Should Public Highschools give out Free Condoms ?

[Nati Ice]

wow some of u guys are crazy

its not like kids are gonna see the opportunity for free condoms as a message to go have sex

just because free condoms are availible as a health precaution in order to combat std's does not mean that everyone is just going to go out and all of a sudden start doing it

i think that most kids should have to go through the uncomfortable situation in the drugstore to buy condoms but in reality the majority of the kids who this would apply to do not have the fiscal ability to do that, free condoms would help these kids out first and more than any other group in particular

they are going to have sex if they want to have sex
make sure u tell them abstinance is the only way to go, cuz im sure theyll all jump on that boat, especially since kids are so willing to listen to any authority figure

they should not pass them out but instead make them availible
if it is immoral or against your religion then dont go and pick any up

[Jason]

[quote name='mongoloido' date='Mar 16 2005, 04:39 PM']...
[b]Whoever brought up the continent of Africa and the statistics between abstinance and condoms needs to post the source of those statistics,[/b] as well as do a little more research on the nations involved. Aside from some misleading typos in his/her post, the case being made has little to do with the method of HIV avoidance, and everything to do with education on AIDS and HIV. There are nations in Africa where the government tells it's citizens that AIDS is not a sexually transmitted disease. Not only is a lack of education going to skew any statistics on methodology, active misinformation from all levels of society there renders it useless.
[right][post="63323"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Here it is:

[url="http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200301\FOR20030113d.html"]http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus....R20030113d.html[/url]

Sexual Abstinence Behind Uganda's AIDS Success Story
By Stephen Mbogo
CNSNews.com Correspondent
January 13, 2003

Nairobi, Kenya (CNSNews.com) - Some experts say the dramatic drop in HIV/AIDS infections in Uganda is proof that abstinence from sex is the best way to combat the deadly disease, especially in the world's hardest-hit area, sub-Saharan Africa.

Infections in the East African country, which once had the highest rate in the world, have dropped from 30 percent of the population in the early 1990s to around 10 percent today.

Although promotion of condom use has been a part of Uganda's HIV/AIDS prevention
strategy, the concept of "True Love Awaits" - an abstinence-until-marriage program launched in 1994 and supported by schools and religious organizations - is credited with bringing down the infection rate.

"Abstinence remains the best strategy, especially for the risk group aged 15-25 years," said Dorothy Kwenze, an HIV/AIDS activist in neighboring Kenya. "The concept has worked well for Uganda and can equally work for other African countries."

According to a study by development experts Rand Stoneburner, Uganda's prevention model, used elsewhere, has the potential to reduce the AIDS rate in Africa's worst-stricken countries by 80 percent.

Stoneburner, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist, says that is the same level of efficacy one might expect from an HIV vaccine.

Uganda boasts the most successful HIV/AIDS prevention case in Africa to date, as it is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa where the incidence of HIV/AIDS has decreased substantially.

Credit is partly attributed to President Yoweri Museveni, who came to power in 1986, restored political stability, and led an aggressive anti-AIDS campaign by encouraging HIV-testing, abstinence and the use of condoms.

His government also invested heavily in training health workers, creating counseling networks and treating sexually transmitted diseases.

"President Museveni has made it a point to speak out about AIDS at every opportunity, and he has made all of his ministers, not just his health minister, responsible and accountable for results," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powel said on World Aids Day last year.

Powell said countries having the most success in the fight against AIDS were those whose leaders had been the most forthcoming about the disease, and who made sure that lifesaving information reached all of their people.

Promotion of condom use is generally pushed by U.N. agencies, population control advocates and others, as the most effective way to combat AIDS.

Reports by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health argue that the Uganda success story was partly due to use of condoms.

[b]On the other hand, Dr. Vinand Nantulya, an infectious disease specialist who helped advise Museveni, said Ugandans "really never took to condoms."[/b]

The message that took hold was that young people, who are at a higher risk of being
infected, should not have sex until marriage and then remain faithful to their single partner.

