinking. The message is supposed to be, “You wouldn’t share gum germs with everyone in the class, so why would you share sex with everyone in the class?”

The gum game analogy doesn’t follow the analogy to other possible, equally valid conclusions. Perhaps an individual could vigorously chew his or her own gum – as Dr. Joycelyn Elders famously suggested. Perhaps we could share gum when it is wrapped inside a protective, disposable plastic envelope. Yes, it won’t taste the same, and won’t be quite as fun, but it is sure better than sharing germs with an unknown person. Besides, I'm sure someone would invent flavored plastic envelopes with intriguing shapes and textures.

Perhaps we should get to know the person we are sharing the gum with, wait a while, learn to ask detailed background questions, talk to their friends and family, until you feel you can trust they haven’t been sharing gum with other people. Perhaps we can start a program of voluntarily and frequently testing the gum for germs.

You can see that I don’t have a very high opinion of this analogy. And my opinion of religious based sex education is also pretty low – it is a sort of oxymoron in the same vein as “jumbo shrimp” or “military intelligence”. Faith-based sex education teaches nothing about sex, instead sex is defined as a boogeyman and students are warned away. Everyone is supposed to grow up to become the mythical Television married couple. Loving, devoted mother and father who sleep in separate beds and never ever mention sex. Kids are supposed to find out about sex the old fashioned way – on the street or behind the shed with the bra section of the JC Penney catalog.


I have no problem telling kids to wait to have sex. A lot of young adults, even high school graduates, are not emotionally mature enough to handle a sexual relationship without the risk of incurring emotional, psychological damage. Some of the most vulnerable young adults don’t realize that they are vulnerable – and they need the strength and the encouragement of being told that it is okay to wait.

But the urge to mate is hormonal, and it is a formidable force for young people. The reality is that many will not be able to wait. The opportunity will present itself. Young people are likely to make poor decisions and to not foresee consequences to their actions. We can lay the foundations to protect young people even in these situations, by giving them the tools to evaluate their partners, by providing ways to protect themselves when they are awash in a tidal wave of hormones.

Carrying a condom isn’t a license to have sex anymore than wearing a seatbelt is a license to crash. You give a young person a helmet; you don’t forbid him to skateboard.

And speaking from experience, under the right conditions sharing gum is not only okay, it’s a lot of fun.

Abstinence works every time it's used - which isn't often.

I know a very religious person who once told me that he didn't believe in teaching 'safe sex'. To him, it meant teaching promiscuity. My understanding of his position on this matter is that he refuses to teach his children about condoms, birth control, and sexual responsibilities.

His method of teaching his children about sex included teaching them about sexually transmitted diseases, and abstinence until marriage. I rather doubt that he defined sex to his kids - which would allow his kids to use President Clinton's definition of sex.

I asked him what he proposed to do about the spread of AIDS in the world - his answer is that abstinence works every time it's used.

I agree completely.

The problem is that kids who pledge abstinence until marriage tend to 'forget' in the heat of the moment, and suddenly find out that they are ill prepared to cope.

The Harvard School of Public Health just posted a press release about an analysis of data taken from a premarital sex survey. The official publication is in the June edition of American Journal of Public Health, a peer-reviewed science journal. I've found some of the statements in the press release very interesting.

• Adolescents who sign a virginity pledge and then go on to have premarital sex are likely to disavow having signed such a pledge.
• Adolescents who have already had sex and then decide to sign a virginity pledge are likely to lie about their earlier sexual history.
• Adolescents who have signed a virginity pledge after having been sexually active will underestimate the risk of sexually transmitted diseases from their previous sexual behavior. They tend to believe that they are no longer a risk of carrying STDs. Since these adolescents on average had at least two sexual partners before signing a pledge, their belief of being STD free is unfounded, and perhaps dangerous to future sexual partners.
• The majority of Adolescents who make a virginity pledge recant their vows within a year.

The conclusion seems to be that you can't trust adolescents to accurately self-report their history of sexual intercourse. And you can't trust adolescents to maintain their virginity pledges.

Ronald Regan coined the phrase, "Trust, but verify." Perhaps we should coin a phrase in the same vein, "Sign a virginity pledge, but carry a fresh condom in your wallet anyway."

Perhaps it could save a kid's life.

Religious Double Standards

Those kooky creeps at the Westboro Baptist Church are at it again - but they've finally found a target that may get them banned.

The Fred Phelps cult is usually known for protesting at funerals in the LGBT community, gleefully announcing to horrified family and guests that their loved one has arrived in Hell. Their behavior is childishly disgusting and absolutely immoral - but local governments have done little to prevent their antics.

Today, Phelpers are planning on protesting at Coretta Scott King's funeral because she endorsed, "the homosexual agenda." As despicable as this is, it probably isn't enough to cause any real action from our government. Personally, I think WBC will not get as strong a reaction as they received when protesting at the funeral of Fred Rogers.

And it's really no wonder. Even though religious authorities in America have been uneasy with Phelps' hate speech they have done little about it as long as Phelps focused on protesting at gay funerals. The lack of a political outcry from organizations such as Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, or James Dobson's Focus on the Family is understandable because a message against Phelps would obviously be insincere. These organizations clearly agree with Phelps' sentiments, even as they try to distance themselves from his kookiness.

But now the WBC whackos are protesting at military funerals, and state governments are rushing through legislation to make their antics illegal. I find it interesting that legislators called WBC protests "free speech" at a gay funeral, but are willing to call it a crime when they protest a fallen soldier. Families of both deserve respect during their grief - the difference here isn't soldier versus gay, it is the number of angry voters demanding action.

Religious double standards seem to be fairly common in America.

When ex-judge (and current candidate for Governor in Alabama) Roy Moore used up his 15 minutes of fame during the 10 Commandments monument incident, Fred Phelps attempted to put his Matthew Sheppard hate monuments alongside 10 Commandment monuments around the nation, saying that since a 10 Commandments monument was legal, the WBC hate monument should also be legal. It was interesting to watch religious legislators tap dance as they tried to write laws that would allow the display of religious 10 Commandments monuments while disallowing the display of the equally religious Westboro Baptist Church monuments. Phelps' actions clearly demonstrated why a 10 Commandments monument is usually unconstitutional and illegal.

Another more recent example of this religious double standard is Bush earmarking federal AIDS funding for religious organizations. Groups who promote condom use in order to reduce the risk of AIDS are required to include information on abstinence and fidelity in order to qualify for this federal money. Those religious groups who preach abstinence only are not required to give out information on the effectiveness of condoms in order to receive this money.

Westboro Baptist Church should apply for federal funding - they also teach abstinence only.