Here's a news flash for you. According to a 2004 study by the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood), "The large number of infections acquired by persons aged 15-24 and the high cost per case of viral STDs, particularly HIV, create a substantial economic burden." Yeah, I bet you didn't know that, eh?
Considering only 8 of the STDs currently on the market (HIV, human papillomavirus (HPV), genital herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), hepatitis B virus, chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis and syphilis), the study estimated "The direct cost of STDs, including HIV, among all age-groups was estimated to be $9.3–15.5 billion in the United States in the mid-1990s, adjusted to year 2000 dollars." For the 15-24 age group alone they estimated the cost at $6.5 billion. At this point, we're talking only about 8 STDs (there are over 25 different known kinds) and only about the financial burden.
Move on to abortions. According the CDC, more than 80% of all abortions are performed on unmarried women. The average cost of an abortion is about $500. (The Guttmacher Institute puts it at about $468.) Working from an estimated 1.3 million abortions a year and considering that 80% of them are on unmarried women, the abortions for the unmarried population (at $500 average) account for another $520 million.
Abortions and sexually-transmitted diseases -- that's all I've looked at here. Together they cost an estimated $10-16 billion in the U.S. alone, and that's with existing prevention efforts (which, by the way, cost money) and available birth control. That's without considering the other costs of these two items. There are other costs. There are emotional, societal, spiritual, social, and physical costs involved, things that can't even be measured even though they are certainly quite real.
Here's another interesting consideration. According to an article in the U.S. News & World Report, there is an existing method that is 100% effective in preventing both unwanted pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases. It is, in fact, the least expensive of all -- free. The existing, free, perfectly effective method is, of course, the one that God prescribed: Saving sex for marriage and marriage for fidelity. Odd how that works out, isn't it?
9 comments:
I agree. Let's make marriage available and encouraged for ALL people, gay or straight.
Yes but they're working on the free part for all those other things too... at least anyway as long as "price" and "cost" are, in the minds of the believer that it is free, melded.
Wow, Dan T. Missed it entirely, didn't you? Or maybe it's me. Let me see if I understand you correctly.
Based on your statement and my post, it is your contention that sexually transmitted diseases are only a problem because most of the country has refused to redefine marriage from the well-known, longstanding, traditional definition? Okay, maybe not "only". Largely. If we would just drop all this stupid defining of marriage and allow an entirely new one to take its place, STDs would drop radically. Right?
You do know that's stupid, right? You do know that there are a host of preventions out there for people who wish to have their immoral sexual liaisons, right? And still cost of STDs is up there. You do know that homosexuals don't get pregnant, right? That means that they won't be having abortions. You know that, don't you?
And still, the bottom line you offer is "Let's cut cost" (assuming what you suggest made the slightest sense) "by rejecting all biblical, historical, cross-cultural concepts of 'marriage' and give it to this particular group." There are other costs there that I'm not willing to pay.
Stan...
Dan T. Missed it entirely, didn't you? Or maybe it's me.
It's you, it would seem.
I do not find faithful, monogamous relationships "stupid." I find them to be wise, moral and advisable. In faithful, monogamous relationships, illness goes down.
What WOULD be stupid - and immoral, to boot - would be to DISCOURAGE folk from faithful, committed monogamous marriage.
Do you get the point, now?
Thanks for the clarification. It is you who missed the point. Doing marriage the biblical way is the point. (And while you're at it, you ought to do a little research. I complain a lot about the problem of words and how they don't mean the same thing to one person as they do to another. "Monogamous" does not mean the same thing to straight people as it does to most homosexual practitioners ... according to several sources among homosexual practitioners.) And we're done.
See? It can't be done, can it? I used the term "homosexual practitioners" because I have ALWAYS maintained that "sexual preference" is irrelevant and "homosexual" was beside the point and the only issue was the sin of the activity, not the desire (either for someone of the same gender of the opposite gender). But you demonstrate here that I cannot make such a statement without being "offensive and demonizing". Thanks for the demonstration of the point (back there in the "What's the Church to Do" conversation).
And the point is missed. Encouraging sin in any form is stupid. On the other hand, it turns out that following God's instructions works out for our benefit in ways that may not be obvious on the surface. That was the point.
Setting aside the ridiculous but routine support for sin by Dan T., I have long maintained that God's plan for human sexuality, like all His other intentions for us, have resulted in all the woes of our culture for having been ignored.
Marshall, that is the point. Thanks you. (I believe, as well, that it works itself out in similar ways with other areas.)
Stan,
God creates man for multiplication, stewarding all creation, and partaking of it to meet his needs. Man goes along with "Did God really say?" and there is big trouble. Hmmm, seems going along with "Did God really say?" is still getting us in trouble.
I'm thankful God is gracious and made a way for us out of His love in spite of our wickedness. Why can't we just be satisfied that God is Sovereign and we are not?
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