Will this study change any minds? Seems to me that spending a little money now can save massive amounts of money later, and drop the abortion rate by 2/3 at the same time. Will fiscal responsibility trump treating women like dirt?
Umm, wouldn’t giving free contraception be both fiscally responsible and help stop “treating women like dirt”?
No. Treating women like dirt is the point of the so-called anti-abortion movement; they don’t actual care about abortions.
I hope it changes minds. I’ve always said that if you want to reduce abortion you have to start at the other end and educate, educate, educate. Instead we don’t talk to our kids about sex and then scream like Victorian ninnies when they get pregnant.
Holy shit:
Scary.
Change minds about what? Everyone in the United States has had access to free birth control for a long time. Has it saved us money and dropped the abortion rate? The last time I checked, we had about a million abortions per years, and that rate had been steady for a long time.
Maybe you should read the study. The upfront costs of IUDs, supplied free to the participants, are $800-$1000. Everyone in the United States has most definitely not had access to IUDs for free.
You mean everyone in the US has had access to free condoms for a long time, and maybe if they’re lucky, free pills. If you bothered to read the article you’d see that the study focused on IUDs, which are more effective.
Which is odd to me. I have insurance, so perhaps that’s it, but when I got both my IUDs, I paid an office visit copay. That’s it. $80 (2 office visits for 2 insertions) for 10 years of contraception that totally works, without me having to think about it or do anything, really.
We act like abstinence only sex ed works as intended, instead of it actually backfiring.
“I have insurance, so perhaps that’s it”…
Yup, that’s it!
Usually when I get treated like dirt, it’s cause I did something wrong.
I’ve had a few aggressive men in my life, but then again, I wasn’t a run around teenage girl with low respect for myself and a lower value of human life - therefore resulting in me associating with lowly people who would join me in irresponsible consenting sexual relations that resulted in a pregnancy on which I had to ‘take care of.’
See what I did there?
If only I grew up when schools were giving away free birth control and encouraging (oops did I say that…was a bit unfair wasn’t it?) teen sex, maybe I wouldn’t have had to go through such a terrible ordeal.
:gag:
Listen, women love to play it up, but spineless men love to play it up more.
The reality is that people just want any excuse to shirk responsibility while all the while going with unchecked moral accountability. Birth control in young and unwise persons is a perfect tool for this.
If you honestly believe that* "Free birth control lowers abortion rate dramatically.*…| is some profound and ‘we knew it all along’ find of the ‘educated’ community, then you aren’t helping the issue.
What’s alarming is the belief that talking about sex to kids(at a younger age particularly), giving out condoms and birth control is going to magically make them want to have sex less(or more realistically, just not got pregnant).
For most kids that’s a one way ticket to party time with no limits and no repercussions. It’s like legalizing weed. Moderation would not be the cornerstone of such a practice.
Good parenting, honesty and proper values are all you can do…like anything with parenting - the rest you hope for the best.
The worst thing to do, is let schools and the government raise your kids when you aren’t around .
Yeah, it will just be party time for those 45 year old women getting free birth control.
Are you suggesting that the majority of women in this study, are on the farther end of the spectrum?
You believe when they got together and decided to allocate time and money for this, that their target demographic was middle aged (or older) women, whom can already probably afford birth control (if they should so need it)?
What kind of women at that age do you know that are in desperate need of birth control, let alone sexual counseling?
And maybe more humorously what women do you know at that age are having unprotected irresponsible sex so much that abortions are on the rise?
This illustrates the central point that I, along with others on this board, have been making for a long time. Many anti-abortion activists are less anti-abortion, than anti-sex, at least not for anyone that they think should not be having sex. So my question for you is, if you could reduce the number of abortions in the U.S. by 1 million, but that would mean that there would be 10 million additional sex acts by unmarried woman of varying ages, including teenagers, is that something that you would support?
Did you read the cited article? The women ranged up to age 45, and a reduction in abortions was found. I don’t know the numbers, but I’d think there a lot of abortions by older women who know they can’t afford to have another child, or may even be in danger from a pregnancy. There was no point being made about sexual habits, just some solid evidence of the obvious, the rate of abortion is tied to the availability of contraceptives. Also, hang up your phone. You seemed to have been carrying on the same conversation from the 1950s.
Hrrrmpf! These young’uns and their “sex” today! Why in my day only the superior class of people had procreative relationships, and only within the confines of a marriage! What is this world coming to!
The majority Western religion has been condemning premarital sex for about 2,000 years - how has that worked out? You think not talking about sex in schools somehow keeps kids from finding out about it, especially in our culture? That’s ridiculous. We already know teaching abstinence doesn’t work. And thinking that a condom all of a sudden makes girls (or boys) who weren’t interested in sex interested is even more absurd. Guess what? We have a hefty sex drive. The unavailability of condoms for most of history didn’t lead to chastity now, did it?
I’ll take as much or more sex and fewer pregnancies myself. It is much better for society.
I have two daughters, now both in their 20s. No abortions, no pregnancies. How did we do it? By making damn sure they knew about birth control long before it was necessary. (My wife has a masters in reproductive physiology. so she’s the expert.) If every parent did that we wouldn’t need to teach it in the schools, but they don’t.
You neglected giving your kids information in your list - and being realistic. That led to our kids being open with us. It has worked out damn well.
I’d say that anyone who forbids their kids from learning about birth control is a bad parent, just like a parent who wants to pretend crime does not exist and doesn’t teach a kid about being street smart is a bad parent. You don’t have to just hope for the best - you can try to make sure worst case does not happen.
Why is the amount of additional sexual relations a direct result of the reduction in abortions - why cannot you not have both.
This is about responsibility - if people don’t exercise it…what can we expect?
To answer the question, I’d take the million less abortions.
The additional sexual acts results in either :
Pregnancy : Parents will probably raise it (meaning mother’s parents) or goes to adoption.
Sexual disease : Lethal or non lethal, that’s your fault, live with it.
As mentioned above, ideally I’d prefer none of it happened.
But if kids are old enough to have sex then they’re old enough to at least carry some of the burden of their choices - and increasing sexual ‘awareness’ or giving them a free pass ala birth control, is surely not an answer either.
The majority of our modern problems start with a lack of moral retention. We’re so backwards these days on things we are all twisted around.
Our communities need cohesion. If you and I argue all the time over semantics instead of working together to instill a good baseline of morals, then it’s all for naught and while you or I may win the debate, our kids will continuously suffer.
That’s it. It’s because we’re all SINNERS! :rolleyes: