Birth Control

Why does it seem at times that our government and “public health” advocates think parents are a social problem? Parents at Hardy Middle School in the affluent Glover Park neighborhood in Washington, DC were shocked to discover that a sex-and-drug-use survey had been distributed to 12-year-olds in their physical education classes without any warnings or consent forms sent to parents. The first…

Calling media portrayals of sex "unhealthy," the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued new guidelines calling on all media outlets to present human sexuality in a healthy, scientifically accurate manner.At the same time, the group pomoted the use of contraceptives among teenagers and denigrated abstinence-only education. "There is a major disconnect between what mainstream media portray…

Dylan Ratigan's "Daily Rant" segment was a treasure trove of controversial statements today.  You be the judge of which statement rates higher on the controversy-meter:Ratigan's claim that the "default position" in the USA is to incarcerate black men rather than educate them; orBlogger Keli Goff's suggestion that to end the cycle of poverty among African-Americans, and to avoid burdening…

During live news coverage this afternoon, MSNBC's Chris Jansing demonstrated her apparent ignorance of the statistical maxim "correlation does not imply causation." Interviewing the authors of Red Families v. Blue Families, the daytime anchor gleefully reported the finding that states that voted Republican in the 2008 presidential election have higher rates of divorce, teen pregnancy, and unwed…

AOL News contributor Paul Wachter launched an inflammatory attack on Pope Benedict XVI in a Thursday post where he also defended recently-fired CNN editor Octavia Nasr for her eulogy of Hezbollah's spiritual leader. After hinting that the network "overreacted," Wachter suggested that CNN should also fire "anyone who speaks highly of the pope, who...has contributed to the deaths of millions from…

Should it be easier for your teenage daughter to get birth control pills without your knowledge? One Newsweek contributor thinks so. In a July 7 op-ed, Meredith Melnick praised the “movement” to make the Pill more accessible by making it available over the counter, in part because it would remove parents from the equation. “Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to access problems because it is…

Thursday's Washington Post Express tabloid carried the headline "Health Activists Eye World Cup." When the world "health" breaks in before "activist," sadly, you can often define that as a sly euphemism you could replace more accurately with "sex." Post reporter Liz Clarke offered an interesting definition of the tournament's most essential accessory, which isn't cleats or Gatorade or even…

Nearly two months ago, atheist feminist and PBS "To the Contrary" host Bonnie Erbe insisted that the pro-life movement is essentially a church pew-packing conspiracy:What is the religious right doing by campaigning against abortion? First and foremost, its efforts seem aimed at trying to keep church pews filled by bringing more and more poor people into the world.She's still at it. In her…

The 2010 World Cup opens in South Africa in a few weeks. As a sports event it is unrivaled in its popularity. It promises to bring a half-million soccer fans to that country. But it will also draw out the worst of the worst. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the economic promise of an expected half a million largely male incoming consumers is attracting a massive influx of prostitutes…

While the headline of this post is shocking, it will come as no surprise to those of us who know how strongly Obama supports abortion - to the point of infanticide. Apparently China's reprehensible one-child policy - with its forced abortion, forced sterilization, female feticide, and female infanticide - comes nowhere close to AZ's human rights violations of attempting to enforce…

The recent parade of praise for The Pill wasn't unanimous. Surprisingly, Raquel Welch, one of the hottest sex symbols of the 1970s, confessed in a commentary on CNN.com that she's been married four times, but she believes that too many women are too willing to "hook up" casually, since contraceptives make it "safe" to play the field:  One significant, and enduring, effect of The Pill on female…

The birth control pill was invented 50 years ago this month. CBS Nightly News anchor Katie Couric was all set to "break out the cake and streamers." But first, she wanted to inform her viewers of a pressing national need: federal subsidies for the pill. Seriously.Couric was distraught during her "Notebook" segment last night that, in her mind, not enough women have access to birth control. Her…

New York Times editor-turned-columnist Gail Collins's Saturday column celebrated the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill and waxed on birth-control activist Margaret Sanger for several paragraphs, without touching on Sanger's racism and support for eugenics. The online headline: "What Every Girl Should Know About Birth Control."Discussing purity crusader Anthony Comstock, Collins wrote:One…

On Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith commemorated the 50th anniversary of the invention of the birth control pill: "This week is the golden anniversary of the birth of birth control, a medical breakthrough that has changed society and the sexual landscape forever....'The Pill' promised to free women from biological bonds and it did just that." In a taped report, Smith described the…