Virginity tests...coming soon to the US

Reports that Egyptian military officials used stun guns on women and subjected them to "virginity tests" is disturbing to many people in the modern world. However, before you insist that it "can't happen here" in the US, remember that right-wing religious whackos in our country spent over a billion dollars of federal taxpayer money promoting "abstinence only" sex education, which turned out to be a complete failure. One can imagine that, in a nightmare scenario, under president Palin, the next version of Abstinence Education 2.0, might involve having to prove that one was abstinent. After all, even Palin's own daughter Bristol fell off the abstinence wagon, and straight into a pile of unprotected sex, so I would imagine that Palin would want to be conducting frequent checks of her younger daughters, to make sure that more embarrassments don't occur.

Of course, the US already does poorly enough on standardized tests, and virginity tests share one key feature with standardized tests in that they are not particularly reliable. Still, though, one can only imagine how badly many of our girls would fair on virginity tests, even if they could be made more reliable. As the joke goes, the only test some of these girls are able to pass is a pregnancy test. In fact, I dare say that our would-be fearless leader Sarah P would have been no more able to pass a virginity test during high school than her daughter(s?). However, joking aside, efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, and propaganda campaigns against contraception are pushing the US backward, in the direction of Egypt, instead of forward, toward a modern, progressive, 21st century future.