plus 3, Teen Pregnancy Hype - Patriot Post

Teen Pregnancy Hype - Patriot Post
Childhood asthma in premature babies linked pregnancy bug - USA Today
Pregnancy Prevention or Abortion? New Emergency Contraception Pill ... - ABC News
Moms R Us Teen Pregnancy Classes - Kingsport Times-News

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 08:41 PM PST

Teen Pregnancy Hype

By Rebecca Hagelin (Archive) · Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The mass media is a-buzz over the Alan Guttmacher Institute's "news" on teen pregnancy. Guttmacher and those who advocate free sex for teenagers seem almost gleeful as they misuse the statistics in an effort to destroy abstinence education programs and promote their condom cure-all mantra. To cause as much public panic as possible, the pro-teen-sex activists would have you believe that the teen pregnancy rate has increased across the board for all teenagers ages 13-19. But it is not so.

In their latest attempt to kill abstinence education, Guttmacher activists use sweeping statements to intentionally mislead the media and general public that they know will never peruse the full report of the latest statistics. Thank the Lord for Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation. He actually read the study (as did I) and provided analysis from a deep knowledge of what works. Rector calls their bluff when he wrote in the National Review Online, "In the decade after the federal government began its meager funding of abstinence education, teen pregnancy fell steadily. Safe-sex experts never linked that decline to abstinence education. But when the news went bad, they swiftly identified abstinence programs as the culprit."

Here are a few of the key stats missing from the Guttmacher "sound bites": When they make the sweeping statement that "teen pregnancies have increased by 3 %", what they aren't telling you is that among girls 14 years and younger, the pregnancy rate actually continues to decrease. When they say that the pregnancy rate for 15-19-year-olds has increased for the first time in a decade, what's missing is the fact that the sharp increase was actually for 18 and 19 year-olds. (Not coincidentally, that is the precise time many in that age group head to the great world of relativism and free-sex known as "college" where abstinence education is non-existent.)

After ten years of falling teen pregnancy rates that correspond to the rise in the teaching of abstinence education, there was a slight rise in teen pregnancies among 15-17 year-olds in one twelve month period - from 38.2 per thousand in 2005 to 38.9 per thousand in 2006. But such a small increase in a one-year period after a decade of success isn't enough to garner massive media attention or justify throwing abstinence education out the window, is it? So that's why they employ the hype - to make it sound as if the sky is falling.

It is critical to realize that Guttmacher, et al preach "sexual rights" for teenagers. That is their worldview, and it is what drives their policy agenda. They are not interested in reducing teen sexual activity - they want teenagers to be free to have sex yet somehow magically escape the biological consequences that often come with living a life of promiscuity. And their magic wand is the condom.

For the record, here's my worldview on the subject: If we truly love our teenagers, we will equip them to say no to sex until marriage. I believe that our teens should be absolutely free from the fear of getting pregnant, or from suffering with a sexually transmitted disease, and from the psychological and emotional trauma that comes with having out-of-wedlock sex. I believe that our young people are capable of self-discipline and great displays of maturity when they are encouraged to develop them.

I also believe that teens are getting a wee-bit tired of the "free love", aging hippies who control the pop culture, and of the Planned Parenthood/Guttmachers of the world pushing their morally bankrupt 60's self-centered lifestyle on this intelligent and thoughtful younger generation. Our teenagers know they are capable of greater things – and they are waiting for someone – anyone – to tell them that.

Let that someone be you. Recently I asked a beautiful teenage girl I know about what motivates her to remain sexually pure, she said simply, "My sense of morality, which is based on my faith and the values my mother and father have taught me." When I asked if there are any other reasons she said, "Respect. I know that I will have more respect from my peers if I uphold high standards."

There you have it in a nutshell. To learn how you can teach this superior lifestyle to your teens and encourage educators to back your efforts by using abstinence education materials in the classroom, visit www.abstinence.net.

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Childhood asthma in premature babies linked pregnancy bug - USA Today

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 04:23 PM PST

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The condition, chorioamnionitis, is inflammation of the fetal membranes and amniotic fluid from a bacterial infection. It is thought to be linked to more than half of all preterm births, before 37 weeks' gestation, scientists write in today's Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

The infection may have ascended to the uterus from the mother's genital tract or traveled through her bloodstream from a more remote site, such as her gums or upper respiratory tract, says lead author Darios Getahun, a scientist at Kaiser Permanente Southern California's Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena.

In animals, chorioamnionitis has been shown to cause lung and brain damage in offspring, Getahun says. Scientists also have found lung scarring in infants who died after pregnancies complicated by the condition.

Getahun and his co-authors analyzed electronic health records for all singleton children born at Kaiser's Southern California hospitals in 1991 to 2007, a total of 397,852. Of those, 28,869 were preterm.

Among children born full-term, chorioamnionitis wasn't linked to an increased risk of being diagnosed with asthma by age 8. But among those born prematurely, the condition was associated with double the risk of childhood asthma in blacks, a 70% increase in Hispanics and a 66% increase in whites. The researchers observed these differences even after accounting for other possible risk factors such as whether the mother smoked or had asthma herself. Only in Asian/Pacific Islanders preemies did chorioamnionitis not seem to make a difference in childhood asthma risk.

Getahun speculates that chorioamnionitis wasn't related to asthma risk in full-term children because their mothers might not have had it as long as those born prematurely. But, he adds, his team didn't have information about how early in their pregnancy women were diagnosed.

Diagnosing the condition is tricky, Getahun says, because symptoms — fever in the mother, tenderness or pain in the uterus, foul-smelling amniotic fluid — aren't definitive, and some women never exhibit symptoms. Getahun's team is now trying to find a marker in the mother's blood that would signify her symptoms are because of chorioamnionitis.

A study of 1,096 children published in 2008 found a higher risk of wheezing by age 2 in preemies whose mothers had had chorioamnionitis.

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Pregnancy Prevention or Abortion? New Emergency Contraception Pill ... - ABC News

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 03:05 PM PST

Better than the "morning after pill", a new emergency contraceptive pill, ellaOne, can prevent pregnancy for up to five days after unprotected intercourse.

While it is not yet available in the United States, the new pill may one day offer American women yet another option for preventing pregnancy. But critics of the drug say that it is not so much emergency contraception as emergency abortion.

"This is a thinly-veiled attempt to get an abortion drug over-the-counter," said Dr. Donna Harrison, president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Because fertilization of egg and sperm can only be prevented within 24 hours of intercourse, Harrison says, any emergency contraceptive that is effective five days after sex has to work by preventing the fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus which. If one believes pregnancy begins with fertilization, that would be considered abortion.

"To label this as emergency contraception when it's clearly an abortive action is dishonest," said Harrison.

But according to Dr. Lauren Streicher, clinical instructor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern Medical School, thinking that emergency contraception is equivalent to an abortion "is a big misconception."

It takes five to seven days for the fertilized egg to implant in the uterus and begin to grow, she says. She argues that if one interrupts the process before this implantation takes place, pregnancy never begins.

"There are many people who are reluctant to take emergency contraception because they think it's abortive, but it's apples and oranges," she said. "With emergency contraception, it's really to stop a pregnancy of occurring."

Not surprisingly, these differing opinions hinge on the same definitional controversy that has plagued the abortion debates for decades: at what point does pregnancy begin -- when the egg is fertilized, or when it implants in the uterus?

Because these two events can occur up to a week apart, emergency contraceptives, especially ellaOne, with its five-day window for use, walk the line in this controversy.

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Moms R Us Teen Pregnancy Classes - Kingsport Times-News

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 08:55 PM PST

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