The results, when they came, were remarkable by any measure. By 2001, the number of pregnant Ugandan women testing positive for HIV had fallen from 21.2 percent at the height of the epidemic in 1991 to 6.2 percent.

By contrast, in Kenya the rate in 2001 was roughly 15 percent of pregnant women, while in Zimbabwe it stands at 32 percent and in Botswana at 38 percent of mothers-to-be. Rates continue to rise in each country.

In some African countries, life expectancy has dropped over a single decade by as much as 10 years.

Current estimates by UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS agency, are that more than four million people are infected in sub-Saharan Africa while adult prevalence
rate is 9 percent.

In Zambia, for instance, it dropped from 52 years in 1990 to 40.5 years in 2000, according to the U.N. Children Fund. One in five Zambians are infected.

The worst countries are believed to be Swaziland, where 38.6 percent of adults have HIV - a jump of four points in just one year - and Botswana, where the 38.8 percent of the adult population is infected.

UNICEF spokesman Marc Vergara said recently the deepening levels of poverty in Africa are eroding families' ability to cope with the AIDS crisis.

Extended families. which in the past took care of orphaned children, are no longer able to do so.

In the sprawling city of Soweto outside Johannesburg, South Africa, it's reported that funeral directors are now holding services on weekdays because their schedules on the weekends - the traditional day to bury loved ones - are overbooked.

Elsewhere in South Africa, in parts of Kwazulu-Natal province, AIDS victims are being buried upright because of a shortage of space in cemeteries.

[Ben]

That doesnt say condoms contributed to spreading aids. It says they never used condoms, which contirbuted to the problem.

[Jamie_B]

Here is a good story as to why perental notification is a good idea.

[url="http://www.house.gov/hostettler/Issues/Hostettler-issues-1997-10-03-title-x-debate.htm"]http://www.house.gov/hostettler/Issues/Hos...le-x-debate.htm[/url]

[Jason]

[quote name='Ben' date='Mar 16 2005, 05:02 PM']That doesnt say condoms contributed to spreading aids.  It says they never used condoms, which contirbuted to the problem.
[right][post="63338"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

No, it says:

[b]Infections in the East African country, which once had the highest rate in the world, have dropped from 30 percent of the population in the early 1990s to around 10 percent today.

Although promotion of condom use has been a part of Uganda's HIV/AIDS prevention
strategy, the concept of "True Love Awaits" - an abstinence-until-marriage program launched in 1994 and supported by schools and religious organizations - is credited with bringing down the infection rate.[/b]

[Guest Bengal_Smoov]

[quote name='mongoloido' date='Mar 16 2005, 03:39 PM']First, I must question what makes you so sure it's promiscuous sex. I dated a girl for two years in highschool and we had sex. There was nothing promiscuous about it. As for whether or not it's ok for teenagers to have non-promiscuous sex: what's so wrong with it? Nature seems to think we're ready to get naked. Our hearts and minds decided we were ready. Our religious affiliations didn't have an issue with our sexual behavior. So why should it be wrong?
That's a lousy analogy. Two teenagers having sex has nothing to do with a school facilitating felonious drug use.
Whoever brought up the continent of Africa and the statistics between abstinance and condoms needs to post the source of those statistics, as well as do a little more research on the nations involved. Aside from some misleading typos in his/her post, the case being made has little to do with the method of HIV avoidance, and everything to do with education on AIDS and HIV. There are nations in Africa where the government tells it's citizens that AIDS is not a sexually transmitted disease. Not only is a lack of education going to skew any statistics on methodology, active misinformation from all levels of society there renders it useless.
[right][post="63323"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

I spent 4 months in Ghana around the turn of the century I saw the problems there. Miseducation or lack or awareness is the major problem in Africa. Unfortunately most Africans don't have access to education, so in some countries the literacy rate is like 30-40%(that's why it's so easy for the rulers to exploit the countries and they never seem to make any progress). When I was in Ghana they were pushing the female condom because most men didn't like the feel on condom during sex(I completely agree!!!).

