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Teenagers Consider The Source
Harold Valentin, The Tampa Tribune
April 30, 2008
FOREST HILLS - Not only is lack of sex education a problem for high school students in Hillsborough County, said members of Teen Source Theatre, but also misinformation.
Source teens say a few popular myths include: Only gay people can get AIDS; pregnancy can be prevented if sex occurs in a swimming pool; and condoms don't work.
Blake High School junior Emily Compton, a three-year Source member, said staff at her school do not talk about the merits of condom use, only the contraceptive's failure rate.
Experts say sex abstinence program doesn't work
Will Dunham, Reuters
April 24, 2008
Programs teaching U.S. schoolchildren to abstain from sex have not cut teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases or delayed the age at which sex begins, health groups told Congress on Wednesday.
The Bush administration, however, voiced continuing support for such programs during a hearing before a House of Representatives panel even as many Democrats called for cutting off federal money for so-called abstinence-only instruction.
Legislators, stay out of very sensitive abortion issue
Tony Plakas, South Florida Sun Sentinel
April 23, 2008
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which is why some Florida legislators are hoping to mandate that all women, seeking an abortion, review an ultrasound image of their fetus prior to consenting to the procedure. Although ultrasounds performed in the first trimester are considered medically unnecessary, the proposed law commands physicians to conduct them. The action also attempts to distort the directive of informed consent into a tactic to dissuade women from terminating their pregnancies.
Our position: A bill that pushes women to see sonogram before abortion invades privacy
Editorial, Orlando Sentinel
April 23, 2008
There is no relationship more deserving of privacy than that between a patient and her doctor.
That's why it's wrong for the Legislature -- particularly with its Republican leadership's professed goals of diminishing the size and scope of government -- even to consider injecting its whims on women seeking legal abortions.
Ultrasound bill is blow to women
Editorial, Tallahassee Democrat
Florida legislators have found some solid ground on which to build grandstanding bills this session.
Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, did it on the behinds of children, ushering through his "pull your pants up" bill without breaking a sweat. Then Rep. Trey Traviesa, R-Tampa, and Sen. Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden, stood on the backs of women in a flagrant appeal to conservative voters during an election year.
