Arkansas GOP Voted To Ax Sex Ed In State With Highest Teen Pregnancy Rate

[Indy Texas]

Is there something about Southern politicians that makes them so opposed to measures to prevent women from birthing too many unwanted babies?

When George H. W. Bush was in Congress in the 1960s, he was a very enthusiastic family planning advocate and a group of mostly Democratic Southern congressmen used to call him "Rubbers" behind his back as a result.

Clearly this is not a recent development that can be blamed on Tea Partyism.

[Indy Texas]

To play devils advocate for the moment, Planned Parenthood, and its involvement with providing abortion services, is a tangled web indeed. This may have been more about animus to that organization for its abortion enmeshment, and less about Sex Ed and disease prevention. Planned Parenthood should really spin off its abortion activities into a separate organization, with a separate name. Of course, abortions is where the money is, so bifurcation is probably not in the cards, and this will be an issue that simply will not go away, the way gay marriage will go away over time as an active issue.

Or maybe the "pro-life" alternatives to Planned Parenthood that these states want to get the funding instead should actually provide family planning services. Crisis pregnancy centers are not an acceptable alternative to Planned Parenthood from a public health standpoint. They don't provide birth control or treatment for STDs or women's health issues like breast cancer. All they do is tell pregnant women not to kill their baby and send them on their merry way. They do nothing to lower the likelihood of these women becoming pregnant again or help them in managing their health.

I would have less of a problem with this kind of thing if the pro-lifers were willing to create what was essentially a clone of Planned Parenthood minus the abortion services. But they have no interest in doing that. Because they really don't care about public health. They see STDs and unplanned pregnancies as God's punishment for fornication.

[Indy Texas]

To play devils advocate for the moment, Planned Parenthood, and its involvement with providing abortion services, is a tangled web indeed. This may have been more about animus to that organization for its abortion enmeshment, and less about Sex Ed and disease prevention. Planned Parenthood should really spin off its abortion activities into a separate organization, with a separate name. Of course, abortions is where the money is, so bifurcation is probably not in the cards, and this will be an issue that simply will not go away, the way gay marriage will go away over time as an active issue.

Or maybe the "pro-life" alternatives to Planned Parenthood that these states want to get the funding instead should actually provide family planning services. Crisis pregnancy centers are not an acceptable alternative to Planned Parenthood from a public health standpoint. They don't provide birth control or treatment for STDs or women's health issues like breast cancer. All they do is tell pregnant women not to kill their baby and send them on their merry way. They do nothing to lower the likelihood of these women becoming pregnant again or help them in managing their health.

I would have less of a problem with this kind of thing if the pro-lifers were willing to create what was essentially a clone of Planned Parenthood minus the abortion services. But they have no interest in doing that. Because they really don't care about public health. They see STDs and unplanned pregnancies as God's punishment for fornication.

Yeah, they are so convinced that new mothers are under God's punishment that they offer free services such prenatal care, childcare supplies, emotional and relational counseling, parenting classes, various referrals for social support and yes, in some cases, comprehensive sex ed.   They do all this relying on donations and volunteers rather than government funding and proceeds from abortion.  But they don't spend their meager resources on providing birth control because they just hate women that much.

Why haven't they figured out that if they spent more of their meager resources on birth control, they wouldn't have to spend as much on the things you mentioned - all of which are only necessary after someone has already become pregnant?

It infuriates these people that there are people who think of sex as anything but a means for baby-making. Even married people who choose not to have children are suspect to them. They know that they can't stop people from having sex, but by making it harder to access birth control, they can take as much of the "fun" out of it as possible.