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Comment by infruset | Hacker News Reader

What are those ads referring to originally? Is this a campaign in the US? Is it publicly funded?

Sexual abstinence. And yes IIRC they are publicly funded in some states. Worse, they either don't give accurate information about contraception or give no information at all.

Needless to say, these policies have proven to be counterproductive when it comes to actual teen pregnancy and STI rates.

Not that the negative correlation between abstinence only programs and pregnancy + STI rates deters the people who push them. When you start to view public health policy through the lens of individual morality (if not piety in some cases), the actual effects of a given policy effectively become irrelevant next to the intent of the policymakers.

To the unfortunate consequence of many teenagers.

Of course, because if they don't heed your awesome moral advice and get into trouble then you can blame them for it!

I wish it wasn't so easy to be a misanthrope.

Ugh. That part makes me sickest of all.

This shit was all over Texas when I was growing up--did some lasting damage to several folks I know. :(

Isn't that against the separation of church and state? Unless it was carefully crafted not to mention anything religious?

It's perfectly secular to advocate abstinence until legal union.

Evil, but secular.

If you are interested to know more, see Penn and Teller's Bullshit! episode on Abstinence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDOGQ5A8M0w

They're a parody of ads promoting abstinence from sex (probably targeted at high school aged kids). It looks like a typical US campaign. I couldn't find the original ads, so I can't answer your last question.

A lot of older pregnancy awareness campaigns were all about abstinence in the USA. It is only recently that people have realized it doesn't work and things have been changing to advocating condom use etc.

It's not "older", it's "Republican". There are still states that predominantly teach abstinence (looking at you, Texas, https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/abstain/), and any mention of contraceptives as both a means to reduce the risks of pregnancy, and of STDs, are mostly at the teacher's discretion, rather than a mandatory part of the course work.

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