Did Bush Get Jamie Lynn Pregnant?

Is abstinence education to blame for Jamie Lynn Spears' teen pregnancy?

There's plenty of reason to believe it is not. Jamie Lynn has received plenty of real-life sex education from her older sister, whose two babies weren't brought by storks after the birds and bees did their thing. Plus, as a TV star, Jamie Lynn has hardly had a typical classroom education, where curricula teach abstinence.

And besides, California is one of a growing number of states that doesn't teach abstinence, despite the loss of some federal education dollars. (I'm presuming that as a TV star, Jamie Lynn lives in California, but I admit I an no expert in the lives of celebrities.)

But to read today's USA Today editorial on the horrors of abstinence education, you would think it was the teaching of abstinence that got Jamie Lynn pregnant, and that it's to blame for a rising tide of teenage pregnancies:

For Christian conservatives, the pregnancy, at 16, of Nickelodeon actress Jamie Lynn Spears — the wholesome star of Zoey 101 and younger sister of troubled singer Britney Spears — poses a good news-bad news dilemma.

"We should commend girls like Jamie Lynn Spears for making a courageous decision to have the baby," summed up Bill Maier, vice president of the conservative ministry Focus on the Family. "On the other hand, there's nothing glamorous or fun about being an unwed teen mother."

No one would argue with that sentiment. For teens of lesser means, pregnancy takes away much more than fun and glamour. It greatly reduces chances that the young mother will ever escape poverty.

For all the agreement about the problem, however, a failure to recognize facts appears to be interfering with finding solutions. The Bush administration is sticking adamantly to abstinence-only sex education, which was adopted at the urging of religious conservatives, even as evidence mounts that such programs are failing.

The article then swings into a statistical analysis of teen pregnancy rates "which declined 34% from 1991 to 2005, increased 3% in 2006."

As a PR guy, I know statistical manipulation when I see it, and this is gross and deliberate manipulation. Down 34% vs. up 3% seems to be a huge swing, until you recalculate the first figure to represent an annual fall, not a 14-year fall, and you find that the rate was dropping 2.4 percent annually over that period, on average.

Besides, a one-year change in a 14-year trend is inconclusive; more data is needed before we will know whether the 3% increase isn't an anomaly. Only the hysterical media would be interested in such a statistic.

Here's a comprehensive table that verifies the drop in teenage pregnancy rates, and shows that it impacted all demographic categories. It is astoundingly good news.

The table shows that from 2000 to 2004, the years of the first Bush term and the push for abstinence, the teen pregnancy rate has continued to drop, from 47.7 births per 1000 teenage girls in 2000 to 41.2 in 2004.

If abstinence education doesn't work, why was it working in these years? And why doesn't USA Today take into account that now 14 states are no longer teaching abstinence -- a new high which could, by itself, explain the increase?

Besides, a good argument can be made that abstinence education didn't become popular because of Christian morality; rather, it gained traction only because sex education had become extremely radicalized and pro-carnality in its teachings. By the end of the Clinton years, the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood faction controlled sex ed curricula and it showed in the classroom, where sex ed started with the assumption that all teens would have sex, and lots of it.

The media hasn't asked many questions about why Planned Parenthood and its ilk, which stood to gain from government-purchased birth control and government-funded abortions for teens, was allowed to turn sex education into a how-to guide for debauchery.

The carnal left had pushed too far and traditionally conservative America pushed back with the promotion of abstinence. Then, the left pushed back again with pressure to drop abstinence programs.

Through all this time, the Clinton free-for-all days and the more constrained Bush days, the teen pregnancy rate continued to drop, which to any clear-headed observer would appear to be proof that something other than classroom sex education was at work educating our young people. Incredible Daughter #1, who's 21, says television programming and social networking all play up the downside of teen pregnancy, and virtually no one gets pregnant today because they didn't understand the physical process.

All of which just goes to show that we can't count on left-leaning editorial writers to think through situations when blind promotion of their agendas will do.

Hillary, The Children's Advocate? HA!

Give Hillary a minute and she's launch into just how wonderful she will be for our kids. Sez her Web site:

America is ready for a president who fights for our children. Hillary has spent her lifetime as an effective advocate for parents and children.

From her first job out of law school at the Children's Defense Fund to her time as First Lady of Arkansas and of the United States to her service in the Senate, helping children has been at the center of Hillary's public life.

Why then, if she's so concerned about the tykes, has she not slapped down her hubby, for all the damage he's done to them?

Incredible Wife, upon hearing excerpts from a Hillary screech speech on Hugh Hewitt's show last week became incensed; paraphrasing:

How can we give her control of America if she can't even control her husband?

Let's put it another way: If the wife of a male candidate were caught sleeping around, would we find him particularly presidential?

Incredible Wife's anger goes back ... way back:

"Is oral sex performed on you within that definition as you understood it?" Clinton was asked during his August 17 testimony, viewed by the public for the first time Monday.

"As I understood it, it was not, no," the president answered. (source)

That testimony that oral sex does not constitute sex, from President Clinton's testimony before the grand jury, was almost nine years ago, but I still remember vividly Incredible Wife's immediate reaction:

Kids are going to hear that, and when they do, they're going to start believing that oral sex isn't sex because the president said so.

I was skeptical. First, because I didn't believe much of anything Clinton said. But more importantly, in my teen years, oral sex was hyper-sex. In our wildest dreams, my friends and I thought we might get some sex ... but oral sex? That was the stuff of legend, and the thought that it wasn't sex was ridiculous.

Then, five years after Clinton's testimony, came this:

A high school newspaper article that claims 40 percent of the students have had oral sex has stirred controversy in Montrose, Colo. The Montrose High School Chieftain published the story in its April 30 edition.

