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Robot Babies Not Effective Birth Control, Australian Study Finds (sky.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Girls given imitation babies to look after in an effort to deter teenage pregnancy could actually be more likely to get pregnant, according to a study. Researchers in Australia found 8% of girls who used the dolls were expecting by the age of 20, compared with 4% of those who did not. The number of girls having at least one abortion was also higher among girls given the dolls: 9% compared to 6%. 'Baby Think It Over' dolls were used in a Virtual Infant Parenting (VIP) programme which began in 57 schools in Western Australia in 2003. During the three-year study, published in The Lancet, 1267 girls aged 13 to 15 used the simulators -- which need to be fed and changed, while 1567 learned the normal health curriculum. The idea originated in the United States and is used in 89 countries. Researchers from the Telethon Kids Institute in Western Australia are now warning that such programmes may be a waste of public money.
That will never happen: for too many of them, birth control is merely an excuse for their real motive: control of the bodies of young people. The real goal is not to prevent birth, but to prevent sex taking place.
Actually it is about control over morality. The Religious Conservatives view sex outside marriage as Sin and unwanted pregnancies as a (Gods) punishing consequence for immorality. The also see the sacrifices required to raise that child as the path to Salvation and God's good graces. They very much fear that sexual immorality leads not only to the degradation of society, but to the physical destruction of the U.S at the hands of GOD ala "Sodom and Gomorrah."