Several groups released statements regarding Democrats’ approval of a $28 million increase requested by President Bush for abstinence-only-until-marriage-programs. The Senate passed the bill after removing amendments relating to abstinence education and stem cell research, according to a Kaiser Network post. Read my related post for background.

Here are various organizations’ and bloggers’ reactions to the funding:

• Advocates for Youth - “Democrats Cave on Sex Education - Again“
• Sex in the Public Square blog post (July)
  

There’s been a good deal of buzz over a new novel by Tom Perrotta, “The Abstinence Teacher.” The book follows describes a sex education teacher’s unsatisfying role as a sex education teacher. Her liberal views lead to opposition by local evangelicals. The book is also being made into a movie, due for release in 2008.

Read an excerpt from the book.

Buy the book at Amazon.com.

Read reviews of the book:

• USA Today - “Pure fun“
• Entertainment Weekly review
• Los Angeles Times review
• The Christian Science Monitor - “Culture wars smolder”
• New York Times review

There have been quite a few media reports about pharmacists refusing to fill Plan B, the morning-after-pill, because of personal moral objections. Now, a Roman Catholic nurse says she was punished for refusing to teach a sex education class.

Maria Sulewski, 55, opposes birth control and contraception. She claimed she was punished with a less desirable work assignment in November 2006 after refusing to do a presentation on birth control and contraception for two area elementary and junior high schools.

Sulewski sued, and the Erie County health board approved a $12,500 settlement on Tuesday in the case.

There have been many claims about sex educators not being properly equipped to teach classes and not being clear on what material to teach. But in this case, Sulewski knew what to teach, but was morally opposed. This article makes me wonder whether this is a common issue and, if so, how schools are dealing with it.

With Halloween this week, people were out in full force with their costumes.

Capital Newspapers printed a story about the trend towards sexier Halloween costumes, for women and girls alike.

The popularity of the risque young girls’ and teen costumes parallels the demand for racy women’s costumes. At some stores, the aisles for those clothes have the feel of a porn shop, with selections made by Playboy, among other brands.

But the sexier costumes don’t come without costs, according to UW-Madison Sociology professor Myra Marx Ferree. Ferree argues that “portraying young girls as innocent and sweet children but sexy at the same time is part of the ‘Lolita-ization’ of young girls.”

Ferree said this over-sexualization is sending a mixed message to girls.

Frequently in American culture, women are viewed as sex objects, but “at the same time, we’re telling girls, don’t have sex, let’s not talk about sex education, let’s not talk about responsible sex,” Ferree said. “That’s the ambivalence in the culture.”

I thought this article was interesting because of Ferree’s argument about potentially contradictory messages in terms of how females are depicted in culture versus how they’re told to act, as well as the potentially helpful role of sex education in making sense of all of it. What do you think? Have you noticed an increase in sexier apparel and general attitudes among young girls? If so, do you think the increasing sexualization of females is worsened by a lack of education and discussion to explain how to deal with it?

According to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted in late October, 51 percent of respondents said sex education and birth control were better for reducing teen pregnancies, slightly outnumbering the 46 percent who prefer morality and abstinence.

Younger people were likelier to consider sex education and birth control the better way to limit teenage pregnancies, as were 64 percent of minorities and 47 percent of whites. Nearly seven in 10 white evangelicals opted for abstinence, along with about half of Catholics and Protestants.

Other key findings:

• 67 percent of respondents support providing birth control to students at schools while 62 percent said they believe providing birth control reduces the number of teenage pregnancies.
• Most supporters of providing birth control to students favor parental consent.
• Minorities, older and lower-earning people were likeliest to prefer requiring parental consent, while those favoring no restriction tended to be younger and from cities or suburbs. People who wanted schools to provide no birth control at all were likelier to be white and higher-income earners.
• 49 percent of respondents say providing teens with birth control would not encourage sexual intercourse and a virtually identical 46 percent said it would.
• Though men and women have similar views about whether to provide contraceptives to students, women are likelier than men to think it will not encourage sexual intercourse, 55 percent to 43 percent.

What do you think of the survey results? Do you think they’re representative of the general population?