But I think I will now. I don’t think ANY parent is going to give their 13 year old birth control pills and tell her to “go for it”. That’s a conservative fantasy. But there is a concept called “harm reduction” that generally aligns as a liberal/conservative issue.
No one recommends giving drug addicts clean needles because they think shooting heroin is good and more people should do it. Clean needle programs are based on the theory that heroin addicts are going to shoot heroin no matter what and that we ( as a society) stand a better chance of getting them cleaned up and rehabilitated if they aren’t dying of AIDS or Hepatitis. It’s the same theory that drives Narcan programs.
The anti harm reduction side believes that people are less likely to indulge in bad behavior if they have to face all the ancillary consequences of that behavior in full. The fact that those consequences may lessen the chance of rehabilitation is of very little concern to them.
And I don’t think anyone is saying that 13 year olds should be sexually active, but if your 13 year old daughter starts exhibiting symptoms of an emotional disturbance or mental illness that include promiscuous behavior, many parents would choose to take steps to prevent her from becoming pregnant while her underlying condition is addressed.
Any parent that thinks they can prevent their daughter from these conditions by “good parenting” is naive.
My personal opinion is that the best way to prevent your daughter from becoming promiscuous at 13 is to keep her from being sexually abused as a young child - there is a very strong correlation there and one I witnessed personally many times, but that’s the subject for another thread.
However, mental illness can strike at any age and often manifests itself at puberty. If you are a parent that is unlucky enough to have to deal with that situation, you want every tool in the box at your disposal, including a right to make medical decisions without governmental interference.
The question as written is too context-free to be easily answerable, although Ann_Hedonia just did an excellent job of it. But it’s pretty clear that what the questioner really means is, “Progressives lack a moral compass to the point that they encourage 13-year-olds to have sex!” You have to be pretty out of touch with reality to espouse such nonsense though.
So let’s add some context to the question and see if the answers are clearer. WHY might a 13-year-old be a candidate for birth control? Here are some reasons:
She has a medical condition which is treatable by birth control pills.
She has been raped, and is still within the window of time where a morning-after pill will be effective.
She is exhibiting (I’m directly quoting Ann_Hedonia here) an emotional disturbance or mental illness that includes promiscuous behavior.
In any of the three situations above, would progressives be more likely to obtain birth control for their child than conservatives would? Yeah, probably, because doing so is the compassionate and rational response.
A friend of my daughter is 14/15 and has had two abortions. Do you tell a kid who is sexually active “don’t do this” or do you put her on the pill, buy condoms, and say “don’t do this!”. I am pretty sure I would do the latter as a self proclaimed “progressive”.
I would of course try and address the psychological reasons why a child of that age is having sex, but harm reduction is paramount.
My daughter was on birth control from about age 15 or so - prescribed by the dermatologist (under the condition that she follow up with a gyn). So yeah it’s quite legal to prescribe it for other reasons for minors. Heck, a doctor can prescribe pretty much everything off-label.
A friend of mine tells the story of being in her college (sorority?) dorm, in a very conservative Southern area (she was a fish out of water even then). A classmate saw her taking her birth control and said something like “Oh, you take them to help your periods too?” (because why else would a Good Girl be taking something so sinful…).
She snapped back “You mean, so I keep HAVING them??? Yeah”.
As far as the discussions about, say, having sex at age 13: Well, neither of my kids had enough of a social life for this to be REMOTELY an issue (ruling out rape, of course ) but my daughter and I had plenty of discussions on the topic. Basically it came down to:
“There is no GOOD reason to be having sex in high school. I WANNA is not a good reason. You’re not mature enough to handle the consequences. HE’s not mature enough to handle the consequences. But if you DO, for Og’s sake TAKE PRECAUTIONS”.
On one such occasion. we discovered that Google Assistant kicks in on my phone when I’m using the map navigation app, even when I have it turned off the rest of the time. Imagine driving along, chatting, then hearing the phone saying “I don’t understand ‘your own left hand’”
There’s also just the issue that conservatives are more likely to have issues with birth control in general. I used to associate this dislike only with Catholics, but I’ve seen the idea broaden out at least to the wider Christian Right, and seemingly even outside of it.
There are just so many factors for why progressives might be more likely to give birth control to their 13year olds. There’s no reason to assume it has anything to do with thinking sex is an acceptable activity for a 13 year old.
Well, none other than believing the stereotypes used to villainize us. But these never make a lot of sense. When they say we lack morality, look at people saying we moralize or “virtue signal.” If they say we are okay with sex with kids, look at #metoo. If it’s about, I dunno, being godless, look at how many of us are progressive specifically because we think Jesus was, too.
And common, too, by my informal polling. Either for acne or menstrual issues. Although nobody told me they were 13 when they started hormonal bc.
Although while for some physicians this is a first stop option, I know one woman who was told, at ~thirty, by a physician that he wouldn’t prescribe her bc (for cramps and “I realized I was handing out detentions cyclically”) because she wasn’t married. She went to Planned Parenthood after that for all gyno matters.
This was in New England within the last decade or so, too.
@CairoCarol, I don’t know if you have kids or not. I agree that children should be raised with good values (whatever that means to you) and self-esteem. However, children have a way of subverting their parents’ idea of how they are supposed to turn out. Some 13-year-old girls become sexually active without having bad values or poor self-esteem. So then what do you do?
FWIW standard of care would be to advise a long acting reversible contraception method (LARC) such as an implantable or an IUD. Condom use as well for disease prevention.
Also to note that the temporal association of greater education and availability of contraceptive choices to young teens had been a greater number choosing to delay sexual activity onset, yes, given more choice, more information, more options, more are choosing to stay abstinent longer, and to take the decision more seriously.
I’m glad to hear you say that! It means that I’ve kept my bragging about The Perfect Son down to acceptable levels. (Well, I’d never actually describe him as “perfect” since like all human beings he is a flawed creature. But I’m very proud of him for all his good qualities, behaviors, and accomplishments.)
) but my daughter and I had plenty of discussions on the topic. Basically it came down to: