Reality always trumps idealism, including when it comes to teenage pregnancy.
I have a whole post drafted up about abortion, but it’s mostly about adults, so I’ll post it later. Plus, it seems to me that all the things I have to say in that post can only follow what I have to say in this post; otherwise, the subject of this post would be a big empty question mark in the other one.
Okay. Let’s do this. The catalyst for this discussion is something Barack Obama has said:
“This is an example where good people can disagree,” the Illinois senator said. “The question then is, are there areas that we can agree to that everybody can get behind? We can all agree that we want to reduce teen pregnancies. We can all agree that we want to make sure that adoption is a viable option.”
The exchange appeared to be prompted by Obama’s earlier comments that he does not favor abstinence-only education, but rather comprehensive sexual education that includes information on abstinence and birth control.
“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”
A lot of conservatives are going to hate him really hard for that statement. They’re going to say he’s an asshole for equating a baby with “punishment”, and so on. I understand this reaction, but I also think that his overarching point is exactly right. Stick with me here.
When conservatives agitate for abstinence education, they aren’t using the same logic they tend to use for other issues.
For example, guns. I can’t speak for all of you, but at the core, my ultimate reason for insisting that I must have guns in my house is because I am fully in touch with the reality of human nature. I know beyond a doubt, based on my experiences and observations and education, that there are bad people in the world who want to hurt good people. I don’t give two shits if liberals want to pretend this isn’t so; I know it is so.
Therefore, no matter how hard anyone ever tries to convince me that the world would be a better place if law-abiding citizens didn’t pack heat, I will continue to pack heat because the facts have not changed. Human nature is still human nature; if I disarm myself, I am not eliminating all the bad people who want to hurt me, I’m only putting myself in an undesirable position.
Another example: capitalism. History has proven that capitalism is better for the quality of human life than socialism or any variation thereof. The reason for this is human nature. Again, I can’t speak for you but I’m guessing that you’ve come to the same conclusions I have for the same reasons: you know with absolutely no doubt that human nature being what it is, people will not work hard unless they are rewarded for it on a personal level.
Marxists and commies can spend their whole lives trying to convince you otherwise but if you remain true to common sense, and you use your rational brain, they will always fail, because you know that there are just some things you can never, ever change about human nature no matter how great it would be if you could.
For that very same reason, I know that abstinence training is not the answer to teenage pregnancy. It may be one of the tools but I truly believe that even if it were done correctly, which it isn’t, it would still only prevent maybe 5% of teenage pregnancies because of our old friend, human nature.
Not to mention human biology. Many of you are Christians and believe that God made us the way we are for a reason. Which, to me, would mean he specifically designed humans to become fertile at puberty, which occurs at roughly age 12-15. Not only are humans fertile at that age, they are very interested in sex. God made them that way, right? I’m not going to start a religious argument over this but that always has seemed to me a pretty obvious question Christians should ask themselves when they talk about abstinence. It’s not really the point, though, at least not to me.
In my world, reality is everything. And the reality is what I just said - humans become fertile and interested in sex when they’re young teenagers. This is a simple fact that can’t be debated, changed, or wished away. We have to accept that there is absolutely no possible way to create a different reality unless we manipulate their hormones or sterilize them (which, frankly, I WHOLLY SUPPORT).
Other facts are that teenagers are resistant to adult advice, they do not see the “big picture”, they have a very poor grasp of how what they do right this second will affect them in the future, and the number one motivator in their lives is peer pressure. Put all of that in a pot and stir it up, and you have very young humans who are fertile, horny, shortsighted, and determined to do what makes them feel good right now.
Sitting those humans down and telling them that God or society says people shouldn’t have sex until they’re married or older is going to be an utter waste of time and effort on almost all of them. Some will listen, but the majority won’t, no matter how right you are.
Because the reality is, they want to have sex, more than you want them not to.
So, how do you keep them from becoming pregnant or getting STDs? There’s absolutely no reason to believe that telling them not to have sex will accomplish that goal, for the majority of them. As adults, we know that would be the best thing, but as intelligent people who accept factual data, we also know that it just won’t work. And please don’t tell me it works for some and thus my point is disproven. I know it works for some; I have friends who were virgins until they married. But it will never work for the majority unless we completely overhaul our entire culture, which you and I both know is not going to happen any time soon.
All of that being what it is, the fact being that abstinence education only has a small impact…Obama is right. Sorry, you know I cried as I typed those words, but it’s true. When he says of his daughters, “if they make a mistake”, he’s facing the reality that no matter what he teaches them about right and wrong, no matter how many years he spends begging them not to have sex until they’re older, they very well may still do it.
Which won’t make them bad people. They are human beings with human urges, human biology, and human psychology. At age 16, the urge to engage in sexual activity is very often greater than the urge to listen to your parents, and not necessarily because you’re a brat. There are powerful chemicals involved here, folks. Most adults can’t even make sound decisions based on fear of consequences; how can you possibly expect 16-year-olds to do better than you can, especially considering the fact that they’re overwhelmed by hormones and peer pressure?
As for what to do about it and how to prevent them from getting knocked up and thus often having abortions, which I think we all agree is the goal: sorry, but you’re gonna have to teach them about contraception, a lot more than you may feel comfortable with. Argue the point all you want, it won’t change the reality.
And think about this: which is ultimately more important, teenagers not having sex or teenagers not making babies and thus not having abortions? I’m going with the latter. That doesn’t mean I think it’s fine for teenagers to have sex; I don’t. It only means I think them having sex is less harmful by every measure than them having babies or abortions.
It may emotionally damage teenagers to have sex, but they can be, and often are, damaged far more severely and in many more ways (psychologically, financially, medically) if they have a baby or an abortion.
It’s a lot like the Great McCain Question and the lesser of two evils. You know you’re gonna get a liberal jackass for a new president, just like you know kids are going to have sex. All you can do is minimize the damage. Voting for McCain may be distasteful and feel so wrong because it’s essentially an endorsement of something you don’t want to endorse, but the alternative is something worse. Giving teenagers contraception feels distasteful and wrong, as it is an endorsement of something you don’t want to endorse, but the alternative is unwanted pregnancies and abortions, which to me, is worse.
I welcome debate, but for the love of God, don’t ignore half of what I said to argue against the rest of what I said. If management of all Earth functions was in my control, teenagers would NEVER have sex. And I fully comprehend that making contraception easily available to all of them probably means some of them are more likely to do it. But not much more likely; like I keep saying, most of them are going to do it if they want to, no matter what.
And frankly, since I hate abortion and I hate how unwanted most babies are who are born to teenagers, I’m willing to make that trade-off. If putting contraception in the hands of every teenager means slightly more of them have sex but many fewer of them have babies and abortions, I’m okay with that and I can’t for the life of me figure out why I shouldn’t be.
One last thing. You may wonder how I can say teenagers won’t listen when told not to have sex but will listen when told how to use contraception. I say it because at least in my experience and that of all the girls I knew in high school, it’s true. Almost nobody had any interest in avoiding sex completely; everybody was interested in not acquiring AIDS, herpes, gonorrhea, and babies. Overriding our hormonal urges was nearly impossible but appealing to our fears was not.
By the end of 11th grade, most of the girls were on the pill, which they’d gotten from Planned Parenthood without their parents’ knowledge or permission, and most of them also used condoms because this was the late 80s and we were terrified of AIDS.
Wait, one more last thing: surely somebody will want to rail against what I just said about girls getting the pill from PP without their parents’ approval. All I have to say to that is would you rather they didn’t? Would you rather they got pregnant? Would you rather their first visit to that place be for an abortion?
Think about it: if they’re going to Planned Parenthood secretly, they obviously have parents who don’t want them to have sex. Which clearly isn’t stopping them from having sex, so what good would it do to force them to have parental permission to get the pill? The only outcome from that would be that instead of having sex with contraception, they’ll have sex without it.
Who wins then? Not the parents; they may feel great about having control over their daughter’s use or lack thereof of protection even while they can never control whether or not she has sex, but they won’t feel so great the day she comes home to tell them she’s pregnant.
I have a son and I don’t even know where I’ll begin with him. It completely sucks, because you’re right. They are going to suffer emotional damage either way. I hate that.
As far as Planned Parenthood…Just like I would be over-the-top furious with a school teaching my child from a sexually explicit book without my knowledge AND approval, I would feel the same about PP prescribing birth control. More so, actually.
Don’t be touching my kid, medicating him/her, or giving any type of moral advice unless I specifically schedule the appointment.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:57 pmESTAs a conservative who usually comes down on the other side of this issue, I found this post rather interesting. Thanks Rachel, it certainly gave me something to think about. I don’t know how much it’ll actually change my mind, but it’s making my brain work a little harder, which is never a bad thing.
One thing I think I should point out, though, is that there’s some serious inconsistency going on here - you can give a young teen the pill or an abortion without parental knowledge, but you can’t give a kid an aspirin or remove a mole without parental consent?
I dunno, maybe you’re right, and society and teens would be better off by widely and freely available contraceptives. I dunno. But a large part of me instinctively shrinks from inconsistencies, so if we’re going to give teens greater autonomy in taking the pill and such without parental consent, I’m not sure how we can logically avoid such a thing in other areas as well. Which might not be a bad thing - I certainly don’t know whether it would be or not.
Just another thing to think about.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:03 pmESTI also bumped up hard against the issue with PP giving away pills. It’s one thing to educate about STDs — trust me, I found out my younger bro’ was having unprotected sex and made him look at pictures of genital herpes — and I lump that together with giving away condoms. To me, it’s quite another to give out hormones to kids (Michelle Malkin had a post about a middle school doing it). ‘Cause that’s what The Pill is — doses of concentrated hormones. I think it’s completely inappropriate to give that to kids. Is a 17 year old a kid? Mmm, probably not. Is a 13 year old? Yes, definitely so. Does it come down to where you draw the line, age-wise?
April 1st, 2008 at 2:15 pmESTI was a virgin when I got married. I was raised as a good Catholic boy and I believed everything that was taught to me. Being shy and geeky didn’t help, though I did have a couple of opportunities to indulge in sins of the flesh while in college. I turned them both down.
Has it made me happy?
No.
Getting married w/o having sex is like buying a car w/o test driving it. Yes, it’s new (she was a Catholic virgin, too). But, if it’s a lemon, you’re stuck.
While I also don’t believe, per se, that teens should have sex, I also believe that sex is a normal part of being an adult human. Teaching teens about responsibility, and subsequently how that applies to sex, would go a long way toward improving society overall as well as its views on sex.
Interesting factoid: later in life I discovered that the Catholic Church, who not only frowns on contraception but actually deems it a sin, has an exception (I forget the actual term) on contraception. When a pregnancy may prove fatal and/or mask a possibly unhealthy condition, then the Church allows contraception use. Google “molar pregnancy” for details. The quick note is that a healthy pregnancy, during the time that a molar pregnancy is being treated, cannot be differentiated from a malignant tumor and must be aborted to avoid a possibly cancerous condition. So, even the Church agrees, under duress, that contraception is better than abortion.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:17 pmESTI too, struggle with the same type of stuff David is.
I admit, if teens humping each other is bad, teens humping each other and making babies is worse.
But I’m not sure that removing the disincentive of an unplanned pregnancy won’t increast the incidence of teen sex far more than you imagine it will.
Lamont
April 1st, 2008 at 2:18 pmESTBut Rachel, do you have any data to back that up? What were teen pregnancy rates in other eras of our history? In other countries?
The fact about kids that you fail to look at is that by definition, their “human nature” is in the process of being shaped. It’s human nature to have a sex drive. That doesn’t mean it’s unescapable human nature to actually have sex at age 14.
Little kids do lots of stupid stuff by virtue of their human nature that we work hard to teach them not to do. Growing up is all about learning to tame the more animalistic aspects of our nature. We learn not to steal, not to bite other people, not to hit other people. We learn to share and to respect folks and to delay the immediate gratification of our desires, physical and mental. We don’t say, “well, it’s human nature for a kid to get in fights with other kids, so there’s no point in trying to stop him from doing that.”
It is possible to severly restrict the opportunities for teenagers to have sex (most teenagers, anyway), and to instill in them the ability to wait to fulfill their sexual urges. It’s just not possible to do so without your kids calling you MEAN! and constantly bitching that they don’t have the same freedoms that the other parents give their kids (freedoms like being able to stay out until midnight without telling your parents where you are, etc.).
April 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pmESTRachel,
I whole heartedly disagree with the lesser of the two evils metaphore no matter how it is applied. Teen pregnancy is a consequence of a choice. If I choose not to adhere to the guidance of my parents for abstinence then I choose to suffer the conseqences of my decision. I don’t think there is a rating scale for emotional damage. I don’t think being sexualy abused was any more tramatic than being abandoned emotionally by my parents. They both sucked wildly. If we choose to save our children from the consequences of their choices we do them an even greater disservice. If I give my children an avenue to get out of their choice of submission to my guidlines then why can’t that be applied across the board with any behavior. I don’t view parenthood as a means of controlling my childrens’ behavior but as a process of education and leaving them with the age appropriate choice to make. And I can speak to both sides of the fence. I have one daughter who chose to follow my advise and one that didn’t and the one who didn’t consequently experienced a teenage pregnancy. At that point, my educational role switched to educating her on how to still be successful and work with the decisions that she made. Most of the time making a decision that is in the child’s best interest isn’t always the easiest or the most popular but it still has to be made by the parent.
As for children being able to circumvent my guidlines without me being notified is a criminal act in my mind. How can you hold a parent responsible for their children when you don’t respect their parental rights. Rights and responsibilities are not mutually exclusive….if you have one you have the other. So either the state is the parent or I am and I will definately use my 2nd ammendment right to protect my right/responsibility as a parent.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pmESTRachl Lukis stirrin’ it up.
I’ll get coffee…this is gonna be a long thread right quick.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:27 pmESTI would agree that the modern cultural norm of marriage in the twenties and puberty as early as ten or eleven in some girls creates a pretty wide gap between the biological drive to reproduce and the societally acceptable age of marriage. I’m not personally a huge fan of teenagers having sex, nor am I a fan of the “tell them not to do it and hope for the best” school of sex ed. But mostly I’m not a fan of government schools taking on the roll of sex educator at all.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pmESTHmm…lets see if I can keep from going into tangent mania here:
1: The lesser of two evils is just a cop-out. Raising a child is not easy. Abdicating your responsibility as a parent to a tired cliche like “they’ll just do it anyways” is unacceptable.
2: It’s Human nature is also no excuse to give up and start slinging condoms around.
3: There are no “what ifs” in life’s important decisions. Everything has a consequence. If you whitewash the consequence away what have they learned.
4: You say you understand that the real solution is to alter our culture entirely (I agree), but that it will take a long time…so in the meantime teach them to be safe sluts.
5: There is no solution for shitty-parents, sad, I know. But messing with what other parents’ have taught their children is not the answer either.
Damn, tangent there. What I mean to refer to is the “emotional damage” aspect you bring up regarding baby or abortion. A proper parent would (like Kristi said) switch roles from disciplinarian to teacher. They would now instruct their child that made the wrong choices in how to deal with that choice and move on and move up.
If you coddle children so much that they have no fear of any reprisal then they won’t have the common sense, logic and morals to succeed in life. They will continue to fuck up once they hit real life…where the consequences can be a bit more ‘emotionally damaging’…especially if you have no parents to bail your ass out.
damn, phone call coming in. I wish I could finish my thoughts, but i hope you get my drift.
