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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: 
- Contraceptives work better if both partners agree on use (LA Times)
Young, sexually active women who said their partners were strongly in favor of using birth control were more than twice as likely to use a reliable contraceptive method consistently. - Mont. tea party removes leader after anti-gay post (AP)
The president of a Montana tea party group has been kicked out of the organization for an exchange on his Facebook page that appeared to condone violence against homosexuals. - Weighing the risks of coming out at work (NPR)
While coming out can be especially challenging for people in the public eye, it's a complicated decision for the vast majority of gay workers. - San Francisco jail installs condom dispensers. (San Francisco Chronicle)
The condom dispensers are the latest evolution in a safe-sex program that began in 1989, when health workers began distributing condoms to inmates as part of their counseling before they were released. - Obama's AIDS Showdown (San Francisco Chronicle)
Obama has a chance to make a clear and unequivocal message. This country must continue to lead in battling AIDS both overseas and at home.
- Teens' 'unhealthy' sex exposure blamed on TV, music, Web (USA Today)
The nation's leading group of pediatricians has issued a strong policy statement on the danger of messages American teens and children are getting about sex from television, the Internet and other media outlets. - 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.
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.
