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Advocates Updates
- Call for Applications: Become a Youth Reporter for the International Year of Youth!
- Urban Retreat 2010
- Press Release: States Face Choice between Failed Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs and New Comprehensive Approach
- Co-Sponsor the Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act of 2010
- Parent-Child Communication: Promoting Sexually Healthy Youth
- Learn more about applying for new federal teen pregnancy prevention funds!
New Publications: 
- Perfection not required (Boston Globe)
This breakthrough will be especially important in sub-Saharan Africa, where 60 percent of those infected with HIV are women - Study: Friends help college females avoid risky sex after drinking (USA Today)
College students use a number of strategies to prevent their female friends from engaging in risky sexual behavior after a night of heavy drinking, new research suggests.
- Talking points for teen mom Bristol Palin (CNN)
A few thoughts Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy wishes Bristol would add to her stump speech. - HIV is a 20th-century disease that needs 21st-century research (Globe and Mail)
We need smarter approaches to clinical trials that test more concepts in less time, for less money, while preserving safety, community engagement and ethical guidelines - Help for Women Who Are Forced to Get Pregnant (Time)
There may be a simple and cost-effective way to help women who are in danger of being intimidated into pregnancy. - Foursquare offers reward for checking in after STD checkups (Yahoo! News)
The social network that allows members to broadcast their location and activities has joined forces with MTV in an effort to remove the stigma attached with getting screened for sexually transmitted diseases - A tolerance of rape (Washington Post)
In the time that the Justice Department is wasting in rehashing the commission's work, more incarcerated men, women and juveniles will become victims of sexual assault. - Abstinence Survey Stirs Debate (Youth Today)
Newly released report concerns attitudes about pre-marital sex
by Martha Kempner
One of the back-to-school rituals that I remember as a kid was the trip to the pediatrician’s office for the annual check-up which often involved shots. I am petrified of going to the dentist and hate throat cultures but shots never bothered me so I didn’t really think twice about this visit. At this year’s annual visit, parents of young girls 11 and older will likely be offered the option of vaccinating their child against Humanpapilloma Virus (one the most common sexually transmitted diseases) in the hopes of preventing cervical cancer. And, according to a recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, many of them will think twice about whether or not to go ahead with the vaccine.
While there are always legitimate reasons to question the healthcare we’re offered for our children (is it safe and does it work being the most obvious and important), the article suggests that many parents are waffling on the vaccine because they fear it sends a mixed message to young girls about sex.
Sex education is "poison"? This mother and daughter don't think so.
by Leah Reis-Dennis and Elizabeth ReisEDITOR'S NOTE: When we saw this column in The Washington Times, warning parents about colleges "poisoning" students with information and frank discussion about sex and sexuality, we knew it needed a response. We asked rising Harvard sophomore Leah Reis-Dennis, and her mother Elizabeth Reis, to weigh in. Here's what they said.
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Leah:
In her recent Washington Times piece, "Values a vaccine for poisoned Ivy," Rebecca Hagelin cautions parents with presumably frightening "snapshots of what your child might encounter" at college. Hagelin cites such supposedly alarming campus occurrences as summer reading on multiculturalism, course offerings on feminist theory, and access to condoms. Although Hagelin fears for the preservation of her daughter's Christian and conservative values, she rests assured that the strength of her family's faith and its determination to resist the dominant "liberal Orthodoxy" will prevail.
As a college student about to start my second year at Harvard (an institution which Hagelin would likely label a "poisoned Ivy"), I can vividly recall my college selection process. As I visited campuses, perused pamphlets, and spoke with students, I, like Hagelin's daughter, took time to "investigate the college landscape." In my case, however, a course offering in feminist theory got a thumbs up. Free condom access on campus? All the better! In fact, one might imagine that my mother and I, devoted advocates for feminism and women's rights, are direct opposites of Hagelin and her daughter. Still, if Hagelin's daughter and I were to attend the same college and meet, we would surely learn a lot from each other.
