Teens Bone With or Without Condoms, Say Docs for the Millionth Time

Seriously, dum-dums, how many times do we have to go over this? Condoms do not cause sexy intercourse any more than seat belts cause car accidents. Adding yet another voice to this “conversation,” which has seemingly been raging since the invention of penises, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Adolescence has released a policy statement affirming that America’s youngsters need access to free, reliable contraception and comprehensive sex ed. Posthaste. Preferably via their schools.

These so-called “doctors'” endgame? RAMPANT UNDERAGE PERVERT SEXING, OBVIOUSLY. Because it is a well-known statistical fact that the fewer condoms a teen comes into contact with, the fewer babies and STIs they ha—oh. No? That’s wishful-thinking garbage talk? And literally, measurably, the opposite of true? HUH.

Via NBC:

“Getting over the perception that giving condoms out will make kids have sex is a real barrier for parents and school administrators,” she told Reuters Health.

Bleakley studies teen sexual behavior and reproductive health at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia but wasn’t part of the AAP committee.

She said some studies suggest teenagers with access to condoms and comprehensive sex education actually start having sex later than their peers who don’t.

Teen birth rates have been declining in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2011, there were 31 births for every 1,000 U.S. women aged 15 to 19.

But that number is still higher than in other developed countries.

Rates of many sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including Chlamydia and gonorrhea, are also highest among teenage and young adult women.

The new policy statement presents evidence that condoms are even more effective at preventing STIs than previously demonstrated. But for that to matter, kids need to actually have access to free or cheap condoms in places they actually frequent—school, the mall, the Peach Pit, etc.—as well as information about how to use condoms properly.

Opposition to this self-evident concept (that access to contraception leads to better sexual health, not worse) is quite clearly anti-science, anti-health, and anti-itself if you actually look at the numbers. But more than that, it’s hard not to see it as patently anti-woman. It instills in women from an early age that their sexuality and their reproductive health are not theirs—they are the domain of men who would rather see girls saddled with a baby at 16 than going to college, forging careers, and building families on their own timelines.

Wow, it’s almost as if right-wing opposition to sexual education isn’t about preventing teenage sex at all—it’s about controlling people’s genitals and lives. WEIRD.