Legalize Abortion?

[mannyamador]

---

European Committee Upholds Pro-Abstinence *** Education Program
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09082509.html]

Excerpt:

STRASBOURG, France, August 25, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The body that polices compliance with the European Social Charter, a human rights document binding on all states within the Council of Europe, has deemed a pro-abstinence *** education program used in many Croatian schools to be acceptable.

Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Roger Kiska represented the organization that produced the curriculum, which provided his briefs to the government of Croatia to aid in its defense of the program, preferred by the vast majority of Croatian families over a radically leftist option.

"Parents should be the ones responsible for making educational choices for their children - not leftist activist groups," said Kriska. "We are pleased that the European Committee for Social Rights has upheld the right for parents to choose an option that does not violate the core religious and moral beliefs of these families.

"Had the groups that filed suit prevailed in their attack on this immensely popular program, the ramifications upon all of Europe and beyond could have been enormous."

More info on abstinence and purity education for the youth at
True Love Waits Philippines

PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS. NO TO THE COERCIVE, ABORTIFACIENT-PROMOTING RH BILL (HB 5043).
Please sign the petition AGAINST the so-called Reproductive Health Bill (HB5043)

[giddyboy]

The RH Bill does not intend to promote contraceptives only. it intends to promote both abstinence and contraceptives.

The RH Bill is not only about contraceptives or abstinence. It is principally about rights, health, and sustainable development.

In the Uganda case, manny is just twisting the facts. Though abstinence and fidelity is being emphasized in their RH programs, they did not eliminate the distribution of condoms and contraceptives.

That made their RH program successful. you see, abstinence is not an option for all women. Abstinence cannot prevent HIV-infected husbands infecting their wife. and though not 100% effective, the condom can.

and even if we duplicate the successful Uganda case, still these deceptive pro-lifers want to oppose it. why? they only want abstinence type of family planning, leaving no other option for women.

bsan gani sa s3x education, they only want abstinence-only education and not a combination of abstinence and family planning education. they want to deny the US Congress findings that abstinence-only ed showed little success. Proof of that is Obama eliminated funding for it and replaced it w/ a combination education.

ang nka pait pa gyud aning mga tawhana is that they even claim that they have the support of many istoryans. they claim that those istoryans voting for NO to their misleading poll question above means they are also saying NO to the RH Bill when in fact all they're voting is NO to abortion but not NO to the RH Bill.

NO TO ABORTION!
YES TO THE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH BILL!!!

[mannyamador]

The RH Bill does not intend to promote contraceptives only. it intends to promote both abstinence and contraceptives.

The why does it fund only artificial contraceptive methods? Why are doctors FORCED to dispense artificial contraceptives but not NFP ?

It is principally about rights, health, and sustainable development.

How can it address sustainable development if it relies on the a myth: "overpopulation"?

How can the RH Bill be about righs when it VIOLATES our constitutional rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, parents' rights, and freedom of religion?

In the Uganda case, manny is just twisting the facts. Though abstinence and fidelity is being emphasized in their RH programs, they did not eliminate the distribution of condoms and contraceptives.

Giddyboy is a LIAR.

The studies show that the condom portion actually was COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. it resulted in MORE HIV/AIDS infections. But these were overcome by the facft that abstinence and fidelity were very effective. That is why Dr. Gren did NOT recommend condoms in the AIDS prevention programs.

Please note Dr. Green's statement:

"There is," Green added, "a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded 'Demographic Health Surveys,' between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction 'technology' such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by 'compensating' or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology."

What part of "There is a consistent association... between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates" don't you understand?

In his study, "A Framework of Sexual Partnerships: Risks and Implications for HIV Prevention in Africa," Green and others conluded:

"Declines in HIV prevalence have been associated with reductions in numbers of *** partners, whereas many other prevention strategies have not been demonstrated to reduce HIV transmission at a population level."

What part of that can't you understand?

The evidence is clear: large scale condom use leads to risk compensation and results in MORE HIV infections.

bsan gani sa s3x education, they only want abstinence-only education and not a combination of abstinence and family planning education.

That is because we are guided by SCIENCE, not politics and ideology. The studies have shown that abstinence-only eduction works. Combining it with contraceptive-based s3x education does NOT work.

