<![CDATA[Jezebel: contraception chat]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png <![CDATA[Jezebel: contraception chat]]> http://jezebel.com/tag/contraceptionchat http://jezebel.com/tag/contraceptionchat <![CDATA[Congress heard arguments yesterday from ...]]> nosex42508.jpgCongress heard arguments yesterday from 11 witnesses discussing the pros and cons of government funded abstinence-only education. Late last year, a non-partisan group determined that abstinence only education doesn't work, and so the House's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is reassessing funding for those programs. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Several witnesses emphasized that despite 11 years of federally funded abstinence programs, at a cost of more than $1.3 billion, teens are still having sex and becoming infected with sexually transmitted diseases. Those who support comprehensive plans said teens should get the information they need to protect themselves." WORD. [LAT]

]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=383548&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[9th Grade Girls Suspended For Sex-Ed T-Shirts]]> Two St. Louis-area 9th graders, Tori Shoemaker and Cheyenne Bird, 14, were suspended from their Illinois junior high school for wearing condom-bedecked t-shirts proclaiming "Safe Sex Or No Sex" as a way of protesting their school's abstinence-only education policy. Shoemaker, 15, told a local TV station, "We were supporting safe sex, it's something we believe in and we shouldn't get suspended. It's freedom of speech." The school superintendent, however, found the shirts "inappropriate" and "a distraction at school". Shoemaker and Bird's school, Lewis & Clark in Wood River, Illinois, teaches abstinence only to sixth and eighth graders, and Shoemaker thinks that safe-sex education is imperative for teens entering high school. "We're more mature, we're going up to the high school, and teenagers are going to do what they do," Shoemaker explained to a reporter from KMOV TV.

According to a non-profit website called The Institute For Youth Development, the state of Illinois is required by law to teach sex ed about HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, but it is not required to teach about abstinence or contraception.

Even though the junior high brass isn't budging — they have no plans to revise their abstinence-only curriculum — the girls' parents are supportive. Vic Shoemaker, Tori's dad, told reporters: "I'm realistic, I'd like to see them not do it at all before they get married, but look at all the teenagers coming up pregnant."

Controversial T-Shirts In Metro East [KMOV]
Sex Shirts Lead To Suspension[CNN]
State Sex Education Requirements [Institute For Youth Development]

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