P.S. Isn’t it amazing what happens when a society pushes religion out and instead, stresses the importance of self satisfaction above all else.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:45 pmESTI’m skipping lunch to keep up with this one.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:48 pmESTI was a virgin until I was almost 35. My H.S. years I was too frightened to get my g.f. pregnant (I was definitely not mature enough to handle that) and after that it was HIV/AIDS that scared the crap outta me. I should also add that as a Christian, that played a large role in me remaining a virgin until 35.
Didn’t meet the woman that would be my wife until I was almost 36 so my “experience” was limited at best. Had I known then what I know now, I would have waited until I met the missus before I gave in.
Maybe God made humans that way because if everyone was able to hold off on having sex until they were old enough to fully weigh all of the consequences, the human race would die out!
April 1st, 2008 at 2:50 pmESTRachel,
As a Christian, I know that the Bible tells of good men (King David and Samson, off the top of my head) giving into their lusts and other fleshly desires. It cost them dearly. These examples are not in there by accident and I think the scriptures tell us these things to make us aware of how weak we really are as humans. Look, I remember how I thought as a teenage boy. When you are in the moment, it is very easy to forget or ignore the sound reasoning of not “doing it”. The best thing, really, is to not put oneself into a situation where you can act on your urges. We do ourselves a disservice if we assume that just because our kids are Christians, they are somehow immune to the same temptations as anyone else. It is best to prepare them for the situations they could find themselves in with the hope that they will make the right decision when that time comes.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:51 pmESTWe did not have sex education when I was a teenager. We also had restrictions on the type of sexual material shown in movies and on tv. And yes, we were taught absinance because we also didn’t have reliable birth control. And, I guess it might amaze you that I might have made out with boys but didn’t have sex until I turned 18.
What I am trying to say here is that what conservative would like to do is have things return, as much as possible, to the way they used to be. I’m not convinced that telling teenagers “Gee we don’t expect you to try and control yourselves so why even try?” is a useful strategy either. I don’t see that sex education has done much of anything. I’d like to see the schools and the government step completely out of the picture on this one. And I’d definitely like to see restrictions on sexual material in the media.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:53 pmESTSorry Rachel, while I agree we should do all we can to prevent STDs, teenage pregnancy, and abortions, I have to respectfully disagree with some of your points.
1.
But, even if only some of them listen for only some of the time, telling them to wait is going to have an effect. Maybe it won’t ensure they will wait until they are older or married, but they will have to think about it if it’s said sincerely (reasons given) and often enough. If it only causes them to postpone sexual activity for 6 months or a year, it is still helping.
Personally, I think they should be given sex education and told why to wait.
2. If comprehensive sex education is so effective why do new figures show that 1 in 4 teen girls has an STD? Study: teen girls and sex disease For cripes sake, they’ve all been putting condoms on bananas since kindergarten: if sex education is so successful shouldn’t the incidence of STDs be dropping?
3. As for organizations dispensing birth control to minors without parental notification, I do not want my children receiving any health care without my knowledge … period. Disgustingly, studies have shown that the availability of these services actually helps many adult predators take advantage of their teenaged victims. (E.g., Mom’s boyfriend is molesting Mom’s 13-year-old and makes the teen get the pill or an abortion all without Mom knowing or being able to protect her daughter.)
April 1st, 2008 at 2:55 pmESTMost excellent post, Rachel. I agree with all of it with two notes:
1) When the GOVERNMENT starts trumping parental authority, even when it is factually correct, it has begun to do more harm than good. (See Slick Rick Perry’s mandate for ALL Texas girls to get the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine.)
We won’t make any progress by trying to cut parents out of parenting. We have to actually convince the parents that contraception is the way to go, and that’s going to be rilly rilly rilly hard because:
2) Many Christians believe, as a core tenet of their faith, that God deliberately bestowed powerful sex drives on us, and then Commanded that we deny ourselves this pleasure. To them, abstinence is a virtue that must be taught…and God is gonna give ‘em a pop quiz.
Of course I think that if God exists and he in fact did this to us, then God is a Giant Fucking Douchebag, but that’s me.
The point is–this is Dogma, and it’s damned difficult to Reason with.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:57 pmESTHumans become fertile & horny right when they should, if they’re not going to live for 80 years… if the average lifespan of the base model human is something like 30 years, then gettin’ started at 12 or 13 is probably a good idea (I don’t know, I’m not the designer of the thing).
I only hope that my daughters exercise some measure of sense, that they manage to look beyond the now and do a quick reckoning of possible future burdens. Unless he totally has a bitchin’ van, of course. But I think that only makes sense.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:58 pmESTvery good post Rachel. Why don’t you just fess up to being a libertarian and throw all that weight behind:
April 1st, 2008 at 3:03 pmESThttp://www.rootforamerica.com
The is the most reasonable place on the web for these discussions. Sometimes I comment, and sometimes I just sit back and marvel at all of you. You are thoughtful, intelligent, reasoning people of faith and non-faith, who never stoop to personal attacks and everybody respects everybody. It’s one of the reasons my ‘what blogs do you visit?’ the other day was a short list of ‘Rachel’s’ - and that was about it!
I am a conservative Christian person when it comes to these issue but I will say the teenage thing has made me ponder, too. Why such incredible drives in those so young if they are supposed to put the brakes on, and at a time when they are the least capable, maturity wise, of doing so? I think way back when, through the centuries all the way back to the beginning, it was about people creating life, period, and teen pregnancy was considered something very different from how we view it now. Our modern minds are more about quality of life, not throwing the potential of your life away, especially if you are a young girl, but to some degree with a teenage father as well, and social issues like that, apart from any moral issues. Plenty of non-faith people don’t want their girl getting pregnant, either, for reasons of sheer practicality and life potential. But if your quality of life means ending a life you’ve created, where does quality of life for that life fit in? And it goes round and round.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:04 pmESTI’m a Christian.
I’m a Conservative.
I’m a Republican.
I’m a mid-twenties, never married virgin, whose belief in premarital celibacy (and faith in general) cost me my last girl friend.
I’m an Engineer (a lot like a scientist).
Facts are facts, and I am OK with them being taught in school. If the school sticks to teaching the facts, I’m fine. Those facts include the possible consequences of unprotected sex, the diseases, the baby, the statistical instances of claimed shame and regret. Those facts also include the available contraceptive measures, how they are designed to work, how they fail, why they fail. These facts include the different consequences of different sex (like if you think genital herpes is embarrassing, imagine if you get it on your face after oral sex). I believe the added risks of anal sex should be taught (though the idea is disgusting to me anyway). The existence of homosexuality should be taught, but anything beyond that isn’t factual yet (so no advocacy), an any risks can implied from fusing knowledge of the effects on the male and female from the different types of sex.
Oh yes, and the four most important facts: 1) abstinence is the only guaranteed means to avoid pregnancy and STDs, 2) a fertilized egg is a genetically unique life, human in DNA, 3) the contraceptive pill does not prevent the fertilization of the egg, it only prevents it from sticking to the uterine wall (so a genetically distinct conceived life potentially washes away, as surely as it would if the morning after pill were used) 4) condoms are a porous material, designed primarily to stop pregnancy, so the pores are smaller than sperm cells are, but there are STDs that are smaller than the pores, so they are possible to spread even if using a condom.
I grew up in CA, I had complete sex-ed, starting in 5th grade, ending in 9th (”health” class). I was also religious, brought up in the church. By age 10 (which I turned in 5th grade before sex-ed started) my parents and church had instilled in me the idea that it is morally correct to be married prior to sex (because, assuming two healthy partners, and no intervening processes, a child will be the eventual result of sex). I believe this is enough.
If you are concerned your child learning the facts about the world around him will cause him or her to more readily engage in sinful behavior, then you are only keeping them ignorant, not protecting them. Ignorance is easily replaced with false knowledge (such as “you can’t get pregnant if it is your first time”). If they are told only that it is wrong, but not why, they don’t have much strength to resist temptation, because a sweet lie (or even honestly believe incorrect information conveyed by a friend or seducer) can convince them otherwise.
In summary, I agree with the idea of teaching the kids. I don’t believe that contraceptives should be simply given away. If a parent wants to take a daughter her in because they decided together she should be on the pill, then fine BUT NO ONE ELSE GETS TO. As to condoms, they aren’t too expensive, and if charities want to provide them for free, no questions asked, they should be welcome to, but not at school. There is a difference between informing children, educating them, and endorsing the action, which, let’s face it, providing contraceptives is doing. Kids are told to listen to their teachers. If little Johny’s teacher gives him a condom, he’ll likely believe it is OK for him to use it in its intended role.
Finally, planned parenthood has proven they are willing to circumvent the law, the organization should be shut down in my opinion, and those who have broken the law should face criminal prosecution, not simply dismissal.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:04 pmESTdoes it hurt to be so right all the time?
April 1st, 2008 at 3:06 pmESTBrief intro on world incidence of teen pregnancy here and here. Some historical figures on teen pregnancy in the US here. Not the best proxy for teen sexual activity, of course, because developed nations tend to have both sex ed and access to contraception.
The Guttmacher Institute has an interesting report that allows some cross-national comparisons. It doesn’t indicate lower levels of teen sexual activity in developed nations with lower teen pregnancy rates, or lower teen birth rates in nations with older average age of loss-of-virginity.
Those inclined to debate why that is, have at. But the summary of the study is IMHO dead on.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:06 pmESTI am a Christian, but I was raised in a “medical” household (I come from a long line of nurses and other medical professionals). My mother worked as office manager/bookkeeper for over 20 years in an OB/GYN’s office in downtown Seattle. The OB she worked for worked in free clinics as well, so many patients who were on Medicaid came to the office as well. I had the ever-loving crap scared out of me at as a young teenager because Mom was bringing home stories of kids my age who were pregnant (along with a host of drug-related problems). I also worked the front desk for a few summers at the office, so I saw a lot of sad stuff first hand.
When I was 14, my parents had their 4th (and last) child. There’s a 10 year gap between my sisters. Trust me, there’s nothing that makes sex less appealing that the everyday care of a baby (and the thought to a teenager that their parents are actually having sex - ewww). So, not only was I hearing (and seeing) horror stories, I was living with a baby sister, which made the results of sex really obvious to me.
I was a virgin until I got married, but my husband was not. I plan on giving my kids (ages 4 and 2) every kind of information possible, because that’s how I was raised. I even plan on getting my daughter vaccinated for HPV when she’s old enough (because no matter how well I raise her and what kind of morals she has, I didn’t raise her future husband). I plan on teaching my kids that sex outside of marriage has consequences, both physical and emotional, and that when you have sex, you have to accept those consequences. I’m not deluding myself - this is a long, uphill battle. But I’m gonna fight it - and no school or politician is going to override me.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:11 pmEST3) the contraceptive pill does not prevent the fertilization of the egg, it only prevents it from sticking to the uterine wall (so a genetically distinct conceived life potentially washes away, as surely as it would if the morning after pill were used)
Um, that’s false. Normal oral contraceptives (”The Pill”) prevent ovulation. No egg to fertilize.
Trust me, there’s nothing that makes sex less appealing that the everyday care of a baby (and the thought to a teenager that their parents are actually having sex - ewww).
LMAO. Oh yeah. Baby care does tend to impress. I’m all in favor of issuing adolescents twenty pound weights that they must carry around undamaged all day long, weights that randomly spew noxious substances all over themselves and the bearer. And make LOUD frightening and annoying noises.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:12 pmESTInteresting post, Rachel. I think the overarching problem is that pop culture glorifies a irresponsibility without consequence. Until that is resolved, no amount of abstinence teaching will help much. It doesn’t help that we send such conflicting messages to kids. On one hand we tell them not to do it, that it can be a destructive behavior; on the other, sleaze sells and it stays at the forefront of media and entertainment. It reminds me of the “Rock Against Drugs” program from the 80’s, which the ever-lovable Sam Kinison equated to “Christians Against Christ.”
I do have to disagree with you about one thing; you say that because God made us go crazy at puberty, it might excuse the behavior (I paraphrase, obviously). That’s a really horrendous argument. By that same token, God also made the thug that wants to hurt you; it’s in his nature. Will you reconsider shooting his deserving ass should he break into your home? Or the pedaphile, who can’t control himself; you’ve just put forth a resounding argument for mainstreaming NAMBLA. If you do take a christian angle on the idea that God made us with our flaws, the purpose was to test man and make us strive to be more and better, as all obstacles do. It’s just another sort of obstacle. Everyone caves now and again. The idea isn’t that no one caves, but that you don’t accept it as okay and strive to redeem yourself. Of course, there are always judgemental assholes ready to pounce, but as you said, that’s human nature.
Same goes with sex and kids. I don’t think abstinance only works; though abstinance should be taught. But until the idea that such indescretion is not only okay, but neccessary to ‘be cool’ is undone, nothing will change.
Just for the record, I grew up in a christian household. My folks taught me about the B&B’s when I was 9. I haven’t been right since ;). But they also taught it with love, and I had their relationship as my example; it makes a big difference because the act has meaning to me. Taught in a classroom as a clinical subject, it just becomes another thing that’s only purpose is self-satisfaction. That is, until those consequences they seldom see in entertainment kick in.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:15 pmEST“Unless he totally has a bitchin’ van, of course.”
Thank you, Scott, for making me giggle like an imbecile.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pmESTOne thing that is often overlooked when people talk about a baby being the consequence of a bad choice is… the baby. Granted, it’s tough for a teenager to become pregnant and to have to live with the increased responsibility etc., but it’s also tough on that baby. And that baby didn’t have any choice at all, but still has to live in a sub-optimal situation. I know, I know, some teenagers can step up to the plate and do the right thing and everything turns out all right, but in many, many, many cases it doesn’t.
That being said, I think with my kids I’ll teach them as much as I can about hormones, sex, contraception, peer pressure, pregnancy, abstinence, and the moral and pragmatic reasons intertwined in those topics, and hope for the best. Ultimately, it’s the best a parent can do.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:20 pmESTI think what Obama meant by his comment is the punishment that would come from a 15 year old girl (for example) having a baby - her life changes forever because of a lapse in judgment. Good bye childhood, hello parenthood. It’s not what any parent would choose for their child and as much as I’m NO fan of Obama, I don’t think he meant it quite as literally as it is being taken in the MSM. I don’t believe he meant the baby is the punishment, but rather the life-changing circumstances that result from teenage pregnancy.
That being said - I agree with Rachel 110%. It is a cold hard fact that no matter how hard you try, teenagers will want to have sex. Time has proven that to be so. I had “sex education” (focusing on abstinence only) in my high school as a senior - and I can tell you it probably only influenced maybe 10 kids to not have sex.
Kids will have sex, period. It’s better to equip them to avoid pregnancy than to believe that lectures, god and whatever else you can think of will suppress urges that are a few thousand years old. My mother understood that and took me to a gynecologist when I was 16 with full support and approval to put me on the pill if I asked. I did and my mom knew about it. Was she happy I had made that choice? Of course not, but she was far happier that at least I made the choice to protect myself from getting pregnant.
Some kids do manage to abstain until they marry - and I am in awe of that kind of commitment and self-control. But the vast majority will barely make it to their 18th birthday before they succumb to the urges.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:21 pmESTNice post. You’ve made some fine points, Rachel.
While educating children (at the right age) with facts, consequences, etc., is okay at school, any other action, pills, condoms, etc. should be the province of the parent, and not other entity.
Chet
April 1st, 2008 at 3:23 pmESTTully, I’ll recall number 3 then. I always thought that it was ovulation that was prevented as well, but I was told later that ovulation isn’t prevented, but instead that the uterine wall is made inhospitable to it. I guess it will take further research on my part, and I humbly acknowledge my error. Now I have my own research to do again, damn.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:23 pmESTI see that Vehix dot com is advertising cars by selling the idea of a virtual test drive. Hmmm. VeSex dot com? A virtual all nighter with a person you’ll have sex with AFTER marriage, only you get to take the sex test drive BEFORE marriage. I’m guessing it would have about the same look-and-feel as a virtual vehicle test drive.
OK, I’ll drop that.
Rachel, once again you’ve driven home a very solid point. For all the talking, cajoling, preaching about the dangers of sex before marriage, youth have a very clear and honest way of asking themselves, if no one else, “how can this be bad the day before signing the marital paperwork, and so good the day of and day AFTER signing the marital paperwork?” How can they get STD before and NOT get it afterward? Well, from what I’ve been reading, it looks like about 25% to 33% of the population of the U.S. has sexually transmitted herpes, so if someone is involved with a person who has that condition, either before or after marriage the risk is the same.
And, I’ve never been convinced that sex education leads to more sexually promiscuous lifestyles. Now, if one wants to argue that the younger one starts having sex, the more sex that person has by the time they are 18 or 21 or 30 or . . . But are STDs and/or abortions more likely for such a person? Maybe. Maybe not.
I think the data in such an arena is very conflictual. So, keep making your point, Rachel. I think it’s better to know what’s coming than to be ignorant about it. Besides, we all know that there is so much information available in libraries and on the internet, there are seemingly endless sources of sex education outside of schools. The question is, how good is the information? That is, how accurate?
April 1st, 2008 at 3:24 pmESTChris-RC,
Some folks claim that, but experienced OB/Gyn’s aren’t among them. In the event of a failure (even pills are not 100%!–especially when combined with certain other drugs) there are a couple of secondary mechanisms involving endometrial action that could have that result, but they’re even less likely than other secondary mechanisms involving endometrial action that would prevent sperm from ever entering the uterus. And the secondary actions are (in the literature) hypothetical, not demonstrated.
Call it technically possible, but in practice highly unlikely under normal usage. BCP’s can be used as emergency “morning after” contraceptives as you described (that’s what Plan B pills are–higher doses of the same hormones) but in normal use that’s not the mechanism.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:30 pmESTDonBodell: while the STD thing remains pertinent (one reason I favor factual education), I find your argument about signing the piece of paper a little weak. I’ll take it as honest though, and respond to it as such. From a religious stand point, it can be bad before signing and good after, not because of signing the legal contract of marriage, but because of the Vows made, to each other, before family, friends, and God. Before sex and any of its consequences, the two who will engage in it have committed their lives to each other. So if there is a baby, they are committed to each other. There is less likelihood of emotional abandonment, and false prentences (using one or the other for sex, then moving on). I’m sure there is some one, some where, who got married, had sex, then divorced immediately. He (or she) is an asshole, and most likely has a spot reserved for him in the hot place.
Short version: it is ok after marriage (or in marriage) because the two parties are (in theory) fully committed to each other, formalized by an oath sworn before God, before the deed is done.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:37 pmESTRespectfully, I feel I must point out a flaw in your analogy.
If we are to apply this same standard with guns (teach them safe use of guns and they’ll use guns responsibly) to sex (teach them safe sex and they’ll use that responsibly), then why don’t we also apply this same standard to drugs? Do we teach kids safe ways of using drugs in the hopes that they’ll use them responsibly in the future?
No, we teach them to “just say no”. We tell them to abstain utterly.
“But wait,” I can hear you saying, “Drugs are an entirely different situation.”
Well, yeah, that’s the point. Drugs are an entirely different situation, just as sex is an entirely different situation.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:42 pmESTPopped back in to see what’s going on. Wow - only two hours and 34 lengthy and thoughtful comments already.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:47 pmESTAlso, I question the argument that kids need to be educated on the methods of safe sex. Awareness of the methods may (or may not) have a beneficial effect, but I don’t really see why a teacher needs to show students how to put on a condom. Even if you discount the fact that every condom has instructions printed on the wrapper, it’s a pretty fool-proof process all on its own.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:48 pmESTI agree completely with Rachel. I have a 19 month old son and plan to provide him with all of the facts, as well as encouragement to make good decisions. Christianity is not significant to my wife or me as we are both agnostic.
Historically, unmarried girls experienced awful social consequences for becoming pregnant. We aren’t going to bring those kinds of consequences back, and without them teenagers *will* have sex much more frequently than they would with them. Therefore, I believe that the only reasonable response is to provide appropriate education that includes abstinence as the best choice.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:48 pmESTAnd when we do this, some of them “learn” to “just say no,” while most of them learn that sanctimonious absolutist bullshit is, in fact, bullshit.
Teach them to be stupid drones, and they will become stupid drones, unless they’re smart enough to realize their parents/teachers/preachers are the REAL stupid drones.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:49 pmESTSo what are you saying? That we should teach kids to “safely” use drugs? That we should teach them how to do drugs “responsibly”?
April 1st, 2008 at 3:52 pmESTI’m saying we should teach our children that, for whatever reason, Society has decided that alcohol is Social and pot is Evil. We should teach our children that Society is pretty stupid, but you flout its rules at your own peril.
We should not teach our children to suppress their own fledgling ability to reason for themselves, and that’s exactly what “Just Say No!” does.
Redhead Infidel: Make mine a decaf, please. Every time I swear off comments on this blog, Rachel fires off another thought missile. Dammit.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:01 pmESTAh, Rachel, once more into the lion’s den…Well done post. And tomorrow: Abortion…I can’t wait.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:05 pmESTWe taught our kids ‘abstinence is the best choice.’ But when my daughter acquired a serious boyfriend, I worried some. So I explained that condoms are good for preventing some diseases but don’t always work to prevent pregnancy. I asked her if we needed to go visit the health clinic. She, honest little devil that she is, said yes, we should. So without recriminations I quickly set up an appointment and took her. In retrospect that event changed a lot of things. I am the one she calls when she needs a parent to talk to, not her mother. She is happily married now, and I am the happy grandpa of a couple of grandkids.
As usual, an interesting “conversation”. I’m not sure how the world has exactly changed so much that - having been taught respect for yourself and others, and being aware of the consequences, it is impossible to stop teens from humping like dogs. Back in the day … well before sex education in schools, my girlfriend told me she’d like to experiment, but it was very important to her to be a virgin when she married (and we’d planned that it would be to me). I certainly hope that happened for her, I know I respected her enough to not push the issue. Sure, I was a shy geeky kid at 18, and a virgin until my early 20’s … but I don’t really think I was that unusual.
The argument that it’s such a strong urge seems a little too pat to me. Since the urge to try all sorts of forbidden fruit is so strong and unmanageable, why are we putting all those anti-drug commercials on TV? Shouldn’t PP be handing out doobies with the pills and condoms?
Let’s not just look on it as a Christian exercise … all sorts of cultures have rules about not giving in to all your urges. And that’s a good thing. I’d like more money … but my morals make me think that it’s probably not a good idea to rob a bank. I like to drive fast, but realizing how quickly fast becomes crash when a deer darts out (I’m still repairing the damage to my motorcycle) keeps me from ignoring the speed laws (or common sense).
April 1st, 2008 at 4:05 pmESTThere’s days when I’ve though seriously that a shot to my wife’s forehead would probably shut her up, but then I realize that she’s been at home all day alone and it drives her as acrazy as her talking drives me …
We just can’t exist as a society without rules, and the relaxation of the rules and penalties of teen sex has NOT improved our society one whit. Sure, some may have benefited a bit from “free love” … but society sure has not.
Thank you so much, Mr. Clinton, for hastening that slide down the slippery slope.
Chris_RC,
“The church” has beaten it so thoroughly into our brains that sex outside of marriage is bad that I think everyone understands the religious argument. Interestingly, “the church” doesn’t differentiate between religious marriages and civil ceremonies, where God isn’t mentioned at all. Additionally, while the Christian, Jewish and Muslim God are the same, The Hindu, Bhuddist, etc etc etc Gods are markedly different, most Christians don’t seem bothered by Hindu marriages. It would seem to me that, if the Christian/Jewish/Muslim God is the God that can bless a marriage, there should be more institutional outrage for our society’s couples who are married only in the “non-blessed” sense.
As to Rachel’s larger point about horny teenagers and their proclivity toward engaging in sex — they do it because they are supposed to. Modern humans have worked to extend their lives significantly vs their ancestral counterparts. As someone pointed out in the comments above, 13 was middle-aged to the earliest of the homo genus. Our biological self is still geared toward a boorish, brutal and short life, while technology has managed to prolong the inevitable. The fact that we, as a society, have artifically extended childhood well past puberty doesn’t change the function of our bodies.
Our core being, whether established scientifically or religiously, still expects us to reproduce in its prime, which, biologically speaking, is in our teens.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:09 pmESTA few things for the record, too busy to go back and see who I’m addressing here:
1. I’m not a Christian, don’t believe in the Christian God or the Bible. I wasn’t saying that I believe God made kids the way they are, I was saying that CHRISTIANS do. And I certainly would not equate the natural urges of a pubescent human with murderous urges of psychopaths. The difference, you see, is that the first is normal and happens to every single healthy human, but the second is not normal and does not happen to healthy humans.
2. I wasn’t trying to analogize owning guns with teen sex. The analogy is within the type of thinking used to arrive at either conclusion: acknowledging the reality of a situation and making decisions based on that reality, which is that because of human nature certain things always have happened and always will. There have always been bad people who want to hurt you so you need a gun unless you want to get hurt, and teenagers will always have sex no matter what you so say they need contraception unless you want them to get pregnant.
3. The urge to use drugs is not the same as the urge to have sex. All normal, healthy humans want sex. No normal, healthy humans want to use drugs (except pot but that’s a whooooooole other post).
4. I know Planned Parenthood is not a great institution for a variety of reasons. But the fact of the matter is, because of their policy of giving girls the pill without parental notification, there are fewer unwanted pregnancies and abortion.
Sorry, but it is a fact. If you truly, truly want abortion to stop, you will not prevent agencies like PP from giving girls the pill, even behind their parents’ backs. I know, I know, I don’t have kids so I can’t understand. I get that.
What I don’t get is why anyone would think that it’s worse to violate a parent’s “right” to know about their kid getting the pill than to have yet another unwanted or aborted baby. It’s a medication? Fine, then how about condoms and diaphragms? Is it really more important for Mom to give permission for a kid to use contraception than for that kid to actually use contraception?
April 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pmESTActually Rachel, Christians have asked and answered this question (to themselves) a long time ago. Aside from the particularly Puritanical sects of Christianity (like, y’know, the Puritans), Christians really don’t have a problem with sex per se. What Christians, and the Bible, have a problem with is sex outside of marriage.
In other words, God doesn’t particularly care how much sex you have if you’re married. Indeed, God encourages married couples to have sex. The wife’s body does not solely belong to her, it also belongs to her husband for his pleasure. The husband’s body does not solely belong to him, but also to his wife for her pleasure. They SHOULD NOT deprive themselves of sex except by mutual consent and only if the choice is between sex and prayer. And they should come back together and continue their “marital duties” as soon as possible, lest Satan tempt them away from each other.
As for the age of fertility, the laws establishing the legal age at which someone can freely have sex is mostly arbitrary, and in the past it was much lower. I’m not saying we should lower the age of consent, but as far as I know the Bible doesn’t specify age 18 as the age of consent.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:28 pmESTThen logically, should we not also do the same when it comes to sex? Society has pretty much decided that teen sex is bad. Should we not therefore teach our children that, while society may be wrong on this issue, that they should not violate those rules?
April 1st, 2008 at 4:36 pmESTYES! Sorta…
We should teach our children the consequences of sex: Babies, STDs, and statutory rape convictions.
We then step back and let them make decisions for themselves–decisions based on truthful information that we’ve given them, not blusterous bullshit like “God is gonna get you!”
April 1st, 2008 at 4:50 pmESTRachel, you’ve got some really good points here, but I think there are some things that we have to look at closely.
Historically speaking, about the same time a boy or girl became sexually capable, they were considered adults. That wasn’t the only criterion, of course, but that range was adulthood in most places. You were old enough to get married. You were also trained in your profession well enough that you could work and support yourself. You were more mature. There was a time when teenagers were working, owning businesses. It wasn’t AT ALL odd for a 13-year-old to be married in this country as recently as 100 years ago. We’ve expanded the range of “childhood.”
The other thing to know is that the age of puberty has dropped down lower and lower. It used to be 14 on average, now little girls and boys are becoming fertile sooner, some as early as 10. That causes problems for a lot of kids because they don’t have the emotional maturity to deal with what their bodies are doing. There are numerous theories why. Some think it’s the hormones in food, some studies suggest it’s the amount of light we receive…there’s probably no ONE explanation, but it’s something to know.
I personally don’t like the idea of sex ed. in schools, simply because there is really know way to do it gracefully. And when I was in school, it was mixed, which is horribly uncomfortable.
All that being said: sex ed is a reality in this country, and it needs to be taught correctly. My school did not teach abstinence. It said “some people believe that abstinence is the only way to be safe” and that was the end of that. The education we were given was “here’s how to be safe.” And I know now that what I was taught was WRONG. The Use-A-Condom stuff doesn’t often talk about the problems with condoms like the fact that they don’t protect against all diseases, the failure rate for them, that kind of thing.
Kids should be taught that sex is something that is special, that shouldn’t be handed out to every boy/girl that wants it. They should know that the only 100% effective way to prevent diseases and pregnancies is abstinence. They should know that there are risks, and they should be taught the way to minimize those risks. They should be able to make truly informed decisions. But kids should know that there are risks. They should know the failure rate for pills, vaccines, condoms, diaphragms, etc. They should KNOW these things.
My BIG concern for girls getting pills without parental consent is that they have usually have NO idea what those pills could do to their bodies. There are very rarely side effects, but the principal concerns me. If they went to a free clinic and were informed and given the pills from an actual doctor, I would be happier. But the idea of some company just handing out pills to any girl who wants them scares me. I had an allergic reaction to the pills when I was given them. What if my parents hadn’t known I was on them? What if a girl starts taking them, as some problem and the parents didn’t know?
April 1st, 2008 at 4:56 pmESTI’m not sure there are any right answers here, but I remember reading 10-15 years ago about a realistic baby doll which woke crying in the night. Apparently, it only took a few nights of this to bring home the reality of being a mother to the teenage girls.
As for why humans start to become interested in sex so early, I wonder if this is a relic of our distant past as troop animals - like monkeys and baboons? In a troop, there would be plenty of older adults to help care for the child.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:59 pmESTExactly, just as drugs are different from sex, guns are also different from sex.
But again, here’s where the analogy breaks down.
No normal, healthy human being wants to shoot someone with a gun. Therefore, by this train of logic, we shouldn’t teach kids to use guns.
That’s debatable at best.
And even if it were true, I don’t think that necessarily excuses what they’re doing. By providing birth control to young girls without notifying their parents, Planned Parenthood is infringing on a parent’s right to raise their child(ren) in the way they see fit with the moral values they believe in.
(This, incidentally, is also the reason why I absolutely oppose letting public high schools distribute birth control to students. Even if you required students to bring in signed permission slips from their parents before they could get any birth control from the nurse’s office, all you would do is turn all the other kids into black-market c*nd*m dealers.)
And there’s another argument to consider. Why is it that Planned Parenthood can distribute birth control pills to children without parental notification, but if a school nurse’s office needs parental notification before they can give a student a headache pill?
April 1st, 2008 at 5:00 pmESTDid you get in my brain and channel my thoughts Rachel?
I can’t add or detract from your premise because I agree with every word you’ve just written on this subject. It’s clear commonsense.
Good work woman!
April 1st, 2008 at 5:01 pmESTRachel - in my book, you’re spot on here.
Children are not deterministic machines. This means that it’s not a simple matter of data in/data out. They will apply arbitrary weights to what information comes in, and will give arbitrary results based on what information doesn’t come in. Consequently, the whole, “Be a parent” argument doesn’t fly with me - unless “being a parent” means strapping a GPS transmitter on their body and following them 24/7 with a Predator drone, there’s no way to know what that teenager is up to well enough to guarantee they won’t do something you don’t want them doing. The best you can do is teach them what your values are, why you have them, and how you came up with them, and hope it’s good enough.
The issue with Planned Parenthood is a little more difficult to go with you on. I do agree that, rationally speaking, you’re completely right - they do prevent unwanted pregnancies. However, it’s not quite that simple. Legally speaking, children have very few rights. Their parents are the ones that are supposed to be making the big decisions for them. Put another way, if we don’t trust them enough to vote, join the military, or buy a car, or decide if they should go to school or not, or get married (depending on the legal age of consent in the state you’re reading this), why would we trust them enough to determine whether they need birth control or an abortion? Unfortunately, there’s probably no great way to really resolve this - if parents are allowed to be notified, we have to deal with the fact that a lot of parents are absolutely insane when it comes to their precious snowflakes getting “deflowered”, which is why you had to write this post in the first place and why PP tries to secure the right to privacy for teenagers. It’s something of a “no win scenario”.
Drugs are an entirely different scenario outside of the scope of this post. That said, we Americans have a rather interesting teetotaling vein that permeates our culture, whether it comes to alcohol or something more dangerous. That vein is stronger in some areas (pot) than others (alcohol), but it does rear its head from time to time, and it almost always has something to do with “the children” (tobacco). Culturally, we don’t have a particularly strong culture of moderation, which is why half of my family thinks that drinking a beer every day makes you an “alcoholic” (note - not me, and I can’t stand beer). That said, there are some drugs that just can’t be done in moderation without some severe side-effects (meth, LSD, PCP, etc.). There are others that are a little more mellow (alcohol, tobacco, pot, even some milder opiates) and generally only cause problems after constant heavy repeated use.
The biggest thing that people need to realize is that anything that becomes verboten is guaranteed to become fetishized by a segment of the population, and, when something becomes a fetish, it’s going to get abused to excess. The reason is simple - violating authority can be a very serious rush. The more you do it, the more of a rush you get. The harder you do it, the more of a rush you get. Plus, if consuming something in moderation gives the exact same consequences (legally speaking) as consuming something in excess, well, why moderate? Think about it - if you’re 15, does it matter if you drink one beer or ten? Not really - you’re getting in trouble either way. So, after you sip that beer, why stop there? The same thing holds true with sex. Some teenagers will be scared enough to stay out of it. The remainder, however, will assume they’re going to get in trouble either way, so they’ll have absolutely zero reason to engage in it responsibly… and therein lies the problem.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:01 pmESTAnd we don’t do that now?
I have a sneaking suspicion that your knowledge of what goes on in an abstinence only sex-ed class is somewhat…warped.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:02 pmESTChris_RC said:
Chris, if you’re saying that life begins at conception, I couldn’t agree more, no matter our differences on other issues.
I wish we could all frame the abortion debate properly. It is NOT about when life begins, because, as Chris_RC rightly points out, science shows that life begins at conception. Period.
The abortion debate should, as at least one of its components, discuss when the RIGHT to life begins. That is a matter of politics, not science, and thoroughly debatable.
Maybe if any of you are contemplating an upcoming post on abortion, you could touch on the distinction between the beginnings of Life and the Right to Life?
In any case, I am seriously bogarting this thread, and I apologize. I’m going to shut up now.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:03 pmESTChuck Foxtrot:
I was addressing (or attempting to) the idea of the seemingly arbitrary threshold between right and wrong that occurs with Marriage (signing the paper as DonBodell put it). I was referring to the religious aspect (which lets face it, outside of religion, there is little pressure on unwed adults not to have sex, they make the decisions for themselves) of Marriage. In the context of America, most who claim religion claim some form of Christianity, so that was the sample I went with. To address your point about legal marriages, vs. religious marriages vs. the religious marriages of non-Abrahamic religions, if you reread my post, I was making a point about the formal commitment, public, devout, and prior to the act. Whether this exercise of devotion is before God, Jesus, Yahwe, Allah, Vishnu, Buddah, Gaia, or whatever god or gods the various religions hold dear, the fact that people of faith make this commitment before their deities is what matters to the argument.
As a Christian, if I ever get married, I won’t consider the marriage true until I make the vows before God. For convenience I can sign the paper work, so that the state recognizes the marriage, in advance of the vows, or after the honeymoon. That doesn’t matter to me. It is the religious aspect that matters to me. I am likely only to marry a Christian (or possibly a very understanding and accommodating agnostic), because my religious beliefs are important to me, and I believe the children should be raised Christian as well.
As to the spiritual children of Abraham accepting other religion’s marriages, we do so because the other people aren’t of Abraham.
In the end, my argument can be summed up by Marriage representing the ultimate commitment to each other. That is why it is ok after not before. As a Christian, for my personal preferences, I won’t feel I have made, or received, that commitment until it is made before Christ and his Father (symbolically of course, I don’t expect them to be sitting on the alter behind the pastor or anything).
Disclaimer: these are my own ideas. I have no theology degree, and I don’t honestly claim to speak for all other Christians, yet alone all other children of Abraham. I was merely positing my own ideas as to why we see things the way we do, in attempt to answer the questions of DonBodell and Chuck Foxtrot.
(edit: this may appear out of order, I appear to have tripped the moderation alarm somehow)
April 1st, 2008 at 5:07 pmESTEven all the teaching and preaching in the world sometimes doesn’t help. The San Antonio Express-News is running a series on teenage pregnancy this week. Yesterday’s story was about a 16 year old who is now the mother of a one year old. She is the result of HER mother’s teen pregnancy. Her mother told her all about contraception, sexuality and offered to take her to get contraception if she was going to be having sex. Didn’t work. I have three daughters–we’ll discuss sex, contraception, abstinence–the whole deal. I am hoping their upbringing will help them make wise choices. The one thing that I believe is important for all teenagers to be told (I sincerely doubt it sticks in their head) is that for every action there is a consequence. That consequence can be good, or it can be bad. Their actions will determine the consequence. ‘Nuff said.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:15 pmESTCarbo, life begins at conception is the essence I was getting at. However, as you rightly pointed out, that phrasing has become loaded, and I wanted to keep the discussion about sex-ed rather than abortion. To achieve that, I expressed myself in the “just the facts” approach I was advocating for the class. If abortion is to be considered a private moral judgment, at least let the fact that it is a genetically distinct human, vs a tumor (a mutation of your own genetic code), be expressed clearly in the class.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:18 pmESTDamn. Carbo, I wrote a response, and it didn’t even post with a moderation alert, it simply vanished when I hit post. Weird.
Yes, I was saying, in effect, “life begins at conception.” Just as you say, that is factually true, but people still latch on it as a politically charged phrase in the abortion debate. I wanted to keep on topic with the Sex-Ed discussion, so I tried to write in some form of strictly fact quasi-clinical terminology.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:21 pmESTHey MS- just to shorten the go-round time, what IS your case for abstinence-only sex education (if that is indeed your position), rather than your issue with some of the analogies used?
April 1st, 2008 at 5:28 pmESTYou make a great argument, Rachel, and I agree with much of what you’ve said. My point of view on this issue is that the “punishment” (which was a horrid word choice) is not the child himself (or herself), rather that it is the “consequence” of the choice, and that simply destroying the consequences of this or any other “imprudent act” is, to me, at the heart of liberal ideology.
In other words, liberals–true liberals–seemingly would have you do whatever you feel like doing, whenever you feel like doing it, and, if it so be there are undesired consequences, you can either a) remove them or b) blame them on someone else and pocket the money you receive as a result of successful litigation.
Abortion would fit the bill for example “A” above, and slip-fall lawsuits would be a good example of “B.” I vehemently oppose both. Sticking your genitals where they (allegedly) do not belong or running around without paying attention to your surroundings (in other words, failure to plan in both cases) on our part does not constitute fault on someone else’s part.
It’s your consequence. You own it. Do so, because I’m not interested in paying for it, nor should I.
On a separate note: I have an issue with Sen. Obama, speaking about teaching his 6 and 9-year olds about values and morals in the future tense. If you’re not teaching them values and morals early, you’re failing as a parent, in my opinion. Six is not too young–nine is too old to get started. You teach them at every opportunity to uphold strong values.
My at-the-time four year-old daughter got upset when she saw the “Bratz” dolls come out, saying they were being immodest and “showing their naked style.” I’m not the best Dad–not even in the top million–but we’re doing our best to teach our children respect for their bodies, self-worth and perspective at an early age and reinforcing it every chance we get. I think that’s a good thing…
April 1st, 2008 at 5:32 pmEST(With full appreciation of the irony): Amen, Rachel. And for those of you saying education about drug use is different than sex ed, I disagree. Teach the facts! Sex will make you sick and give you babies, except maybe not if you use contraception. Drugs can make you sick and send you to jail, and you risk harming others when under the influence. It’s best if you don’t do either, but if you do, be prepared for the consequences.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:35 pmESTChuck_Foxtrot, I did write a response to you, about half an hour ago, but it is still awaiting moderation. If you care, please check back at the 5:07pm time slot to find it. Thank you.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:36 pmESTThere is certainly much to consider when thinking logically or even along lines of “human nature.” I do think, however, that the gun ownership analogy falls flat on your point but can be useful in another way.
Having a gun is a choice made to arm oneself against the the human nature of others. Choosing abstinence is the choice one can make to arm themselves against their own nature.
Consider the simple act of pushing away from the dinner table to protect yourself from overeating. Or, like I do, refuse to have certain tempting foods in my house. It’s not evil or unnatural to enjoy food, but having a boundary based on my self-knowledge is a reasonable choice no matter what my “human nature” may demand. I make the reasonable choice to “arm myself” against my own weakness. We all do this, if we are taught self-discipline as a lifestyle choice.
Giving into temptations of the flesh used to be more costly, so people made better choices. Social stigma helped it along. Cries of “repression” have proven to be hollow and demands for sexual freedom haven’t delivered the liberty and joy as promised.
And people still make stupid choices and deserve what compassion we can muster. But I work every day with the consequences of bad choices and soft landings. It pains me to know that the folks I help today will be in need again next month. Too many soft-hearted, soft-headed folks will support the foolish consequences of undisciplined choices.
To be blunt about it, if you build a soft landing place for foolish choices, you’ll suddenly have an overload of fools opting for it. Our local county has little resources for the homeless. The minute we begin to provide more resources, the more professionally homeless numbers we’ll have to put on our grant requests.
Girls should be given every bit of help, knowledge, advice and resources to make good choices. But the same “human nature” that wants to have sex, wants to have sex without protection, in the moment, “naturally, as God intended, baby!”
It’s harder for a girl who’s already crossed the emotional threshold of giving in, to say no to the next so-called, “logical and natural” step in the process.
Abstinence worked before. The joy of knowing that your son or daughter is not at risk of giving or receiving unwanted “punishments” is a very logical, reasonable, reality.
We are NOT animals, unless someone can convince us we are.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:49 pmESTSex is not just scratching an itch. Sure you can protect yourself from pregnancy or STDs, but how do you protect yourself from the emotional damage of having the most intimate, tender, beautiful act of our human lives become nothing more than meat slapping against each other?
Marriage and sexual intercourse is a sacrament to we Christians, but that’s because it IS a sacrament. We are not bags of meat, we are divine souls. Making love is a meeting of spirits, not just bodies. Sex between human beings should be cherished and honored. We used to make it so, surrounding it with symbols and formality and celebration. White wedding dresses and promises, made in front of family and community.
Non Christians are trying to turn this beautiful act into something as unimportant as the need to urinate. Hey, I got the urge, I got to go! Why fight it?
I will fight it. My children are not animals, and I will not raise them so.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:56 pmESTHey, Joan of Arghhh!, is there an echo in here? Heh.
April 1st, 2008 at 5:59 pmESTI pretty much agree with Rachel here, except for PP’s ability to give out birth control pills without parental consent. Condoms, sure. But birth control pills? They contain hormones and their purpose is to influence natural bodily processes. No one besides a medical professional and myself (as a parent) should be allowed to make medical decisions for my minor child. Hopefully this won’t be a problem for us, though, as hubby and I plan on being very open with our kids (boy is 4, girl is 16months right now), and encouraging them to be open with us. Maybe I’m just overly optimistic, but if my daughter reaches a point where she would benefit from birth control, I would hope she’d come to me. I’ll be more than happy to schedule a dr. appointment for her. I’d rather an actual OB/gyn evaluate her entire health and prescribe the birth control that’s best for her body. …I’ve done a lot of rambling here… basically, great post, Rachel. Your insight (and the capability of everyone here to engage in polite debate) is one of the things that keeps me coming back every day!
April 1st, 2008 at 6:00 pmESTI’m less than intrepid as I write this, but I’ll put it forth anyway. Animal urges aside, we ARE human, even Human. Joan of Arghhhh’s comment made me think, is sex the modern Gom Jabar?
{For those who don’t get the reference, it is a fictional test of humanity, one must submit to agony, extreme agony. The “potential human” has no physical restraint preventing him from removing himself from this agony, but the instant he does, he gets fatally poisoned by the person administering the test. If your will, your knowledge that to not endure the agony results in death, over comes your animal urge to withdraw from the pain, you pass the test and are deemed human.}
So teenage sex isn’t as extreme as the Gom Jabbar, but it is a metaphor, where our conscious mind is at battle with our animal instincts. It makes me question what it is to give in. Is it an admission that you have no control over your animal urges?
This sounds more harsh than I actually believe. I suppose I’m just playing with an idea.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:00 pmESTRachel, you attract amazing commenters. Thatisall.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:02 pmESTGreat post Rachel! I agree with you 100% I am also really glad to see so many well thought-out comments in the debate, as usual without rancor.
Chris_RC Says
This comment gets to the crux of the matter for me — teenagers are in a transitional period where they are preparing to be adults and are expected to take responsibility for their actions. A lot of them think they are already adults and can make their own decisions. A teen chafing under the restrictions placed by a parent does have control over at least one thing - their own body, like it or not. Arm them with information and influence them to make the right kinds of decisions. It’s part of the process of growing up and discussing it with your teen openly makes them part of the decision making process.
This is one of these issues that makes me so conflicted about voting conservative. (and being from Massachusetts and having a lot of liberal friends). Social issues like this are the same kind of litmus test for many of us in the middle as abortion is for the right. While I don’t want a socialist state and disagree with all the handout crap the democrats are promising, I just can’t get over issues like this, abortion, and gay rights.
I think that there are really a lot of people like me in the middle who get left out of all the extreme rhetoric that plays out in politics and the media. The fact that McCain has crossed the aisle and compromised on issues is a good thing in my book - not a betrayal of the party. The truth is that there are some things that Obama says that I do agree with. Demonizing any candidate or party takes away from the real political debate that I hope we will be having in this country this fall. Hey, I can dream right?
Maybe Rachel should host a debate — real questions for the candidates, and the ability to call shenanigans on anyone who snarks or doesn’t actually answer the question (does that drive anyone else nuts? Politicians NEVER answer a fucking question with a straight answer!)
April 1st, 2008 at 6:08 pmESTI see a pattern emerging here. There seems to be the idea
“I tell my kids having sex before their an adult is bad, but if I let them get the pill it must mean I’m giving them permission to have sex.”
Is it? Only if you make it so. You, the parent, are the responsible party, not the government, the school system, or the church.
You have to make it clear to your child that the best choice is not to have sex, but being on the pill is not a free pass to be promiscuous, just that if they make a mistake it happens in as safe a manner as possible.
You also have to explain why it’s a bad idea. “Because I said so” might work with a 5 year old, but it isn’t going to work with a teenager. If you can’t give them a good reason not to, they’re going to think there’s no reason not to.
Treat teenagers like rational thinking human beings and you’ll be amazed at how many good choices they make.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:11 pmESTJust a short note to the folks commenting on the beginning of human life at conception. I think you would first need to define human life. I could agree to that it begins after all the DNA sequencing is completed. Thus, the unique individual is formed and the growth phase begins. This occurs typically over a 24 to 72 hour period.
More food for thought for the morning after pill.
Regards
April 1st, 2008 at 6:12 pmESTI agree completely with every claim you made in that post.
It’s a great deal of frustration to me that the conservative crowd can see the futility of the “pretend it doesn’t exist” liberal approach when it comes to guns and firearms safety education, but fail to see the futility of the very same approach when applied to sex and contraception.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:13 pmESTChris RC: what an interesting morality play such an image conjures. It puts me in mind of a very pithy comment I read somewhere that I shall have to summon again; dealing with the “reality” of how a man in today’s world defines the meaning of being a man.
And in thinking of Real Men, why are we allowinginour daughters to provide (no real pun intended) a “soft landing” for another’s lack of discipline and respect? Who is teaching men to be men in a a way that is meaningful and edifying to himself and others?
The famous line from, “The Incredibles” was that if, “everybody’s special, then nobody is,” can be obversely translated to, “if everything is permissible, then nothing will ever be special again.”
And that would really be unbearable.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:13 pmESTOh, and Allen?
The majority of pregnancies end in natural miscarriages. My wife miscarried at least once before our first child was born, and at least twice between the first and second child.
God must not agree with your definition of the “beginning of human life”, since he has no problem with the natural termination of so many pregnancies.
Come to think of it, not even the majority of Christians agrees with it, since very few people have proper funerals for their eight-week miscarriages.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:17 pmESTKit -
Heck yes, I agree that would be a very bad thing and it is in fact illegal, but that’s not at all what happens with Planned Parenthood. You have to see an M.D. and get a full gynecological exam including a Pap smear.
The usually also make you watch a video presentation thingy about the pill and how it works. At least they used to.
I would never ever advocate some company just giving hormones to anyone, let alone children. Yikes.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:23 pmESTI have never understood the massive squick about teenagers having sex. Personally, if I had teenagers, I’d a thousand times rather catch them in bed with their boyfriends/girlfriends than see them riding in automobiles driven by their idiot contemporaries…if only because funerals are so very expensive.
Part of the problem is that we insist on classifying people as “children” who, for most of human history, would have been in the “adult” classification. Back In The Day, a girl could marry (and many did) at sixteen or even younger (read Romeo and Juliet sometime; Juliet’s mother tells her, at age thirteen, that at that age she was already married and a mother—the implication is “so why aren’t you out there providing me with grandchildren, you lazy cow?”) Or in the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, you have Mr. Midshipman Blakeney—at the end of the movie, he’s a war-mutilated combat veteran who isn’t old enough to shave. I, for one, would not want to be the one who told him that, after losing his arm in battle and acquitting himself honourably in combat, he was too young to have sex. If only because he, as an officer, could have me flogged for saying such a thing to him. That sort of thing was dead common in those times—you had midshipmen who’d be too young for a driver’s license here-and-now given command of captured ships and told “here you go, bring this ship back to Portsmouth,” and doing it. Or in command of civilian ships—during the great days of New England sail, it wasn’t uncommon to have men in full, unquestioned command of merchant ships clear across the world from home who weren’t old enough to vote.
In any case, I don’t think that it’s the threat of pregnancy that flips a lot of parents out on this subject; I rather imagine that my generation’s parents would have raised an even bigger howl at finding their “sweet, innocent children” in the loving arms of same-sex partners. “But Mommy…what are you so upset about? At least Julie can’t make me pregnant!”
April 1st, 2008 at 6:29 pmESTMarko,
I was doing some research on the human genome project when I ran across this information. Many fertilized eggs (1 in 4) never lead to pregnancy. Apparently, the DNA sequencing just stops and never goes further due to incompatability.
Thus, my thinking that things really start after the DNA sequencing is complete. Of course the fertilized egg is a necessary condition, but it’s not a sufficient one for pregnancy.
And as you mentioned there are a whole lot of other things that need to happen. Darn it, just when I thought I had something tied down a little better there you go unraveling the whole thing, LOL.
Thanks for making me think.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:42 pmESTI do want to point out, as several others have, that there are real health risks from being on the Pill. Among other things, it can drive up your blood pressure– and there is, unfortunately, a reason I know this. You have to be monitored, and I don’t think PP provides this service. There’s also valid reason for parents to know if their daughter is on the Pill– suppose she has health complications, and the ER docs ask Mom if she’s on anything? Or if she gets a case of strep and has to go on antibiotics, will Mom or the PP volunteer be there to explain how antibiotics can lower the Pill’s effectiveness, and how she should use backup BC until the course is completed?
As a side note, any girl below that state’s legal “age of consent” should NOT be issued BC (or given an abortion) without a parent’s full knowledge or consent, or the providers are quite literally being an accessory to statutory rape! Think about it. Mrs. Kim du Toit had a post on that a few months back.
Condoms would be a better option, but I’m not as OK with having them passed out in school. For teens who are already struggling to resist peer pressure, this seems like even the teachers expect them to have sex. I’ve heard that when asked privately, many students (esp. the girls) just want to know how to say “No” in some socially acceptable way that won’t automatically brand them as hopeless dweebs.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:46 pmESTFunny how so many kids act like dumb bunnies and get treated as such by out public schools. Most of them grow up to be Democrats.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:53 pmESTOi. That makes the debate monumentally more complicated.
See, the problem is that the Constitution defines the right to life in terms of “personhood” (i.e., “no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law”). Which means that in order to decide when the right to life begins, we would have to define precisely what a “person” is and what qualities are required for an organism to attain “personhood”.
And I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of the federal government being able to define what is and is not a person. I think it’s very telling that the Supreme Court carefully sidestepped the issue in Roe v. Wade: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
April 1st, 2008 at 6:55 pmESTThe crux of the gun-control analogy as I see it isn’t the similarity between teaching your child to use a gun responsibly and teaching your child to have sex responsibly, it’s in the question: would my child be better served not to be taught? The liberal foolishness is the idea that by never exposing children to guns in any context other than “they are bad and you should never go near one”, they will have provided all the protection their child needs from the dangers of guns.
It’s not a bad idea to teach children the consequences of sex, even protected sex, and teaching them that it’s just another biological itch to be scratched is a bad idea. What I think is a bad idea is assuming that will be wholly enough. I’m with Chris_RC: Teach them EVERYTHING, and tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or they WILL learn you were dissembling and you will lose authority in their eyes.
When I was very young, my parents told me to just say no to drugs. When I was old enough to think and read independently, they told me the rest of the truth: that marijuana would not make me use harder drugs unless I made the choice to do so, that it would just make me silly and hungry, that they had done it when they were younger, and that it was still a pretty dumb thing to do given the legal risk for something so stupid. I agreed, and I respected their authority and advice a whole lot more than I respected my school or my government. (Their advice on other drugs was similarly realistic- most are just plain stupid, some are overblown by the media, and you’re probably gonna drink someday, but for god’s sake don’t be stupid about it.)
Conservative parents should already be damn used to teaching their kids morals and values that their schools don’t or that are even in direct opposition to what the schools are sending as messages, anyway. Why force abstinence-only as public policy even to kids who AREN’T learning those values from parents? As Rachel has pointed out, their babies will suffer just as much.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:59 pmESTMostly my issue was with the analogies used, but as it happens I do favor abstinence only sex-ed, for two main reasons:
1. Abstinence is the only 100% guaranteed way to prevent pregnancy and STDs. I believe that teaching kids to use birth control gives them a false sense of invincibility (”Come on Jenny, I’ve got a condom. You won’t get pregnant.”). I also question why a person who is too irresponsible to abstain from sex before marriage would be responsible enough to consistently use protection.
2. I have a moral objection to birth control. I believe it in fact encourages premarital sex.
However, I am also an ardent federalist. Therefore, I have no desire to impose this view on the entire country. I’ll vote in favor of abstinence only sex-ed in my state, but the rest of you can do what you want. It’s not my business.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:03 pmESTIt stopped working with my 4 year old about a year ago, when she learned to ask “Why?”
I know it won’t carry any water when she hits her teenage years!
April 1st, 2008 at 7:04 pmESTWell done, Rachel, and yes, you are blessed with a superb commentariat. I especially wish to associate myself with Oatworm’s remarks, but really the whole discussion is gold.
I’ll just contribute two observations. First, you have few peers when you’re speaking in your own voice and articulating your own thoughts. But I have to agree with commenters who say that the whole “Christians should accept that that’s the way God made us” point wasn’t persuasive, for reasons that have been explained above better than I could do it. I know that you have a genuine desire to understand believers and would not purposely caricature them (at least in this context). But that came close. They’re deeper than you gave them credit for there.
Second, while you extol one conservative principle in support of your argument (acknowledgement of hard reality) I think you ignore another equally important one. Conservatives tend not to believe that aggregate realities should control the exercise of judgment by individuals in particular circumstances.
In other words, I think the conservative impulse would be to say, “Rachel has marshalled the facts beautifully, and she has persuaded me that if we were going to have one policy that applied to everybody, that policy should be free, secret contraceptives on demand, because that’s the policy that would maximize aggregate well-being (and minimize aggregate misery). But I reject the notion that we should have one policy that applies to everybody. I think I, as a parent, should be trusted by society to make a fully-informed judgment about whether the proposed rule will maximize the happiness of my child, and act accordingly.”
Now, as a general impulse, I think there’s a lot to be said for rejecting the dictatorship of the aggregates. The trouble in this case is, I honestly don’t think teen sex is an issue about which parents tend to make the most honest, objective, clear-eyed judgments. Does that mean it would be better for Hillary’s village to decide on one answer for everybody? I recoil at the thought, but I’m not sure I can prove it’s wrong.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:06 pmESTBut doesn’t it follow that if you shouldn’t force abstinence only sex-ed (we really need to think of a shorter term for that) on kids who’s parents don’t believe in it, you also shouldn’t force non-abstinence sex-ed on kids who’s parents oppose birth control?
And your point about conservative parents being “damn used” to re-teaching proper morals to their kids does not hold water, IMO. Schools should not be teaching moral values in opposition to parents. Kids these days are screwed up enough as it is. They don’t need to be caught between two conflicting messages.
Answer me this: Suppose your child came home one day and told you that his teacher spent all day lecturing about how Christianity is a false religion. Would you be okay with that? If not, why not? Wouldn’t that just be an example of a school not teaching kids proper morals and values or teaching them values in opposition to your own? Shouldn’t you be “damn used” to this by now?
April 1st, 2008 at 7:21 pmESTWell, you and I have already gone over 2 in this comment space before, so unless you feel like doing it again I’ll address 1…
While abstinence is the only 100% way, as others have cited, it’s usually not a way that American teenagers stick with for long for various reasons- whether because of sheer lack of willpower (and I’m among those who knew very faithful and moral individuals who were simply unable to hold out long enough), or because they didn’t have a strong enough value system beyond the flash of good intentions required to sign the pledge, or because they were never those with a strong belief in premarital sex being all that wrong to begin with. As for a false sense of invincibility, Chris_RC and I- coming from two totally different sets of moral first principles- agree: tell them the truth, which is that sex can be dangerous even if you “use protection”, that no device will protect you from emotional damage, and how it all works.
Also, there’s one hell of a gap between the level of responsibility, self-control, and sheer iron will required to abstain from any and all sex until marriage, and the level of responsibility required to use protection knowledgeably, choose a partner that can be trusted and won’t just be a fling, and have sex within the context of committed relationships in the course of trying to find that one best-fit partner. As others have pointed out, “childhood” has gotten longer and longer, and so has the amount of time it takes for people to find a suitable marriage partner. I don’t think we would be well-served as a society by fixing the problem with social pressure for early marriage and a soaring rate of divorce- and child abandonment.
Parenting and individual conscience is, rightly, where moral values go: social policy should be about minimizing social damage.
ETA: Goddamn slow typing.
You are correct about my “damn used” line being a pretty weak one- I think I made my point better above. To clarify, what I think should be “forced” is the simple imparting of information- as part of education. I don’t think schools should be teaching kids that premarital sex is fine and dandy- I think they should be taught it’s a reality, and the details of that reality, so they can make informed choices to the best that their own judgment and moral values can give them. This is all we can give kids on any issue.
Of course, if you think that acknowledging and detailing contraception is in itself a permission slip that gives mixed messages with parenting which you find unacceptable, then we are at loggerheads.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:22 pmESTWell said, Rachel. I’m conservative in a lot of ways. And I’d also rather teenagers avoid sex. But let’s be realistic. Teenagers have sex. I had sex as a teenager and there wasn’t any argument that was going to prevent it. I did, however, always use a condom because I feared having a child. That I knew how to properly use a condom was a tremendous help. As I got older, I realized that somethings I did in the past were not healthy. For example, wanting to sleep with every girl is not valuing myself or anyone else. But it took me many years to make the connection between the act of sex and values. As a teenager, I wanted sex — asap! Now, had I had a child because I didn’t know how to protect against it or gotten some disease that a shot from the doc could not cure, I may have never gotten matured to the point where values became more important to me than feeling good in the moment. You might say my parents didn’t teach me well. I’d counter they did better than most and it was I that chose not to listen. But at the end of the day, Rachel is right. In the words of John Galt, “Reality is real!” It is our choice to face it.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:31 pmESTMaybe so, but remember that this is mainly a moral objection I’m talking about. Even if you could somehow prove that abstinence-only leads to more overall teen pregnancies (and I don’t think you can) the fact remains that I still have a moral objection to pre-marital sex and birth control. I don’t hold with utilitarian ethics. I believe that an action is good and right on its own merits, not simply because of the consequences are positive.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:36 pmESTLong time reader - almost never commenter. But as a mother of two pre-teens?? Excellent post…
The facts are what they are. And as a good friend of mine tells her teenage daughter - “no glove- no love.” There are consequences… Whether we want to believe the behavior or not. It’s there. We all lived it…
Thanks Rachel - well done.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:40 pmESTFor me, it’s not simply a choice between the parent’s right to know and an unwanted or aborted baby. I have two daughters — one is 16 and the other is 20 — and I’m frustrated with having decisions about what is right for my children made by others who don’t know them and don’t want to include me in the process. It’s probably difficult to imagine this if you don’t have kids, but it’s damned hard to be a parent these days. By the time kids are teenagers, society has pretty much decided that parents should not be included in the loop about sexual matters.
And by the way, although I’m a Christian, I never taught them any “blusterous bullshit like ‘God is gonna get you!’” Please! That’s so unrealistic. (Besides, only one of my kids considers herself a Christian; the other says she’s an athiest.)
Another thing that bothers me in these discussions are the assumptions that parents are somehow not to be trusted. Oatworm notes:
Where are all these supposedly “insane” parents? We’re told that PP shouldn’t have to notify parents because they might then abuse the child. Really? All parents? Why are the good, non-abusive parents paying the price of the lousy behavior of the few bad ones? I’d be willing to bet that the insane, child-beating parents are actually way fewer in number than the good ones. I’d like to know when it became acceptable to assume that all parents are the enemies of their children and that the state has a right to determine what is best for all children even if it conflicts with their parents’ values.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:44 pmESTBasic philosophical opposition identified. I’m very much a Lockean- I think that morality should be up to the individual and community and the government should exist purely to enforce a social contract to compensate for the overall social effects of individual bad choices, as much as can be done without compromise of basic principles of liberty.
Wow, that was fast! I think that’s a new record for us. Same time next hot-button thread?
April 1st, 2008 at 7:46 pmESTBut the question is, what is “informing”?
Is simply telling kids about birth control enough, or is it necessary to tell them how to use birth control?
Is it enough that the kids know birth control exists, or do they really need to see their teacher put a condom on a banana before they get it?
One of the biggest problems in this debate (and most every other debate in American politics) is that each side tends to have a rather exaggerated view of their opponent. People who oppose abstinence-only like to imply (or state outright) that abstinence-only education is just a teacher screaming “GOD SAYS DON’T HAVE SEX! IF YOU DO IT YOU’LL GO TO HELL! HELL!!! RAWR!!! CHRISTIAN HULK SMASH PUNY ATHEISTS!!!” (and so on in that fashion). Likewise, people who favor abstinence-only like to claim that “putting a condom on a banana” and passing out birth control pills to young girls is the norm in non-abstinence classrooms.
Neither one is particularly accurate. Abstinence-only isn’t simply repeating “don’t have sex” over and over again and nothing else. It involves discussing the risks of pre-marital sex, discussing the risks of STDs, and emphasizing that abstaining from sex is the only 100% guaranteed way to prevent pregnancy and STDs. And non-abstinence-only doesn’t necessarily entail instructing kids on exactly how to use birth control.
So the question remains: How far must we go when it comes to “informing” kids about sex?
April 1st, 2008 at 8:08 pmESTCouldn’t agree more. I’m Catholic and conservative, and absolutely hate abortion. Having said that, I’m also a pragmatist who believes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The facts are that kids will be less likely to seek parental approval if it’s needed to get birth control. I’ve heard that the incidence of poverty is reduced by a significant factor if a kid graduates high school, avoids bringing a baby into the world without getting married, and avoids bringing a baby before he or she is 21. That’s not just a theory; that’s an observation based on empirical evidence.
Someone suggested you’re a libertarian; I think you’re more of a Goldwater Republican.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:13 pmESTPragmatism good. Obama bad.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:13 pmESTNot going to read thru 91 comments. Sorry. But I will post my response to Rachel’s (quite reasoned) post.
I find myself in your camp, Rachel.
First off, I was once a horny teenager, and I can tell you that no amount of “abstinance” admonishing was going to stop me from what I was going to do. The fact that I never used a condom means that I’m quite lucky that I am not a father…unless you consider the college girlfriend who had an illegal abortion at 7 months and lied to me about it. For the record: she murdered my child and I no longer speak to her. I was quite willing to take responsibility for what I’d done.
But here’s the crux of the matter. As Rachel says, human nature is what it is. Unless you want to join the Jihadis in stoning parties, you should just accept the fact that teens are going to engage in sex. Sure, do what you can to educate your children, and hope that you’ve done a good enough job that it works. But your child having sex is not a failure on your part, because only a repressive household is capable of sheltering them from the effects of our current culture. Do I wish, as a Catholic, that this was not so? Sure. But, there I said it. I’m a Catholic, but I had sex out of wedlock, with numerous partners, some much older (but to my knowledge), not married.
My complaint with the left in the whole debate is with the idea that abortion is the answer to all of these problems. There are thousands of couples who cannot conceive, who are being forced to adopt children from Africa and other parts (my cousin and his wife have adopted 3 girls from China…a weird thing is that their children all look kind of asian, and so the three girls look like the rest of them…but that’s another story).
The point is, there are plenty of homes looking for these children, so there is NO NEED to abort them.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:22 pmESTThat’s not opposition at all. I agree with that principle completely.
Morally and Constitutionally, the question of whether abstinence-only is preferable to non-abstinence-only should be left up to the individual state governments (as the Founding Fathers intended). As a Floridian, it’s not my business to enforce my morality on New York, and neither is it their business to enforce their morality on me.
The problem is that over the years the federal government has been grabbing more and more power at the expense of the states. Liberals have been pushing their agenda on the country via the federal government for years. Well, I say two can play at this game.
(Also, I feel I should point out that no state has ever been forced by the federal government to adopt an abstinence-only program. The Fed. govt. only provides funding incentives to states that do so. The state governments are well within their rights to refuse funding, and many have done just that. It’s also important to note that, as of 2002, only about a third of all US high schools actually teach abstinence-only.)
April 1st, 2008 at 8:23 pmESTRachel -
Geeze, again great post, and great well thought out responses. Only thing disconcerting was the ad along the right margin.
Interesting juxtaposition, eh?
April 1st, 2008 at 8:24 pmESTOne thing that has been touched on, but in my opinion is important, is family guidance and example. I think this is a snowball effect. Since single motherhood has become commonplace, we have babies raising babies; therefore, there is no real adult guidance. Popular culture celebrates premarital sex and children out of wedlock(look at Brangelina, TomKat, just to name a few). Today’s kids form most of their opinions based on what Britney or Lindsay or their ilk is doing. Thus, it is “cool” to party, have sex, and have babies out of wedlock. Somehow, someway, we have to bring back simple morals. I don’t have a daughter; I have a son. But I would be furious if my child was given hormones without my consent. Perhaps if the family unit became the norm rather than the exception to the rule again, it wouldn’t be necessary for organizations like PP to have to take over what I consider to be a parental role. But thanks to the liberals out there, I guess this is just nostalgic and wishful thinking.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:48 pmESTI’m also a pragmatist who believes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Huzzah and hoorah! And I’d like to note for the record that Rachel’s post most specifically was talking about prevention, about avoiding babies AND abortions. And STD’s.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:03 pmESTIn which case, I suppose my confusion is here:
The principle I was arguing from was that, if we are to decide public policy on the matter of what should be included in public education, the better choice is to impart the most complete information possible- because there is no way for a school to give the student the moral grounding that only a parent can. Since some of the students aren’t going to have very much, some will not even have been raised to believe that premarital sex is wrong in and of itself, and most are not likely to wait until marriage (and the marriage might be bad), then the greatest social good is to inform students as to how to prevent the greatest consequences of bad choices- unwanted pregnancies and STDs. That may “enable” bad choices, but adulthood- which education is one part of preparing us for- is going to be filled with hard choices with varying ways to mitigate the consequences, or not. Ignorance is no asset in adulthood.
I agree with you fully on federalism- if for no other reason than that it provides us with a lot of individual laboratories to move the results of social policies from theory to data. It’s certainly done that very well for legal concealed carry.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:54 pmEST“The point is, there are plenty of homes looking for these children, so there is NO NEED to abort them.”
But the problem is, teenagers (no, let me correct that - teenage GIRLS, because guys obviously don’t get pregnant and don’t have to go through NINE MONTHS OF HELL) are already going to go through enough hell in actual pregnancy, let alone giving birth. Pregnancy wrecks your body, and the girl pregnant would have to miss school, etc., and probably have to drop out because of the pregnancy ALONE. This isn’t taking into account childbirth, which could potentially endanger her life, and is already EXTREMELY costly to the family anyways.
And there are already kids in the adoption centers. Why put more in there when those kids could get adopted instead?
April 1st, 2008 at 9:58 pmESTThank You Rachel.
You’re fearless.
If it were not for rupert, I’d ask your hand in marriage.
-Pat
April 1st, 2008 at 9:58 pmESTLOVE the post, Rachel! Excellent points, and your whole argument is so well-defended.
I do feel compelled to clarify a little bit about PP, though, for the sake of the other posters. Now, I have 2 girls myself, and the idea of them having meds dispensed w/out my consent makes me really uncomfortable. That said, it’s not like PP just hands BCPsout to a queue of young girls at a window. They must have a physical exam, they must speak to doctors and NPs who counsel them about their sex lives, and they must return to PP if they want more BCPs. (That’s one of the benefits of PP, btw. That’s the *only* physical exam some women routinely get.) Again, I’m not defending PP’s ability to give out contraception w/out parental consent, just reminding ya’ll that it’s a *medical clinic,* not a crack house
April 1st, 2008 at 10:28 pmESTNormally I would be inclined to agree, but this is a different issue, IMO.
The subject of sex is inherently bound to the subject of morality. Telling a child one thing at school and another thing at home sends conflicting messages. Who is the child to believe? The parent who has raised him/her from infancy? Or the teacher who has been charged with imparting vital knowledge? Either way, the authority of one of them (the teacher or the parent) will end up diminished in the eyes of the child.
This assumes that non-abstinence sex-ed actually reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies and STDs.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:30 pmESTMe, I like how Obama equates babies with STD’s.
And I still have enough of those raging hormones to know the issue is just as complex as you describe.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:30 pmESTAnd we all know what a reputation for ethics PP has.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:37 pmESTThe moralising christians should just shut up.
Rachel is right and you are wrong and it galls me that conservatism is being hijacked by religiosity.
Conservatism should be secular.
[Dammit, Gino, you just ruined my followup post about how everyone's been so nice. I'm glad you think I'm right, I do too, but I have no desire whatsoever for moralizing Christians or anyone else to just shut up. They're not trying to convert me personally, they're just giving their own reasons for disagreeing with me, and it's all cool. I agree that conservatism should be secular, but it never will be and I'm okay with that too even though I'm not a Christian. Now be nice, because I want to be able to brag about how awesome these debate threads are. - Rachel]
April 1st, 2008 at 10:51 pmESTI guess secular liberals are the only ones with freedom of speech now.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:56 pmESTRachel, it may be that they are very careful and conscientious in some places. But not here.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:22 pmESTIn my area have boxes of samples which they give to any girl who would promise to make an appointment with a doctor at a later time.
This is what I have learned from students, their parents, and friends with teenage daughters.
But I can only speak from experiences of people I know about the clinics in this area.
Hey Mighty, look on the bright side. We had an intersting, fair, honest and polite conversation with many people, of different opinions for over 100 comments before some one decided to be rude rather than join the topic at hand.
Take it as a positive that it went this long, then take with disappointment that the good conversation has been so abruptly interrupted.
Rachel, great post, and great discussion. Thanks.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:22 pmESTTwo quibbles with Rachel’s original post, and with however many of the 100+ comments that have carried them forward:
1) Whatever you want to call the notion that “God made us the way we are for a reason,” it’s not a Christian doctrine, no matter how many Christians are heard muttering such nonsense. Such statements have more to do with modern sentimentality than with anything theologically based. The state of things today is not how God designed them to be. That is the whole point of the Biblical narrative of creation and redemption. Saying “God made me this way” is no explanation, either socially or theologically. (It’s also a reason Christians shouldn’t care whether homosexuality is behavioral or biological.)
This leads to . . .
2) While I couldn’t agree more with Rachel that too few people deal with reality, that doesn’t mean that’s all there is. Or, to put it another way, natural does not equal normative. Just because people have natural urges doesn’t mean they should act on them, and there’s nothing about sex that should exempt that subject from the rule. Different people have different natural urges, yet we have no problem socially (so far) in telling some that their urges must be suppressed (see NAMBLA reference by previous commenter). Rachel’s attempt to divide different “natural” urges into “healthy” and “unhealthy” is a cop-out . . . or just a description of a new kind of morality. Heck, distrust of unfamiliar others is perfectly natural, but I don’t hear anybody saying “people are going to be racists no matter what we try to teach them . . .”
April 1st, 2008 at 11:39 pmESTVery spot on, as usual.
I’m gonna give a snap response that might seem over-the-top, but as a father of two girls, I woulod respond to the last statement, “they won’t feel so great when she comes home to tell them she is pregnant.”
Call me crazy, but I’d rather have that than discover they had sex before marriage using contraception. For two reasons:
1. It sends the message that they are animals and they cannot control themselves. YES it’s hard to, and yes the culture encourages it. Does this mean that we throw in the towel and concede that they will rut all day? Of course not.
2. Sex is meant for three things at once, and no one element is more important than the others: Pleasure, procreation and unity with (ideally) your spouse. Contraception splits that up, saying all it is really good for is pleasure.
If I teach -in detail- other forms of contraception, I am tacitly stating that pleasure is paramount, and that my little girls are animals who can’t control themselves. This demeans them, as women. As a father, I cannot -will not- do this.
Again, thanks Rachel. You have made me think that there is some rationality behind the contraception-for-teens debate. Well written.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:39 pmESTI came into this debate very late, so I apologize if someone else brought this up, but here it is:
Watch Juno if you haven’t already.
And from a personal standpoint, I was far too geeky and uncertain of myself in high school and even into my Army tour to be ballsy enough to seek out poontang, and, thank God for this, so are my sons. but us geeky men tend to become good husbands and fathers.
And, as for gino the “great,” I am not a Christian other than by birth, but I am not going to deign to moralize to those who are, and I suggest you lighten up a wee bit.
Morality transcends religion.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:57 pmESTI’ve seen several comments about consent/medical care/parental rights etc.
Sadly, depending upon where you live - parents don’t have many ‘rights’ related to their teen’s reproductive and/or mental health.
This link outlines some considerations.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:07 amESTI am constantly amazed at the civility among commenters on a blog that swears as much as this one. Remember, Rachel, this is the blog that is blocked due to prevalence of “Hate, Anger and Violent References,” or something like that.
Thanks to all for the dialog.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:11 amESTRachel,
Your argument boils down to:
1. If we can’t stop most teenagers from having sex, then we ought to provide them with contraception.
2. We can’t stop most teenagers from having sex.
3. Therefore, we ought to provide them with contraception.
The argument is logical, so all we can do is discuss whether or not the premises are true. I find (2) to be the least plausible. The evidence for it is that teenagers are hormonal, immature, and not receptive to the abstinence message. Hence they’re not likely to abstain. However, this doesn’t actually show that (2) is the case. One can have a strong inclination to do X but nonetheless refrain from doing X because of internal and external restraints. While it’s true that teenagers on the whole are not noted for their internal restraint, pop culture erodes what restraint there is. Indeed, there is enormous pressure on teenagers to not restrain their impulses. In short, there is little incentive for teenagers to practice self-restraint.
Now one might counter that we can’t do anything about pop culture, but that’s where external restraint comes in. Teenagers have far too much leisure time and freedom. I often joke that teenagers should be locked in dungeons until they turn thirty, but there are kinder, gentler ways of curtailing their freedoms: strict curfews, keeping tabs on where they are, giving them tasks to do, making them focus on schoolwork, and filtering pop culture. Now I have no delusions that this is a magic solution to the problem of teen pregnancy, but it does show that (2) is not a fait accompli.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:28 amESTRachel,
I think you will find that parents have a significantly different view on this than those who don’t have kids yet. An among parents, those with just boys will view this subject differently than those with a mix or just girls.
I fall into the later category, just girls (4 of them, with 2 in college). I agree with your point about teenagers, raging hormones and sex education (just the facts at school, parents fill in the rest). But our jobs as parents is to prepare our kids to enter adult life, and just because some do a horrible job at it doesn’t mean we should change the rules to solve their shitty parenting problem.
As for the Obama comments about “Punishment”, a sign of a true piece of shit. People can triangulate all they want, but when someone puts a child into the punishment category they have crossed the line. I guess my wife, who was born to a just turned 15 year old, was a punishment for the uncontrolled teenage hormones (but you would never hear her mother/father say that).
I like your willingness to engage on subjects like this, but I have a problme with the terms “punishment” and “unwanted” when talking about bringing kids into this world. Unwanted is a cop out promoted by the Feminazi/Planned Parenthood machine, just because the biological mother doesn’t want a child doesn’t mean there aren’t thousands of good people out there who want a child but can’t.
//lots of talk recently about having babies, either like those brit twerps or offspring from a 81 yr old veterean…PREGO yet??? tick tock tick tock
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 amESTLots of great comments here. As for me, being the father of a small girl, I will be the birth control method used. When boys stop by the house, I’ll be sitting quietly on the front porch, cleaning my shotgun and oiling my shovel.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:25 amESTBertrand Russell has a great theory on sex education:
“Every boy is interested in trains. Suppose we told him that an interest in trains is wicked; suppose we kept his eyes bandaged whenever he was in a train or on a railway station; suppose we never allowed the word “train” to be mentioned in his presence and preserved an impenetrable mystery as to the means by which he is transported from one place to another. The result would not be that he would cease to be interested in trains; on the contrary, he would become more interested than ever but would have a morbid sense of sin, because this interest had been represented to him as improper. Every boy of active intelligence could by this means be rendered in a greater or less degree neurasthenic. This is precisely what is done in the matter of sex; but, as sex is more interesting than trains, the results are worse. Almost every adult in a Christian community is more or less diseased nervously as a result of the taboo on sex knowledge when he or she was young. And the sense of sin which is thus artificially implanted is one of the causes of cruelty, timidity, and stupidity in later life. There is no rational ground of any sort or kind in keeping a child ignorant of anything that he may wish to know, whether on sex or on any other matter. And we shall never get a sane population until this fact is recognized in early education, which is impossible so long as the churches are able to control educational politics.”
While I don’t agree with Russell on many things, this is one of the best analogies I’ve ever read.
I think abortion is murder. Plain and simple. I have two children, ant the thought that someone would rationally choose to have their baby cut up and vacuumed out of their body is repulsive to me.
Still, I think this is an issue that must be divorced from contraception. I am fully in favor of making contraceptives available to teenagers WITH THIER PARENTS’ CONSENT.
I will not cede my responsibilitites for raising my son and daughter to the gummint or the eugenecists at Planned Parenthood.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:49 amESTFrom the context I thought he was referring to pregnancy as an STD. Pretty cold.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:00 amESTBut the coffee shop around the corner from Planned Parenthood often has a booth or two full of people in lab coats and stained shoes who can sometimes be overheard talking that way. When it happens they hush one another.
It’s a natural world in a natural universe.
Nature severely, harshly, and always does not care about rhetoric.
Zarba,
I realize you were quoting someone else, but I’d like to point out that “the Christian community” is by no means homogeneous in their handling of sexual education. Yes they all teach that sex has it’s proper context, between a husband and wife (that are married to each other, jeepers, the sexual revolution has certainly complicated the language some), but most branches that I know don’t treat as some kind of dark art not to be mentioned.
To enter the metaphor you quoted, we wouldn’t be blind folding the boy, merely teaching him that until he is an adult, he shouldn’t be riding trains on his own, and that he must buy a ticket. That it is wrong to try to use the train with out buying the ticket.
I’m sure there are some sects that treat sex the way your quote describes, but “the Christian community” is not a term useful in this context, other than to set up a stra wman for the author to beat into the ground quite nicely.
As to the last line of the quote, unless it comes from the late 19th century, there is no way on God’s green earth that “…churches are able to control educational politics” in this country.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 amESTI must have been living under a rock in Upper-East End of Siberia. Do you mean to tell me that my daughter can go to a Planned Parenthood Clinic and receive the pill, without my consent ?
We’re talking about the pill, correct ? Isn’t it the one that is being linked to all sorts of biological-badness like osteosporosis and strokes ? The same pill that retards menstruation and causes weight-gain ?
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 amESTMightySamurai said:
I believe that it’s possible to give teenager information without sending a message either way. Telling them about how the human reproductive system works, and what contraception is & how it works is just information. Raw information shouldn’t be in conflict with what is taught at home. The parents are still responsible for instilling the values & morals that (hopefully) lead to responsible behavior, however that is defined in your household. Even a strict catholic who believes that contraception is wrong should at least be educated as to what it is exactly, in my opinion.
Education at the very least will clear up misconceptions that some teens have “you can’t get STD’s from oral sex” & etc.
I also think that by focusing on the actual penetration many parents miss the big picture on a technicality. Even if teens haven’t technically had sex they probably will do some fooling around at some point. Parents and teens can feel safe & good about them promising to not have sex (and technically keeping that promise) while still engaging in risky behavior.
I agree that parents should be notified and give consent for a prescription for the pill. But education/information? I just don’t understand what the big deal is about. Teach it in science class without an agenda and be done with it.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 amESTTelling them how the reproductive system works is information, yes. But telling them how contraception works (not just what it is but how it works) comes just a little too close to encouraging them, IMO.
I wish this were as simple as imparting raw information, but it isn’t. Sexuality and morality are too closely bound together. You might not be intending to send the message that sex is okay so long as it’s “safe” but that’s the message that ends up being sent anyway. And that infringes on the right of the parents to teach their children the morals they believe in.
This is the point I was trying to get at when I was talking about people having exaggerated views of their opponent. Contrary to popular belief, clearing up misconceptions like that is EXACTLY the kind of thing that goes on in abstinence-only classes.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 amESTI think Obama was simply echoing a common sentiment (okay, not so common here obviously, but quite common on the other side of the political divide): Approaching this issue from the standpoint that the only acceptable education is simply telling kids “Don’t do it”, followed up with the attitude that “actions have consequences”, so they deserve whatever they get as a result comes off as a rather punitive approach to a lot of people.
Be indignant all you like about how no-one could ever be punished with a child, but what I see a lot of folks saying, in one flavor or another, is that kids deserve whatever misfortune is their lot as a result of not adhering to their approved moral standards. Argue around it any way you please, but that’s the core of it; these kids deserve to be punished by being forced to accept the unpleasant consequences of their actions.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:46 amESTSam said “these kids deserve to be punished by being forced to accept the unpleasant consequences of their actions.”
Well, yes they do.
Note above I’m all for the dissemination of as much raw information (so long as it is pure fact) as possible, then leave it to the parents to pass on necessary moral judgments, or help in the acquisition of birth control and contraceptives.
But, fundamentally, we are responsible for our own actions. Responsibility means accepting the consequences of one’s actions, pleasant or not. Kids go to juvenile hall for crimes they commit (when severe enough), and in some cases actual prison. They get suspended or expelled when they commit action of sufficient severity. They already have to deal with unpleasant consequences of their actions. If they choose sex, then absolutely they should have to deal with the consequences of that as well, emotional, physical, medical, parental, positive, negative, whatever those consequences are, they are the kid’s to deal with.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:58 amEST…And there ya have it..
So why the upset that BHO called it punishment? And why oh why must everyone be punished as though they held the same moral standards vis-a-vis premarital sex when obviously that is not the case?
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:07 amESTActually I’m not aware of anybody who was upset that he called it punishment.
I mean, I was a little peeved at the way he phrased his point (he made it sound like anybody who believes in holding people accountable for their actions is a heartless monster), but that’s just a semantics argument.
There may well be people out there who got mad at him because he used the word “punishment”, but I haven’t seen any.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:15 amESTWhile you can’t get behind the firewall on it yet without paying some $$, here’s some empirical fuel for the fire. (Abstract here)
There’s a new study in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health that finds that those who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received abstinence-only education, and 60 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received no sex education at all. Teaching about contraception was NOT associated with increased risk of adolescent sexual activity or STD, and WAS associated with reduced pregnancy among teens. There’s some reality for you.
We can take idealistic and moralistic stands on what’s right and proper and all that, but as with so many subjects there is being morally superior and IDEALISTIC and then there is REALITY. If you wish to be morally superior and set standards for everyone else that lead to more adverse social outcomes, good for you and your moral superiority but hey, bad for our society. It’s easy to be moralistic in the abstract, tougher in the specific.
I’m with Rachel. As parents and as a society, we have a duty to teach our children well, but when adolescence hits they start to become fully human beings, and they’re gonna act like individuals and not programmed robots, and we had better deal with that. And as a society we have a duty to reduce the social pathologies associated with teen sexual activity as best we can while otherwise doing the least harm that we can. An ounce of prevention sure looks a helluva lot better than a ton of cure in that regard.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:30 amESTI was actually agreeing with Rachel and tossing in my take on it: That they’re right in seeing it as a punitive approach, because it is.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:35 amESTBecause consequences aren’t necessarily punishments. I dislike calling the baby a punishment simply because a punishment is something imposed by society, or authority, on an individual so they understand their action was bad (at least, by the authorities standards), and occasionally to serve as a warning to others, to dissuade similar behavior. The baby is a natural consequence of the act.
If I may use a metaphor to illustrate my point. Take drunk driving for example. You drive drunk, swerve off the road, hit a tree. You’re car is totaled, you have medical bills, but luckily, no one else was hurt. The totaled car, and the medical bills from your own injuries are not punishments, they are natural consequences of the act. Later, when you get the DUI, and lose your license, that is the punishment.
The baby is not a punishment, it is not imposed on her by any authority. It is the result of her actions, and her partner’s actions.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 amESTI may have contradicted my self in my previous too posts. When I said “well, yes, they do,” earlier, I meant they need to deal with the consequences, not that the consequences are inherently punishment. Though the quote that I was agreeing with held that implication.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:48 amESTFine, but to complete the metaphor one must posit the existance of a wonder-pill that one could take before driving under the influence that would make it 99.99% less likely that you would swerve and hit said tree. Next, throw in a group crowing about the immorality of said pill and how folks shouldn’t drink, and if they did, they fully deserved to hit that tree. That group would appear, to a rational person, to be taking a rather unnecessarily punitive approach.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:48 amESTAnd I don’t see how a punitive approach is unnecessary or bad. In a certain sense, all morality is punitive. If you do something immoral society will punish you for it in some way. Be it through the legal system or through social ostracism, society will punish you. And they would be right to punish you. And that’s the real problem.
In addition to the religious argument, the problem many conservatives have with contraceptives is the fact that they allow a person to continue engaging in immoral behavior without having to accept the consequences of their actions.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:01 amESTSo it would seem to come down to a question of morals, and imposing them on people who don’t necessarily have the same ones you do by punishing them for it if at all possible. That’s groovy, but I’m really not into that…
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:13 amESTMy metaphor was only to discuss the idea of punishment as different from consequence. I’ve advocated for full factual education in school. When it comes to availability of contraceptives or the birth control pill, that is a matter for parents to address with their children.
Earlier in this post there is clear evidence of my not knowing exactly how the birth control pill works. Because of that I’ll leave off my own moral decisions about it. I think you are right about how the catholics view the BCP. I feel an urge to reiterate my earlier point about Christianity being non-homogeneous.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 amESTUnderstood, and I totally agree with you regarding your stance on full factual education in school and leaving morality in the home. As for punishment vs consequence, I think the metaphor served well in that regard too, just not in the direction you intended.
My reference to the wonder-pill wasn’t actually a direct reference to “the pill”, but to the concept of an alternate course of action which easily obviates a potential set of consequences.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:28 amESTThe problem with those people is that they failed to have sex, so they pretend that sex is immoral to make themselves feel better.
But at the end of the day, they are still miserable.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:30 amESTHahaha… Umm no…
I think you’re projecting just a bit there regarding sex and self-esteem…
Heh…
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:50 amESTI personally think people are reading ENTIRELY too much meaning into Obama’s extemperaneous use of that one word during an unscripted Q&A. BHO’s speaking skills are not at their best when not prqacticed and polished in advance. In short, despite his obvious rhetorical skill with set pieces, he’s just not that quick on his feet, and it’s showing.
If Obama had said “penalized” rather than “punished” we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion. Ain’t no doubt at all that teen pregnancy and teen STD’s effectively penalize mother, child, patient, and society. And that reading falls squarely into the standard doctrine of the evangelical brigades, under “moral law” and the consequences of defying it.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:14 pmESTI’m not sure that I can agree with characterizing this as a disagreement over semantics.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:23 pmESTYou think teens and children and society AREN’T penalized in the game of life by teen pregnancy and STD’s? Pray tell.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 pmESTCould this be semantics. Penalized sounds like punishment to me.
Tully, I will grant (for my part, as much as it is worth) that they are adversely affected, that there are negative consequences. I don’t think anyone is arguing that it is good. The question merely becomes, of the various solutions, are there any whose consequences are better for society than the negative effects we are attempting to get rid of.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 pmESTGreat post and discussion!
As a single mother of an 12 year old boy, I’m quickly being brought into this quandry. I grew up in a family of females, so my knowledge of how boy’s minds work is limited. I do know that this kind of discussion with him is extremely uncomfortable for me, but that’s my hangup and I will NOT let it keep me from doing the right thing as his parent! I know the non-information I got from my mom and how it affected my life, and won’t be taking that approach.
We’ve already had discussions about condoms and why they’re used. (He recently has been asking lots of questions about AIDS and how you get it.) I forsee many, many, many more conversations about all these things in the future and just hope I get it right!
It’s scaaaaaaaawy!
Thanks all for some great brain food! Rachel ROCKS!
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 pmESTOf course you are. We all are.
If you believe in the concept of law, then you believe in the concept of imposing morality on others. Why should we have laws against 40 year old men having sex with 16 year old girls? Aren’t we just imposing our morality on other people? Yes, but that doesn’t mean we should repeal our age of consent laws.
When someone says “legislating morality is wrong” what they really mean is “legislating morality that I disagree with is wrong”.
I have a feeling that you have never met any of “those people” in your life.
