From the People Who Brought You Castration as a Spirtual Practice: Sex Education
The Pro-Life Action League. Sounds like fun, doesn't it! A group of super heros who battle similarly super villains.
Well of course it isn't! They're wingnuts of the anti-abortion stripe who push abstinence only education by blending anti-erotic christianity with outright pseudo-science.
Here's a choice, choice bit:
"Not only are condoms less effective for preventing pregnancy than commonly believed, but they are even less effective for preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Condoms have been repeatedly shown to be relatively ineffective in protecting against HIV/AIDS. A massive study co-sponsored by the NIH, CDC, FDA, and USAID issued findings in July 2001 that condoms, even when used 'correctly and consistently,' provided only 85% protection against the spread of AIDS. (See Government Study.)"
Go ahead. Click the link to the Government Study. Did you read the title?
Scientific Review Panel Confirms Condoms Are Effective Against HIV/AIDS, But Epidemiological Studies Are Insufficient for Other STDs
You could play this game all day. Science: it's not just for scientists anymore!It's seems that Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises are still getting a work out at PLAL. Take the Thirteenth Rule:
To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it . . . .
The best part of PLAL is their "youth" blog, Generations for Life. Its blogroll (scoll down, it's on the left) is a gateway to the wonderful world of pro-life god squaders ("JivinJehoshaphat" is my favorite). These things make me wish Neo had taken the other pill, so we could all have stayed in the matrix.
As a teenager I may have made some bad decisions, but thank somebody I knew enough to avoid pregnancy and disease. But then again, I could've simply hacked off my nuts with pincers and jumped into a thorn bush.
I suggest visiting GFL, reading the posts, and, of course, offering comments.
posted by squeezychortle at 8:33 AM
2 Comments:
It's not the title of a study that's relevant -- you can say anything you want in a title -- it's the actual data. The study linked to does, in fact, state that condoms are only 85% effective at protecting againt AIDS. If you like those odds, put your faith in condoms.
St. Ignatius' comment has to do with trust, not with "blind obedience." If you've ever trusted anyone, then you may have had the experience of trusting someone else's judgement over your own, and discovering that it was the right thing to do -- that things were not as you supposed them to be after all, but were rather as the trusted other said they were.
People do this all the time. You just now put your faith in the title of a HHS study without looking at what the study actually reported.
In this case I'd say your trust was misplaced. It isn't a question of ever or never trusting, but of whom one trusts. For St. Ignatius and his followers, the Church had proven herself trustworthy.
Eric doesn't get that I read the study. The point isn't the failure rate of condoms; the point is whether, as an effective method of actually solving public health problems we should either teach spiritual practices that don't work or use technologies that yield some result. The church proven itself? Remember: They don't have to prove anything, that's why it's called a church.
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