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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Don't think so. Haven't heard today. I'm
thinking she'll be called on to do more than her share of babysitting, inasmuch
as the other grandma may be spending a bit of time in jail, which isn't
conducive to the role of sitter. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Sue H. </FONT> </DIV>
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style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=gussie443@hotmail.com href="mailto:gussie443@hotmail.com">Ellen
Roskovich</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=deco@moscow.com
href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">deco@moscow.com</A> ; <A
title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, December 29, 2008 9:52
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] Duh!</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><STRONG>That reminds me.....is Sarah Palin a grandma yet?
</STRONG><BR><STRONG></STRONG> <BR><STRONG>Ellen A.
Roskovich</STRONG><BR><BR><BR><BR>
<HR id=stopSpelling>
<BR>From: <A href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">deco@moscow.com</A><BR>To: <A
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A><BR>Date: Mon, 29
Dec 2008 09:06:52 -0800<BR>Subject: [Vision2020] Duh!<BR><BR><BR>
<STYLE>
</STYLE>
<DIV><FONT size=2>
<DIV id=EC_header_main align=left>
<DIV class="EC_grid-10 EC_prepend-1" id=EC_content>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 28px"><EM>The Spokesman Review</EM>
<H5 class=EC_details style="PADDING-TOP: 5px">December 29, 2008 in
City</H5></DIV>
<DIV class=EC_clear></DIV>
<H2>Study: Virginity pledges don’t affect behavior</H2>
<DIV class="EC_details EC_nested EC_grid-8"><SPAN>By Rob Stein / Washington
Post </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=EC_clear> </DIV>
<DIV class="EC_tag-details EC_details-top"><SPAN
style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 3px">Tags:</SPAN> <SPAN><A
href="http://www.spokesman.com/tags/federal-study">federal study</A></SPAN>
<SPAN><A href="http://www.spokesman.com/tags/virginity">virginity</A></SPAN>
</DIV>
<DIV id=EC_story-body>Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage
are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise
abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of
birth control when they do, according to a study released today.<BR>The
new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of
youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had
taken a “virginity pledge,” but that the percentage who took precautions
against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for
pledgers than for non-pledgers.<BR>“Taking a pledge doesn’t seem to make
any difference at all in any sexual behavior,” said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the
January issue of the journal Pediatrics. “But it does seem to make a
difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is
quite striking.”<BR>The study is the latest in a series that have raised
questions about programs that focus on encouraging abstinence until marriage,
including those that specifically ask students to publicly declare their
intention to remain virgins. The new analysis, however, goes beyond earlier
analyses by focusing on teens who had similar values about sex and other
issues before they took a virginity pledge.<BR>“Previous studies would
compare a mixture of apples and oranges,” Rosenbaum said. “I tried to pull out
the apples and compare only the apples to other apples.”<BR>The findings
are reigniting the debate about the effectiveness of abstinence-focused sexual
education just as Congress and the new Obama administration are about to
reconsider the more than $176 million in annual funding for
such programs.<BR>“This study again raises the issue of why the federal
government is continuing to invest in abstinence-only programs,” said Sarah
Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “What
have we gained if we only encourage young people to delay sex until they are
older, but then when they do become sexually active – and most do well before
marriage – they don’t protect themselves or their partners?”<BR>James
Wagoner of the advocacy group Advocates for Youth agreed: “The Democratic
Congress needs to get its head out of the sand and get real about sex
education in America.”<BR>Proponents of such programs, however, dismissed
the study as flawed and argued that programs that focus on abstinence go much
further than simply asking youths to make a one-time promise to
remain virgins.<BR>“It is remarkable that an author who employs rigorous
research methodology would then compromise those standards by making wild,
ideologically tainted and inaccurate analysis regarding the content of
abstinence education programs,” said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence
Education Association.<BR>Rosenbaum analyzed data collected by the
federal government’s National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which
gathered detailed information from a representative sample of about 11,000
students in grades seven through 12 in 1995, 1996 and 2001.<BR>Although
researchers have analyzed data from that survey before to examine abstinence
education programs, the new study is the first to use a more stringent method
to account for other factors that could influence the teens’ behavior, such as
their attitudes about sex before they took the pledge.<BR>Rosenbaum
focused on about 3,400 students who had not had sex or taken a virginity
pledge in 1995. She compared 289 students who were 17 years old on average in
1996, when they took a virginity pledge, with 645 who did not take a pledge
but were otherwise similar. She based that judgment on about 100 variables,
including their attitudes and their parents’ attitudes about sex and their
perception of their friends’ attitudes about sex and
birth control.<BR>“This study came about because somebody who decides to
take a virginity pledge tends to be different from the average American
teenager. The pledgers tend to be more religious. They tend to be more
conservative. They tend to be less positive about sex. There are some striking
differences,” Rosenbaum said. “So comparing pledgers to all non-pledgers
doesn’t make a lot of sense.”<BR>By 2001, Rosenbaum found, 82 percent of
those who had taken a pledge had retracted their promises, and there was no
significant difference in the proportion of students in both groups who had
engaged in any type of sexual activity, including giving or receiving oral
sex, vaginal intercourse, the age at which they first had sex, or their number
of sexual partners. More than half of both groups had engaged in various types
of sexual activity, had an average of about three sexual partners and had had
sex for the first time by age 21 even if they were unmarried.<BR>“It
seems that pledgers aren’t really internalizing the pledge,” Rosenbaum said.
“Participating in a program doesn’t appear to be motivating them to change
their behavior. It seems like abstinence has to come from an individual
conviction rather than participating in a program.”<BR>While there was no
difference in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases in the two groups, the
percentage of students who reported condom use was about 10 points lower for
those who had taken the pledge, and they were about 6 percentage points less
likely to use any form of contraception. For example, about 24 percent of
those who had taken a pledge said they always used a condom, compared with
about 34 percent of those who had not.<BR>Rosenbaum attributed the
difference to what youths learn about condoms in
abstinence-focused programs.<BR>“There’s been a lot of work that has
found that teenagers who take part in abstinence-only education have more
negative views about condoms,” she said. “They tend not to give accurate
information about condoms and birth control.”<BR>But Huber disputed
that charge.<BR>“Abstinence education programs provide accurate
information on the level of protection offered through the typical use of
condoms and contraception,” she said. “Students understand that while condoms
may reduce the risk of infection and/or pregnancy, they do not remove
the risk.” <BR></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></DIV><BR>
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