Well, maybe not this discussion, but we would still be having a discussion.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:38 pmESTThe question
merelybecomes, of the various solutions, are there any whose consequences are better for society than the negative effects we are attempting to get rid of.Strike the word “merely” as minimalization. I’d say the empirical study I linked shows that yes, comprehensive sex ed and the availability of contraception provide demonstrably better societal outcomes than abstinence-only sex ed or no sex ed at all, at least as measured by rates of teen pregnancy. This pretty much confirms the experience of–and evidence from–other nations. In the Netherlands sex is absolutely rife in their popular culture, yet they have lower rates of teen rpegnancy and teen STD’s and (dig it) a higher average age of loss of virginity. AND pretty comrprehensive sex ed in the schools. There are many other examples.
That doesn’t mean teen sex is a good thing (despite my views as a teenager…which differ from my views as the parent of two teenagers). But experience shows [1] we can’t really stop it, and [2] the most effective known way of dealing with it to date from the societal level is comprehensive sex ed and the availability of contraception. None of which precludes acting as good parents and teaching strong morals and values to our kids. But kids are people too. They have minds of their own. They are not programmed automatons, no matter how good a parent you are. As a society, we need to deal with the issue from a pragmatic view, not a moralistic one. Strangely, the pragmatic approach seems to be producing better results. Who woulda thunk it?
I know some people think that teen sex was much less prevalent say, fifty or forty or thirty years ago, that it is somehow absolutely rampant today. While the evidence is somewhat slim going back, it actually looks like the age of commencement of sex (loss of virginity) in America is increasing, not decreasing, and teen pregnancy, teen abortion, and the teen birth rate have all been on steady declines for the last two decades.
Something’s working. It’s sure not pop culture.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:13 pmESTWell, I’m not a Christian and I can’t speak to the “God made us the way we are” part, but there is pretty conclusive evidence that the age of menarche’ has been dropping steadily since
the mid-1800’s. Greatly improved nutrition has played a major role, but there is strong evidence for the pthalalates in plastic and other environmental estrogens playing a large role since the end of WWII. (I’m not that old, but I remember when only one or two girls in junior high had boobs; now they all do - and they dress like prostitots. Tell me something hasn’t changed.)
The ‘teenage years’ are basically a social construct of industrial civilization. In an agricultural society, people went to work in their early teens and married a couple of years after that. (It’s easier to ‘wait ’til you’re married’ when it’s only a year or two away than it is when it could be a decade….)
Add these together and each generation physically matures at a younger age, but is less and less capable (emotionally, economically, educationally, spiritually) of dealing with the consequences of early sexual activity.
We can’t go back to that, but society will have to adapt. Right now, the adaptations we’re seeing are not very constructive.
WTF? Dude, you aren’t just wrong, you’re stupid wrong. Troll wrong.
Do you really think there is no one (conservative or otherwise) that could have sex but chooses not to? Or that belief in some kind of moral system could be one reason to refrain?
I think you’ve made the classic error of mistaking a caricature of conservatives that flatters your prejudices for the real thing…
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:14 pmESTprostitots
Now THERE’S a new word for the OED! And so sadly meaningful.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:16 pmESTWell, the conversation seems to have tacked off in different direction, but damned if I’m going to drop my bone just because it takes me forever to wake up fully in allergy season…
No, it’s not that simple, but just because it isn’t doesn’t mean abstinence-only is the best way to go for society as a whole.
1) In my badly-made point earlier, I asserted that conservative parents are already going to have problems with the public school system and the messages they get from their teacher. Hell, I never even set foot in a public school and my parents had this problem- the zero-tolerance approach to students fighting that punished me for hitting back when attacked by a bully because the school held all participants in a “fight” equally at fault no matter what. (My father carefully explained to me that he believed the school was wrong and why. I was maybe twelve.) Comprehensive sex education will, in most cases, be far from the first conflicting message from parents and teachers- and even if it weren’t, is granting the same measure of respect to the moral authority of the teacher (a representative of the government in a public school- private schools can/should teach whatever they damn well please) as to the church and parent really what we want from increasingly-independent kids?
2) Lance Salyers is right: biology and morality have nothing to do with one another, and we’d be best served by teaching children that. The flip side of being intelligent creatures able to make moral decisions despite being utterly beset by a biology that assumes we’re going to start reproductive life at 13-14 is being able to regard the tools to control our biology as also morally neutral. Yes, they can be used to make poor choices easier (though certainly not FREE of consequence- what about those emotional consequences we talked about?), but they can also be used to make responsible life easier as well- as when a married couple uses them to time children. Conflating the locus of responsibility (the user) helps nothing.
When I was fifteen, I went on the pill with my parents’ full knowledge and consent, because I had miserable periods that rendered me barely-functional. (Another biological mismatch- a first pregnancy usually cures that.) Despite not even having been taught that premarital sex was intrinsically wrong, I understood COMPLETELY that in NO way constituted an endorsement of my becoming sexually active then. It just wasn’t that complex a leap for me to make, given the rest of the foundation they’d laid.
3)They’re not going to be kids forever, and the issues aren’t going to go away when they leave home. Of the nice, religious, faithful, really good people I knew in college who were going to wait until marriage and failed in their resolve, it wasn’t the lure of promiscuity that did them in, it wasn’t the temptation to act like an animal, and it wasn’t lapses in judgment while intoxicated. It was watching the majority culture that has no problem with sex before marriage or contraceptives… have committed, loving, responsible relationships, in which they experienced emotional joy and no STDs, and generally suffered no consequence that they’d been warned about. THAT was what made them question that choice, and THAT is what even the best kid will have to contend with on leaving the nest. In order for them to come through it, they NEED a nonsimple, complex, strong, and deep moral understanding- and they need it before leaving home.
Between that and the empirical evidence as Tully posted, I think the social-good argument comes down in favor of comprehensive sex ed.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:17 pmESTTully, I’ll concede the point on “merely.”
As measured in teen pregnancy, your link may prove the point, I’ll grant the premise that it does (I haven’t read it), the reason I brought up the issue of trade offs in consequences is that different people weigh different outcomes by their own values, so it does become a political discussion. Maybe more teens having kids, while fewer overall have sex (if that were the case) would be considered a better outcome to some.
I have not data for this, but from common sense, does anyone believe that the availability of contraception actually discourages teen sex?
I’m also curious if 18 and 19 year old, married mothers are counted in the “teenage” pregnancy statistics.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:25 pmESTI didn’t say it was.
Like I said, I’m a federalist. If California wants to have “comprehensive sex-ed”, then they can go right ahead and do it. It’s not my business. But neither is it their business to decide what kind of sex-ed I want taught in my state.
Let me reiterate again: No state has been forced to adopt an abstinence-only program. They have only been offered federal funding incentives in exchange for adopting one.
Sure they are, but that doesn’t mean they should have those problems. As tax-paying Americans, it is their right to stand up and say “I don’t like this policy” and work to change that policy. And who are you to say they shouldn’t change it (wouldn’t want to impose your morality on them, would you?)?
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:49 pmESTJust so… Well struck!
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 pmESTOh, fully agreed, I restate my appreciation for the multiple laboratories. I’m just arguing from a purely theoretical basis for what I see as the flaws in the argument you gave me on the theory.
Sure I do, given that I agree with you that a lot of rule of law is just that and damn well should be. I just think there are some aspects of morality that should never be handled by the state because it will do it badly, or because the effect will be worse than the problem- and that there are some areas where the government’s role should be purely mitigation of harm. Which is why I’m arguing the theory with you.
Well. That and this is more fun than a basket of kittens for me…
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:36 pmESTWell like I said, I don’t take with utilitarian ethics. I believe things are right or wrong on their own merits, not simply because of what the data says.
For example, even if a liberal managed to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that guns cause crime, I still would not support banning guns. There are many other ways to control crime and I refuse to give up my sovereign right to defend myself (whether from a mugger or a tyrannical government) just so Manhattan’s crime rate can drop a few percentage points.
Similarly, there are many other ways to control teenage pregnancy and STDs that don’t involve teaching children things that are (IMO) immoral or giving kids messages that conflict with the morality of their parents. You can do it in your state if you want, but I won’t do it in mine.
I was actually being tongue-in-cheek with that last part (about not imposing your morality on conservative parents), but I digress…
If you think that some aspects of morality should not ever be handled by the state, then logically you should oppose ALL forms of sex-ed in public schools. Because no matter which sex-ed philosophy you choose, abstinence-only or comprehensive, you are still allowing the state to handle that particular aspect of morality. If you choose abstinence-only you are letting the state tell kids that abstaining is the only moral choice. If you choose comprehensive you are letting the state tell kids that methods other than abstaining are morally acceptable at least (or preferable at the worst).
But this, of course, is why we have a federalist system. So that each state can decide for itself which philosophy to teach.
In the end all we can do is agree to disagree.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pmESTI have not data for this, but from common sense, does anyone believe that the availability of contraception actually discourages teen sex?
I have no hard data on that myself, but it doesn’t seem to ENcourage it either. It just doesn’t seem to have much of an effect either way that I can tell, and the stats tend to agree. Many if not most teens become sexually active (with others, heh) in some form or another. Among those who become sexually active, when contraception is available they will often use it (thankfully) but it doesn’t seem to be a real “motivator” one way or another in the decision to become sexually active, whereas comprehensive sex ed does seem to play a part in retarding the age at which sexual activity commences.
Nor was there any (statistically meaningful) difference in STD rates between the three groups (comp, abstinence-only, and none), which seems a little odd and could use some more research. You’d logically expect it to follow the pregnancy/viriginity/activity stats by group, and it really doesn’t seem to. But STD reporting includes chlamydia, which can be endemic, can be transmitted from mother to child during birth, can show no symptoms for years, and is more easily spread than most STD’s. And a few other STD’s such as herpes simplex (both HSV-1 and HSV-2) can be transmitted by simple kissing. Call it “more detailed study needed.”
I’m also curious if 18 and 19 year old, married mothers are counted in the “teenage” pregnancy statistics.
Yes. The study stats are done by age, not by marital status. I reviewed the study stats for both the 15-17 age group and the 18-19 group, AND the combined stats for both cohorts. They were consistent across age groups.
What we don’t have that would be really helpful would be stats on upbringing–but how do you realistically and empirically measure good effective parenting?
As a parent all I can say is you do your best, but kids are still their own people, teens especially so, and when they hit the teen years they get rebellious and independent and horny just as nature designed them to, and you can only hope for the best and try to guide them with the tools and values you inculcated before then. Push too hard, they do the opposite of what you aim them at. Don’t push enough, and they do whatever they want anyway. And if you didn’t lay the proper foundations in the first place, luck is gonna play an even bigger role than it would anyway.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:35 pmESTAnd thus the heart of our disagreement. Virtually everybody in society can agree that some things- murder, sex with someone who did not or is basically unable to consent, theft- are immoral. However, the premise that all premarital sex is intrinsically wrong is not only not shared to the point where we can safely treat dissenters as members of a small fringe minority, it’s practiced fully by a small minority. Since I believe one of the legitimate functions of government is public health, I think comprehensive sex education falls under that duty.
Of course, the part where I really can’t see teaching kids that should be old enough to understand locus of responsibility and understand how that relates to the moral framework they’ve been raised with about the full range of a subject they WILL need to know in adulthood in any context as an unacceptable teaching of “morality” is the other point where we really depart.
Indeed.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:38 pmESTBut isn’t that somewhat dishonest? After all, no one really believes that married teenage pregnancy is the problem, do they? It’s unmarried teenage pregnancies that we’re trying to prevent.
But then the question becomes “how should the government protect the public health?”
Are indirect methods of protection like “comprehensive sex education” allowed, or only direct methods like funding STD research?
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 pmESTBut isn’t that somewhat dishonest?
No. Why would it be? They’re public health studies, not studies of someone’s perceptions of righteous morality. Teen pregnancy has adverse societal impact regardless of marital status. Public policy is concerned with reducing that adverse societal impact, not judging someone’s sin levels. Single or married, the impact remains. What YOU might want to prevent is another discussion. From a policy POV, the only question is reducing the adverse impact.
But marital status* is included in the cross-tabs and can evaluated seperately, and indicates that (surprise!) pregnancy is somewhat (20%-25%) more likely among married teens than unmarried ones–thus the pregnancy rate for unmarried teens is actually a touch lower than the reported rate in that age cohort. If anything, including married women from the 18-19 group in the stats makes the declining teen pregnancy rates in that age cohort look slightly larger than they are. The overall rate has still declined steadily for the last twenty years.
[*--Important caveat: "Marital status is the woman’s marital status as of the date the pregnancy ended, rather than at the time of conception. Figures for married women include pregnancies for separated women."...."Includes persons who are married with spouse present, married with spouse absent, and separated." Also of note--under 5% of women in the 18-19 cohort fall under the definition of married, which distorts the age cohort statistics and overall findings for teen pregnancy at such a small level as to be statistically insignificant.]
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:17 pmESTHere is a result of abstinence-only sex education.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 pmESTI would argue so. We already take this approach with education about drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and driving, four areas in which teens’ abilities may be ahead of their knowledge and judgment, and areas in which a bad decision on their part impacts society as a whole negatively.
At the end of the day, you view detailed education about contraception as unacceptably morally weighted and I do not- for reasons of principle (being able to separate knowledge from morality is a crucial skill teens must have in general, not just sexually) and of pragmatism (in practice as the reality of education, parents must be prepared to sometimes override mixed messages from teachers). I doubt we’re going to change each other’s minds on this fundamental.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:51 pmESTForget handing out condoms or birth control, we need to start handing out vibrators to teen girls. A lot of girls think masterbation is wrong or dirty. Their male counterparts however have been doing and perfecting it for years. If young girls were able to satisfy themselves sexually they would be less likely to seek out intercourse as their first sexual experience. Especially since intercourse is the perfect storm for baby making. If teen girls were all sexually satisfied they would baulk at the idea of sex with a 15 year old boy. Come on, how bad must that be?
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:30 pmEST160+ comments and counting. This thread just may beat the ‘my favorite sandwich’ one.
“If teen girls were all sexually satisfied they would baulk at the idea of sex with a 15 year old boy. Come on, how bad must that be?” Funny stuff g. Seriously, my friend just offered to buy her 16 year old daughter a ‘toy’. Imagining my mom doing that almost caused my brain to explode!
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:28 amESTInteresting post and definitely has me thinking. In fact, I’ve been wanting to blog this topic ever since I heard Obama equate unwanted teenage pregnancy to punishment. It also sounded like he was lumping pregnancy and STD’s into the same category (”punishment”).
I concede that we may not necessarily be able to control every urge and impulse of our kids. I remember being one myself and bucking against “authority”. Kids are gonna make mistakes - stupid mistakes - sometimes life altering mistakes. The result of these actions/mistakes is called consequence, a fact of life. I believe it is the responsibility of all parents to early on teach and instil responsibility into their kids - teaching them that their actions have consequences, and to take responsibility for their actions.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:40 amESTObama talked about teaching his kids values and morales and then in the same breath equated unwanted pregnancy as a punishment. That doesn’t fly with me and I don’t think it paints a good picture of teaching our kids responsibility for their actions. Using the word “punishment” somehow makes me think kids would rather hide their mistakes than to live up and/or seek help from their parents.
If my teenage son gets his girlfriend pregant, you can bet I will expect him to take responsibility and do the right thing (it may not necessarily be marriage, but he will help take care of the child).
Education starts at home and parents better be involved with what’s going on in their childrens’ lives.