Religious bias strikes out again.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 15, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 14 (AP) — Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.

Free Sex Zone? I Think Not.

Pakistani Islamists protest as new rape law signed.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Religious party activists held small protests on Friday in several cities around Pakistan as President Pervez Musharraf signed into law a bill curtailing the scope of Islamic laws on rape.

Islamist opposition lawmakers have threatened to resign from parliament over the issue, but protests held after the National Assembly passed the Women's Protection Bill earlier this month have failed to generate much public support.

The passage of the bill was seen as a test of Musharraf's commitment to his vision of "enlightened moderation," and a major battle in a long struggle between progressives and religious conservatives to set the course for this mainly Muslim nation.

The act takes the crime of rape out of the sphere of the religious laws, known as the Hudood Ordinances, and puts it under the penal code. Under the Hudood Ordinances, which were introduced by a military ruler in 1979, a rape victim had to produce four male witnesses to prove the crime, or face the possibility of prosecution for adultery. The change does away with that requirement and will allow convictions to be made on the basis of forensic and circumstantial evidence.

An Islamist opposition leader said it would turn conservative Pakistan into a "free sex zone."
Liberal groups and human rights activities have hailed the amendment, although they want a complete abolition of the Hudood Ordinances.

None So Blind As He Who Will Not See

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The dramatic declines in teenage pregnancy rates noted in the United States between 1995 and 2002 were largely due to improved contraceptive use, not to abstinence, a new study shows.

"The current emphasis of U.S. domestic and global policies, which stress abstinence-only sex education to the exclusion of accurate information on contraception, is misguided," warn doctors in a report just released online by the American Journal of Public Health.

Dr. John S. Santelli from Columbia University, New York, and colleagues examined the relative contribution of declining sexual activity and improved contraceptive use to the recent decline in pregnancy rates among U.S. women between the ages of 15 to 19 years. The data were derived from interviews with nearly 1400 women in 1995 and 1150 in 2002.

The investigators estimate that the likelihood of pregnancy in this age group declined 34 percent between 1995 and 2002, and that 86 percent of the decline in pregnancy risk was attributable to improved use of contraception. Reduced sexual activity explained only 14 percent of the decline in teen pregnancy.

Only in Bush's Christian America

Government censured on family planning policies


By Maggie Fox

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A congressional report has criticized the Bush administration for failing to check if federally funded abstinence-only programs actually work to curb teen sex.

Advocacy groups joined the criticism, and also attacked the appointment of a top family planning official who they say opposes any use of contraceptives. The advocates said both developments showed the government of President George W. Bush was determined to impose a deeply conservative Christian agenda onto federal programs.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the Health and Human Services Department was funding controversial abstinence-only programs without checking to see whether they reduced teen pregnancy rates. The GAO report focused on three abstinence programs that received $158 million in federal funding last year. "Efforts by HHS and states to assess the scientific accuracy of materials used in abstinence-until-marriage education programs have been limited," the GAO report reads.

Several studies have suggested that abstinence-only education does not reduce teen pregnancy rates. And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds high rates of teen sex even after several years of government-funded abstinence education programs. "In 2005, 46.8 percent of high school students reported that they have ever had sexual intercourse, with 14.3 percent of students reporting that they had had sexual intercourse with four or more persons," the GAO report reads.

HHS said it does review whether its programs work.

WOW