Again, the scientific evidence contradicts your claims. I have compiled some of this evidence before in the following post:

https://www.istorya.net/forums/politi...ml#post5381029

You, of course, just ignored the evidence -- as usual. Instead, you resorted to a logical fallacy -- argumentum ad verecundiam -- by mentioning the Obama admin's reputation but offering ZERO evidence!



“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” Proverbs 24:11
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute." Proverbs 31:8
Please sign the petition AGAINST the so-called Reproductive Health Bill (HB5043)

[cebulifer]

Found Dr. Green's article. Highlighted portions are important.
Washington Post Article

The Pope May Be Right
By Edward C. Green
Sunday, March 29, 2009;

When Pope Benedict XVI commented this month that condom distribution isn't helping, and may be worsening, the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, he set off a firestorm of protest. Most non-Catholic commentary has been highly critical of the pope. A cartoon in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reprinted in The Post, showed the pope somewhat ghoulishly praising a throng of sick and dying Africans: "Blessed are the sick, for they have not used condoms."

Yet, in truth, current empirical evidence supports him.

We liberals who work in the fields of global HIV/AIDS and family planning take terrible professional risks if we side with the pope on a divisive topic such as this. The condom has become a symbol of freedom and -- along with contraception -- female emancipation, so those who question condom orthodoxy are accused of being against these causes. My comments are only about the question of condoms working to stem the spread of AIDS in Africa's generalized epidemics -- nowhere else.



In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations' AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.) Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa. In a 2008 article in Science called "Reassessing HIV Prevention" 10 AIDS experts concluded that "consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa."



Let me quickly add that condom promotion has worked in countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, where most HIV is transmitted through commercial *** and where it has been possible to enforce a 100 percent condom use policy in brothels (but not outside of them). In theory, condom promotions ought to work everywhere. And intuitively, some condom use ought to be better than no use. But that's not what the research in Africa shows.

Why not?

One reason is "risk compensation." That is, when people think they're made safe by using condoms at least some of the time, they actually engage in riskier ***.

Another factor is that people seldom use condoms in steady relationships because doing so would imply a lack of trust. (And if condom use rates go up, it's possible we are seeing an increase of casual or commercial ***.) However, it's those ongoing relationships that drive Africa's worst epidemics. In these, most HIV infections are found in general populations, not in high-risk groups such as *** workers, gay men or persons who inject drugs. And in significant proportions of African populations, people have two or more regular *** partners who overlap in time. In Botswana, which has one of the world's highest HIV rates, 43 percent of men and 17 percent of women surveyed had two or more regular *** partners in the previous year.

These ongoing multiple concurrent *** partnerships resemble a giant, invisible web of relationships through which HIV/AIDS spreads. A study in Malawi showed that even though the average number of sexual partners was only slightly over two, fully two-thirds of this population was interconnected through such networks of overlapping, ongoing relationships.

So what has worked in Africa? Strategies that break up these multiple and concurrent sexual networks -- or, in plain language, faithful mutual monogamy or at least reduction in numbers of partners, especially concurrent ones. "Closed" or faithful polygamy can work as well.

In Uganda's early, largely home-grown AIDS program, which began in 1986, the focus was on "Sticking to One Partner" or "Zero Grazing" (which meant remaining faithful within a polygamous marriage) and "Loving Faithfully." These simple messages worked. More recently, the two countries with the highest HIV infection rates, Swaziland and Botswana, have both launched campaigns that discourage people from having multiple and concurrent sexual partners.

Don't misunderstand me; I am not anti-condom. All people should have full access to condoms, and condoms should always be a backup strategy for those who will not or cannot remain in a mutually faithful relationship. This was a key point in a 2004 "consensus statement" published and endorsed by some 150 global AIDS experts, including representatives the United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank. These experts also affirmed that for sexually active adults, the first priority should be to promote mutual fidelity. Moreover, liberals and conservatives agree that condoms cannot address challenges that remain critical in Africa such as cross-generational ***, gender inequality and an end to domestic violence, rape and sexual coercion.

Surely it's time to start providing more evidence-based AIDS prevention in Africa.

