Lowry’s losin’ it
Rich Lowry’s propaganda piece, “Is chastity cool?” [Right Turn, March 16], manages to both distort the few facts that are provided while also completely failing to address findings that run counter to his conservative agenda.
While Lowry admits, “it is difficult to disentangle the causes of the current trend towards less teenage sexual activity,” he proceeds to make the wholly unsubstantiated claim that, “a greater appreciation for abstinence” and the subsequent funding of Bush’s abstinence-based sex “education” programs should get the kudos for the reported decrease in teen sexual activity.
The facts simply do not support this argument. For instance, the average age of first intercourse in the United States is similar to Sweden, Canada, England and the Netherlands. Yet all of those countries—which all unequivocally promote comprehensive sex education programs and access to contraception—have teen pregnancy rates far lower than ours.
Likewise, studies of abstinence programs show that they simply don’t work. After the implementation of an abstinence-only curriculum, the Lubbock, Texas, public school system became No. 1 in that state for both teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) rates. Similarly, a report released recently by the Centers for Disease Control found that virginity pledges (the bread and butter of many abstinence programs) have no impact on the rates of STDs. A related study found that teens who made such pledges were 30 percent less likely to use condoms when eventually engaging in sex.
Lowry closes with this: “We are [the problem], in the way we havetold teens it is O.K. to give away their bodies, and their spirits, so easily.” The only spirit Lowry cares about defending is of the holy variety. Lowry, like Bush, does not care if kids get quality information about sexuality. They only care about promoting a conservative Christian culture in which sex is only permitted between a man and a woman in wedlock—and even that’s dirty if you’re doin’ it outside of the missionary position.
If the Christian Right cared about the well-being of young people they would cease their campaigns of silence and disinformation about methods of contraception (see Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times article, “The Secret War on Condoms”), and instead vigorously promote education about HIV/AIDS, rape and contraception—including abstinence—as well as provide tutoring and job skills. The day I see that happen under these Christian-supremacists is the day I’ll pledge to be a born-again virgin.
Brad Perry
Charlottesville
Correction
In last week’s On the Record, Catherine De Neuf was reported as living in Scottsville. She now lives in Charlottesville.