What the Sexual and Reproductive Health Field Needs: More Religious Faith and Morals...and a Leech

The Reverend Debra W. Haffner, a minister and sexologist*:

- decries the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) field's reliance on research and statistics [less data, more visions--religious or otherwise]

- proclaims that the SRH field suffers from religiophobia, or an irrational fear of religion [hard to take the Reverend's article seriously after this one]

- endorses a faith-based commitment to sexual and reproductive rights [nothing like tacking some religious faith to ordinary bodily functions to insure adequate medical education and care]

- calls for correct and comprehensive sexuality education based on the [s]criptural and religious commitment to truth telling [yeah, right!]

- wants to shift the dialog about abortion to one that is committed to...assuring all children are planned and wanted [there's nothing like dialoguing about fantasy]

- thinks abortion should be safe, legal and rare [what is this fascination with grand, but meaningless, slogans?]

- wants to affirm that because life is sacred that it should never be created carelessly [I hereby appoint myself the Chief Supreme Decider of the Degree of Sexual Carelessness, or Teh CSDDSC]

- believes we must also seek common ground with those we think of as our religious opposition...learn to listen, not just react, to opponents, and that we can move forward if we can approach people of faith who oppose us from a place of listening and love [if our goal was to join opponents in a sing-along, maybe. Insuring real people have access to adequate medical education and care requires a more practical, less hippie-dippy, approach.]

With allies like these, who needs opponents?

(On the computer I'm on, I can't tell if the link works if you don't have a subscription. If it doesn't, let me know, and I'll post the article.)