If by working you mean it increases the number of sexually transmitted diseases or STDs, that is:
ATLANTA (AP) — More than 1 million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year — the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said Tuesday.
“A new U.S. record,” said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More bad news: Gonorrhea rates are jumping again after hitting a record low, and an increasing number of cases are caused by a “superbug” version resistant to common antibiotics, federal officials said Tuesday.
Syphilis is rising, too. The rate of congenital syphilis — which can deform or kill babies — rose for the first time in 15 years.
“Hopefully we will not see this turn into a trend,” said Dr. Khalil Ghanem, an infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins University’s School of medicine.
It’s the most chlamydia cases since the wanton days of Disco Fever back in 1978. Before the AIDS epidemic made everyone conscious of the need to use “protection.” And the risk of infection is higher in African American and Latino communities. The lack of a complete sexual education as to the risks of STD’s and what can be done to prevent them is, in my opinion, likely a contributing factor to these large increases. We already know that “abstinence only” programs are positively correlated with increases in the rate of teen pregnancies. I think it’s a fair assumption that Republican initiatives to promote “abstinence only” programs and to defund organizations which provide full disclosure regarding condom use to prevent STDs is at least partly responsible for the rise in these infection rates.
Sometimes ignorance is not bliss. And “just say no” is not an effective strategy. Particularly when we are seeing outbreaks of antibiotic resistant strains of these infectious organisms, or superbugs:
Health officials don’t know exactly how many superbug cases there were among the more than 358,000 gonorrhea cases reported in 2006. But a surveillance project of 28 cities found that 14 percent were resistant to ciprofloxacin and other medicines in the fluoroquinolones class of antibiotics. […]
Other doctors are worried. The superbug gonorrhea has been on the rise not only in California and Hawaii, where the problem has been most noticeable, but also in the South and parts of the Midwest.
This is where “biblically correct” sex education can prove particularly dangerous to our society. Because despite the misnomer that proponents use to label their movement pro-life, in reality it is anti-sex. And they don’t mind that STD rates are on the rise. Sinners should be punished for their transgressions after all.
The fact that the spread of these illnesses could prove potentially fatal to unborn children is irrelevant in their hard hearted view of morality, where killing innocent Arabs in Iraq is an acceptable response to 9/11, torture is a “necessary” evil, and the death penalty is just fine because it’s in the Bible. The same people who don’t mind that 47 million people are uninsured, many of them children, because that’s their choice. Or that the highest rates of infant mortality in America are among poor women, the group with the worst access to proper prenatal care, and to health care in general.
Until we achieve a true pro-life agenda in this country, one that values every human life after birth as much as some value embryonic life, an agenda that provides adequate medical care and health education to every American, regardless of race or class, we will continue to suffer the consequences of policies which impose a narrow standard of morality to the arena of public health. Namely, higher infant mortality, increased teen pregnancies, increased rates of disease and infection, and an increased number of men, women and children effectively sentenced to suffering and death for the sin of not being able to afford health insurance.
