American Apologies

Abstinence-only sex education in the United States teaches against usage of contraceptives, against pre-marital sex, and against teaching safe methods of sex to teenagers who will have it anyways. Sounds a bit like something heard in church youth groups, don’t you think? To make matters worse, these federally funded programs aren’t even effective. A 2010 report by the Guttmacher Institute, a division of Planned Parenthood (religious extremists hate them too), points out that pregnancy rates for teens 15-19 reversed their decline in 2006, near the peak of the Abstinence Only campaign in the United States. The idea that sexual intercourse should only occur within marriage also has serious implications for people for those that might not want to marry, or is unavailable as an option, such as with homosexuals living in places where same-sex marriage is not legal or socially acceptable. Abstinence-only sex education also distorts information about contraceptives, only revealing failure rates associated with their use, and ignoring discussion of their benefits. For more illustration, here’s a Daily Show video for your pleasure:

Do the names Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart, Natalee Holloway, or Runaway Bride mean anything to you? What about Romona Moore, Tamika Huston, or LaToyia Figueroa? Probably not as much I bet. The difference between the two is the first group consists of high-profile cases which involve a missing white woman and which get caught up in the mass media news circus, bringing what feels like an endless amount of attention. The second group, however, consists of much less reported but similarly disturbing cases involving missing minorities that went relatively ignored by the media. And that, in essence, is what is wrong with what is called “missing white woman syndrome”. It is certainly not wrong to bring attention to any missing person case, but the fact that the media gives a seriously disproportionate amount of time to cases involving white women rather than people in general is what’s incredibly offensive. And who knows how many cases could have been figured out earlier if they were given the same amount of effort and attention that the Runaway Bride got for her bullshit disappearance?