Statewide Chair Mary McLellan Heritage Community Services Regional Chairs Mariscia Cooper (Pee Dee) Charlie Lybrand (Lowcountry) Lenna Neill (Upstate) Rev. Randy Riddle (Grand Strand) Dr. Roger Rollins (CSRA) Charlotte Valentine-Green (Ace Basin)   Advisory Council Eugene Bacote Darlington School District Dr. Vera Bailey Hilton Head Preg. Care Center Pamela Berry Colleton Fire and Rescue Dr. Vonda Calcutt Lowcountry Ctr. Diabetes Sen. Chip Campsen Charleston/Berkeley Rev. Chuck Coward Charleston Outreach Robin Crosby Colleton County Ligure Ellington Ret.Capt. Charleston City Police Dr. Randy Goings Chiropractic Physician Faye Hill Lowcountry Pregnancy Center & SC Association Pregnancy Care Centers WC Hoecke Fatherhood Practioner Leroy Lewis Upward Bound at Cof C Norman L. Moore, Jr. Colonel, USAFR(Ret) Cyndi Mosteller Comm. for Higher Education Alexia Newman Carolina Pregnancy Center Fred Payne Marriage Savers of Upstate Jerry & Barbara Seymour R& R Marriage Min. Ronald Shoupe Colleton County Dr. A. V. Strong A Better Way, Inc. (Gang Out) Dr. Robert Thomas Pulmonary Medicine Pastor Phil Thrailkill St. Luke UMC Hartsville Kelly Walker Upstate Fatherhood Coalition	December 4, 2009   SC Healthy Family Formation Coalition E-News!   Almost every day, another scandal erupts around suppressed and/or manipulated data.  The determination of the mainstream media to NOT report objective scientific findings is no longer a surprise to those in the healthy family formation movement.       For example, have you heard the media reporting that members of a committee at the CDC concluded that effective abstinence education programs have been largely successful at delaying sexual activity in our youth?  Probably not!    The mainstream media continues its decade long practice of suppressing the good news about abstinence education in favor of world-wide condom distribution.   What surprises many in the field of pregnancy and STD prevention is that the majority of scientists and experts at the CDC are deliberately ignoring these positive scientific findings about abstinence education.  Rather, they continue recommending condom-based sex education for every adolescent in all US public schools. Therefore, the public (tax payers/parents) is denied objective truth, so that ideology and politics trumps the scientific method.       President Obama’s Support for the Scientific Method In her Townhall editorial on ClimateGate, Michelle Malkin reminds us of the following quote from President Obama regarding his views on the scientific method in March 2009. While the context is the approval of government-funded human embryonic stem cell research, President Obama’s quote addresses the value of the scientific method in protecting objective truth from arbitrary ideological agendas.       "Promoting science isn't just about providing resources –  it's about protecting free and open inquiry," he said during the signing ceremony.   "It's about letting scientists like those who are here today  do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient – especially when it's inconvenient.   It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda – and that we make scientific decisions   based on facts, not ideology."         Media Ignores Policy Whistle Blowers Anne Badgley, CEO Heritage Community Services   Irene Ericksen, M.S., and Danielle Ruedt, M.P.H., members of a CDC consultant team studying pregnancy and STD prevention programs, disagree with the conclusions drawn in a just-released government report claiming abstinence education doesn’t work.   In fact, they say, abstinence education programs work better than condom-promotion programs, but their minority report is being ignored by every major media outlet.   Yet, it is this very topic that is at the heart of the cultural divide and the entitlements that follow chaotically formed families.   When HIV funds catapulted condom-promotion into America, teen pregnancy and welfare rates soared.  However, after welfare-reform provided abstinence education funding, teen pregnancy rates dropped nearly 40%.   Yet, no one is noticing the under-the-radar bureaucratic maneuvering such as this ideological biased CDC report, which is leading the nation right back to pre-Welfare Reform policies.   Why does this matter?  Simply put, the percentage of chaotically formed families is overwhelming the percentage of productive families that are paying the bills.   In their minority report, Ericksen and Ruedt reveal data indicating that effective abstinence education programs have been shown to delay the initiation of sex by 50%, a year after the programs are over.  But, the CDC refuses to release the supporting data until after the budgets are signed and the old policies are back in place.   Furthermore, the minority report says the evidence supporting condom-promotion programs is weak.  For example, when students report that they used a condom “at last intercourse,” the CDC reports the slightest increase as success.    Equally frustration, they willfully ignore the essential fact that when condoms are used perfectly, which is essentially non-existent in adults and teens, they provide limited “safety” from disease and pregnancy.   Yet crucial data, indicating that abstinence education students report initiating sex at half the rate of non-program students a year after such programs, is excluded from the report.   Since the mid-80s the CDC has worked with Planned Parenthood and its advocates to change the sexual norms in America.  Like the proverbial frogs in the frying pans, each generation of adults has allowed increasing sexualization of their own children.  When pleasure-seeking is a way of life, it logically follows that there are no boundaries for propagation, or for taking care of the young who are born after sexual liaisons.   Our culture is on the verge of producing such a large and needy voting majority that we may lose our ability to maintain a true, able and responsible democratic republic.  Policies do matter.       Follow the Money Such policies based on dubious ‘scientific findings’ are used to justify the continued redistribution of billions, if not trillions of dollars in HIV/AIDS funding over the past 20 years to condom advocates world-wide.   Lots of money is at stake, especially now that abstinence education funding is set to be eliminated next year.       Senate Update from the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) According to an article in this week’s Congressional Quarterly, “Reid says yes to Abstinence”, funding for Abstinence Education continues in the Senate version of Health Care Reform.    “Just when it appeared that Congress was about to erase one of the social-conservative legacies of the George W. Bush administration — abstinence-only sex education programs — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to bring it back.”     NAEA is doing everything they can to protect Abstinence Education funding.  But they can’t do it without support.  Will you help them stay in the fight?  Here’s how you can help:   GIVE a tax-deductible year-end donation to keep us in the fight. To learn more, please contact us or make an online donation here.   JOIN NAEA as an individual or organizational member. Click here to join now.        Link to past SCHFF E-News!     Follow the SC-HFF Coalition on Twitter! Join the Heritage Keepers® Facebook Cause
	The South Carolina Healthy Family Formation Coalition (SC HFF Coalition) is organized and staffed by Heritage Community Services. The SC HFF Coalition promotes child and family well-being by providing opportunities for statewide communication about such issues as: adolescent pregnancy, unwed childbearing, fatherlessness, sexual exploitation of our youth, dating violence and domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, gang activity and youth violence.    Coalition members support healthy family formation initiatives that integrate character-based life skills, teen pregnancy prevention with an emphasis on abstinence-centered education, and the importance of fidelity-within-marriage.   Together we can impact our culture so that forming healthy families becomes a norm, rather than the exception, for South Carolina. Please, forward this E-News to interested friends, family and colleagues and ask them to consider joining the Coalition. Join/Subscribe Unsubscribe PRIVACY POLICY: Information you share will never be sold, rented, or given to any third party. Contact Mary McLellan , Statewide Chairman (843)654-7740 ext.122