Bush Abstinence Plan Pushes 'Virgin Birth'

In his 2006 budget, President Bush is proposing a significant increase in spending on education funding, including curricula that teach teenagers about 'immaculate conception' or 'virgin births' as a cause of pregnancy. The curricula change is a major victory for social conservatives, who have pushed for years to get so-called miraculous gestation included in high-school health text books.

Congressional doctors Weldon, Frist say that they've seen virgin births in their own medical practices

By Hermione Slatkin

WASHINGTON, DC—If President Bush gets his way, highly regarded abstinence education programs will soon be even more prominent in US high schools. Mr. Bush has proposed that as much as $270 million be spent teaching kids to abstain from sexual activity until they've joined in holy matrimony with a partner of the opposite sex. (Click thumbnail to view graphic.)

In addition to building character in young men and preparing young ladies to experience the two most wonderful, revered days of their lives, abstinence education programs will soon include information on so-called 'miraculous gestation,' or 'virgin birth.'

A famous mother, no father

According to its new official definition, to be included in the glossaries of high-school health textbooks, virgin birth--or IC as it is commonly known--is human conception that occurs not from sexual contact but as a result of divine intervention. While still controversial among members of the medical community, the concept of virgin birth is widely accepted by the population at large. According to a Newsweek poll last year, 79% of Americans believe that the most famous product of virgin birth, Jesus Christ, was born of Mary without a human father.

Publishers plan to debut the information about 'virgin births' in Texas, the second largest textbook consumer in the country. Last fall, Education officials in Texas successfully petitioned textbook publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston, to remove discussions of contraception from its books and to redefine marriage as union between a man and a woman.

Payoff for the faithful
For social conservatives, who've been pushing for years to get the concept of IC added to the nation's health curricula, news of their latest victory is sweet indeed. While amending the constitution to ban gay marriage remains a top priority for many Christian activists, getting 'virgin births' into the schools is nothing short of a miracle, says Sandy Slokum, executive director of Defend Our Marriages, an Arlington, VA based activist group.

"For decades our young people have been getting an incomplete account of what causes pregnancy," explains Slokum. "It would be like talking about the history of the polio vaccine and not mentioning Jonas Salk or teaching a lesson plan on deaf mutes and failing to mention Helen Keller. When you get right down to it, this is our 'big bang.'

By the book
In December, a Bethlehem, PA, teen announced that she had become pregnant without having intercourse, a claim that was roundly dismissed by doctors. Marissa Meyers, who gave birth to a baby boy on Christmas day, continues to maintain that her pregnancy was the result of divine intervention, and says that the new sex education curricula back up her claim.

"The doctors didn't believe me at all when I told them I hadn't had sex, but now it says like right in a book that you can get pregnant without going all the way," says Ms. Meyers.

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