[unsay_ngalan_nimo]

kay dili man gud kapalit uban ug pills... sa abtinence ug monogamy unsa pa man kahinnaglan palitun sa gobyerno kung di fliers and leaflets and seminars...

[mannyamador]

This is the kind of "age-appropriate s3x education" we can expect from the pro-RH fanatics.

European Committee Upholds Pro-Abstinence *** Education Program
European Committee Upholds Pro-Abstinence *** Education Program

STRASBOURG, France, August 25, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The body that polices compliance with the European Social Charter, a human rights document binding on all states within the Council of Europe, has deemed a pro-abstinence *** education program used in many Croatian schools to be acceptable.

Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Roger Kiska represented the organization that produced the curriculum, which provided his briefs to the government of Croatia to aid in its defense of the program, preferred by the vast majority of Croatian families over a radically leftist option.

"Parents should be the ones responsible for making educational choices for their children - not leftist activist groups," said Kriska. "We are pleased that the European Committee for Social Rights has upheld the right for parents to choose an option that does not violate the core religious and moral beliefs of these families.

"Had the groups that filed suit prevailed in their attack on this immensely popular program, the ramifications upon all of Europe and beyond could have been enormous."

One of the articles of the European Social Charter on education and health has been interpreted to mean that all Council of Europe member states must provide mandatory "sexual education" to children, although the nature of the curriculum or the extent to which it is to be taught has not been well defined. Three abortion and feminist groups brought suit against Croatia claiming that a *** education curriculum preferred by most Croatian families violated the charter. The curriculum teaches that abstinence is the only guaranteed means of preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.

"The committee not only agreed that Croatia has cultural sovereignty over its moral issues, it also acknowledged the low prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies in Croatia as compared to the rest of Europe," Kiska explained. "The arguments of the groups attacking the program were politically motivated and had no credibility in demonstrating that the curriculum has resulted in any negative effects."

In its decision in International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights v. Croatia, the committee wrote that "it does not consider that the complainant organisation has adequately demonstrated that the education provided cannot reasonably fulfil the aim of raising awareness about sexual and reproductive health to the extent required by Article 11§2 of the Charter....

"The evidence at the Committee's disposal is insufficient to justify a conclusion that the sexual and reproductive health education overall is inadequate under Article 11§2 and in any event it has not been established by the statistical evidence or otherwise that Croatian girls are inordinately exposed to certain health risks."

The government of Croatia has since discontinued offering *** education curriculum itself, though the country is still obligated to the requirements of the charter.

[unsay_ngalan_nimo]

HPV na shot sa Europe kay ihatag for free to girls as young as 9 years old kaya dapat lang mag abstinence ila itudlo didto noh...

[mannyamador]

HPV na shot sa Europe kay ihatag for free to girls as young as 9 years old...

In case you have forgotten, HPV is a DISEASE while pregnancy is NOT. Contraceptives do not cure any disease. The use of artificial contraceptives is purely elective. There is also a cheap alternative that applies to almost all cases: Natural Family Planning.

So why should the government subsidize the WANTS of a few people while ignoring the real NEEDS of other people who die of real killer diseases? Most of the poor do NOT have access to medical facilities and real medicines.

It is IDIOTIC to provide free contraceptives when we cannot even provide enough medicines to cure the people suffering from the real diseases.

[unsay_ngalan_nimo]

In case you have forgotten, HPV is a DISEASE while pregnancy is NOT. Contraceptives do not cure any disease. The use of artificial contraceptives is purely elective. There is also a cheap alternative that applies to almost all cases: Natural Family Planning.

So why should the government subsidize the WANTS of a few people while ignoring the real NEEDS of other people who die of real killer diseases? Most of the pro do NOT have access to medical facilities and real medicines.

It is IDIOTIC to provide free contraceptives when we cannot even provide enough to address real diseases.

no manny what im trying to imply why they are giving it to girls as young as 9 its because as young as 9 years old manny their girls are very much active.. you did not get the catch...

[mannyamador]

And you did not get the point of the article: distributing condoms won't solve the problem. It will just make them more active since it implies the authorities do not expect them to abstain.

As has been proven over and over again, increased contraceptive usage leads to more unintended and teen pregnancies.

Abstinence programs, on the other hand, are far more EFFECTIVE.