As for passing out condoms in high school I think it would be the smart thing to do for many reasons.

1. As much as sex is pushed down our throats whenever we open a magazine, turn on the TV or radio, it would be insane to act like high school kids don't know what sex is. It's too late to try to treat them like kids and when I was in high school at Princeton I knew a girl who had 2 kids before her senior year of high school. Kids are fucking, we need to deal with it instead of acting like their not.

2. Its not like if you have a condom your going to get some sex. How many guys do you know who have the same crusty Trojan in their wallets for the past 5 years? When I was in the 9th grade I could have gotten 100000 condoms from school, no girl was going to give my pimple-faced ass any pussy. [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/20.gif[/img]

3. Prevention is better than ignoring the problem, condom are effective against preventing pregancy(I don't have any kids, works for me [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/3.gif[/img] ).

[Ben]

I never said abstinence was bad anywhere. In fact i said it was the the only 100% way to avoid pregnancy/std's. The same way not drinking is the best way not to get drunk.

I'm just saying pushing abstiance only is stupid. Because the no good sinners like mongo having sex in high school need to know whats going on. I know everyone assums all kids allready know everything about sex... But people have found to the contrary, most kids are stupid.

[85fanwilkes]

Alright here it is from the mouth of a actual high school student. Ok i go to a Catholic school i know for a fact that the same amount if not more students have sexual intercorse. Anyway yes i have had sex for all you out there who were wondering. I made a mistake of having unprotected sex with my girlfriend and got her pregnant and i am against abortion but she isnt and had one. So that really got me scared and now I wrap it up everytime i have had sex, because of all the stds and shit that can happen. So take it from me making condoms available is a really good thing. Yes i have taken that nice walk in the drugstore when buying condems. So i think they should be avilable for free in schools. For a couple reasons one the stds, two pregnancy, three more guys with think other people are wrapping it up and they wont think oh its cool to have unprotected sex, and four it doesnt really encourage it because all teenaers are the same and we will have sex probably and shouldnt it at least be protected sex. Anyway that is my view on it all.

[Beaker]

Schools dont need to give out condoms. If youre too embarrassed to go buy them at the drug store, then youre not mature enough and shouldnt be making the decision to have sex yet. If you can't afford them (need them free at school), then you certainly cant risk having a kid you cant support (since condoms arent 100% effective against pregnancy or STDs). School can educate you about sex, STDs and pregnancy, but thats as far as the schools involvement needs to go.

[Jason]

[quote name='Beaker' date='Mar 16 2005, 06:40 PM']Schools dont need to give out condoms. If youre too embarrassed to go buy them at the drug store, then youre not mature enough and shouldnt be making the decision to have sex yet. If you can't afford them (need them free at school), then you certainly cant risk having a kid you cant support (since condoms arent 100% effective against pregnancy or STDs). School can educate you about sex, STDs and pregnancy, but thats as far as the schools involvement needs to go.
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[b]WELL SAID!![/b]

[BengalBeotch]

If you mean just hand them out at the door
or leave them in a basket in the hallways....NO WAY!
because I don't think students would take
them and use them for the right reasons...
I'm a prankster...give me condoms in highschool, I'll blow
them up and throw them out on the sidewalks
or something....

maybe if there is a way to distribute to those
who intend to use them for the right reasons,
like in the nurses office or something?

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='Beaker' date='Mar 16 2005, 06:40 PM']Schools dont need to give out condoms. If youre too embarrassed to go buy them at the drug store, then youre not mature enough and shouldnt be making the decision to have sex yet. If you can't afford them (need them free at school), then you certainly cant risk having a kid you cant support (since condoms arent 100% effective against pregnancy or STDs). School can educate you about sex, STDs and pregnancy, but thats as far as the schools involvement needs to go.
[right][post="63405"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]


100% agreement.