July 8, 2016 Radio Commentary

It didn’t Happen Overnight

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, July 8, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

Some may be stunned by the apparent “sudden” prevalence of immorality, but it was NOT sudden, at all. It was an inevitable outcome of a carefully planned strategy to destroy the moral fabric of this great nation.

Today I’ll begin to outline the chronological process of change that brought us to this place. We’ll start in 1988 when Dr. Robert A. Hatcher’s book Contraceptive Technology of 1988-1989 described the authors’ attitudes toward “Abstinence and the Range of Sexual Expression.”

Dr. Hatcher, then-Director of Emory University’s Family Planning Program, now Professor Emeritus of Emory’s School of Gynecology and Obstetrics, is the first of seven Contraceptive Technology authors listed. Along with Dr. Hatcher, 37 other Georgians contributed to his book, which is currently in its 19th edition. Of 23 states contributing to the 1980s editions, Georgia’s 37 participants far outnumbered other states. California came in second with only 19.Contraceptive Technology redefined abstinence, which had always meant NO sexual contact, but Dr. Hatcher et al decided people could indulge in various sexual activities, and claim abstinence if they avoided the act of propagation. Soon, the term sexual “outercourse” was introduced in California.

Hatcher’s definition led to the “Age of Double Speech,” which means using a word with a familiar definition, but covertly changing its meaning without informing the hearers or readers. In a teacher training workshop, Mary Lee Tatum who helped plan Virginia’s Standards of Learning said: “I fool them … when I say anatomy and physiology I mean sexual response – all those good things. But that’s not what they mean at all.”

Dr. Hatcher explained his book’s effect on Georgia this way: “A program to help teenagers use abstinence more skillfully and postpone sexual involvement has been developed and implemented with impressive public approval in Atlanta, Georgia.”

To focus on minors, Georgia’s Department of Public Health created 27 Teen Clinics in 1997 and 12 the next year, in addition to the ones already serving Fulton and Walton County teens. Areas without a teen-specific facility provide comprehensive “family planning” needs of minors in public health clinics. Tax-funded medical personnel assess health and write prescriptions; provide physical exams, and condoms; and administer drugs, including birth control pills and injections. Teen-specific health clinics, also, refer for abortions, and give morning-after abortifacients – all without parental notification.

So, my question is: If abstinence means to NOT do something, how can a teen NOT do something more skillfully? For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.