The article, written by MHS student Katherine Smith, questions whether experts and students consider oral sex as "having sex." The school paper published the column, story and information box on the subject.

The story begins by citing a "survey" of Montrose high school students which determined that 60 percent of the students do not consider oral sex to be "sex."

My wife gave me that "told you so" look and I re-read the story, awe-struck in a disgusted sort of way.

At that point, Bill Clinton should have gone on MTV and told the kids he was wrong, he was lying, of course oral sex is real sex. But of course he didn't, and for all we hear, oral sex is still entrenched as a suitable short-of-sex sexual act among kids.

Fast forward to last week, when Incredible Wife was enjoying a deep gum cleaning at our local DDS. The dental hygienist told her,

You wouldn't believe the amount of disease we're seeing now ... STDs from oral sex, and even worse. Cancers! And we're seeing this with the younger patients.

Incredible Wife responded,

Es aw eaus uh ill in-un!

Yes, it's all because of Bill Clinton. But can we trust our local hygienist on a subject as tricky as oral sex?

You betcha.

Syphillis: "Transmission of the organism occurs during vaginal, anal, or oral sex." (CDC)

Chlamydia: "Chlamydia can be transmitted during vaginal, anal, or oral sex." (CDC)

HIV/AIDS: "Yes, it is possible for either partner to become infected with HIV through performing or receiving oral sex. " (CDC)

If it's not sex, Bill, how come it spreads sexually transmitted disease? If you love kids so much, Hil, why don't you call your husband on his lie and actually protect the children?

The answer, of course, is because they're Clintons, and nothing is more important to the Clintons than ... the Clintons.

Before we finish this, recall that the dental hygienist mentioned cancer, too. And she was right about that, as well:

MONDAY, Aug. 27, 2007 (HealthDay News) -- Human papillomavirus (HPV), which is believed to be responsible for most cervical cancers, may also be at the root of many cancers of the mouth and throat, new research suggests.

Although the rate of most head and neck cancers has been declining over the past 30 years because more people have stopped smoking, the rate of certain cancers in the throat and mouth hasn't dropped, according to research published in the Aug. 27 online issue of Cancer.

"Smoking prevalence has dropped dramatically, and, likewise, most head and neck cancers have declined in incidence. Cancers at the base of the tongue and tonsil are increasing or have remained stagnant. We're not seeing the reduction in incidence that we would have expected," said study author Dr. Erich Sturgis, an associate professor of head and neck surgery and epidemiology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston.

The study authors suspect the reason may be orally transmitted HPV infections.

"Just as cervical cancer is the outcome of a sexually transmitted disease, as are most anal and penile cancers, people need to be aware that they can get throat or tongue cancer as the consequence of a sexually transmitted disease," said Sturgis. "Oral sex can't be considered safe sex."

"Oral sex cannot be considered safe sex." How does that ring with Hil and Bill, who are letting it stand that oral sex isn't even sex?

From now on, whenever Hil claims her great love of children, think of children with syphilis, chlamydia, HIV/AIDS or tongue or mouth cancer and ask her in your mind, "Do you really stand for children, or do you just stand by that cancer on America named Bill Clinton?"

Photo: Free Republic

Sex Ed ( With G-Spot) For 8th Graders

What do eighth graders need to know about g-spots, anal sex and masturbation?

Nothing.

But that didn't stop a Chicago-area teacher from forcing his 8th grade class to read out loud this FAQ on sex [a strong, strong caution goes with that link]. The FAQ starts off with "How do you have sexual intercourse?" The answer is explicit and uses "boy" and "girl" to define the genders -- not "man" and "woman."

After the students protested that they didn't want to read the stuff, the teacher, 27 year-old Scott Groff, forced them to keep reading, the ChiTrib reports.

"My daughter was the one who got to read aloud the question on oral sex," said one mother who asked that her name not be published because she feared it would add to her daughter's embarrassment. "I can't even tell you how humiliating this was for my 13-year-old. This is just way, way over the line."

There are two obvious questions: Why did Groff do it, and what will happen to him?

To the latter: Groff is untenured, but his chances of staying aren't all that bad. If the decision were the Superintendent's, he'd be a shoo-in for staying in the classroom, since educators are usually incapable of making tough, correct decisions. But Groff's fate is in the hands of the school board. And that makes it anyone's guess.

Were he the employee of a private organization instead of a school board, there would be no question of his fate. The job would already be past tense. But schools are not run by normal people.

Why did Groff do it? He says he didn't review the material first. That is not an excuse, since it's the teacher's job to review materials first.

The document's headlines are in red, bold, large type, and as I said, the first one is about how to "do it," which is not the stuff of 8th grade sex ed. A few questions later is "What position is best?" Any review at all -- even scanning the headlines as he handed it out -- would have alerted him to the fact that he was handing out unsuitable materials.

But he pressed on. The only explanation can be that he wanted the students to read it.

Then students began protesting.

Braley's daughter, Sandi, said she objected to the lesson, but the teacher told her it was part of the school's "human sexuality" curriculum.

"I just felt really uncomfortable talking about this in a class with boys and girls," Sandi Braley said. "I was like, `Mr. Groff, why do we need to learn this?' He just looked at me and said, `Calm down, calm down.'"

"Calm down, calm down" -- it sounds like what a child molester would say to a child who's making too much noise.

There is only one explanation for Groff's pressing on over the protests of his students, and it's the same one for why he made the claim that he did not review the materials: He wanted the students to read the materials.

But Groff, a sexual deviant who has been entrusted with young children, is still a teacher. The school board meets this week; will they be able to summon up the moral certainty to fire him?