My theory has always been that the residual cultural stigma against sex is to some degree deterring young people from obtaining contraceptives. You can imagine the embarrassment a teenage girl must go through when she steeps up to a counter and makes a purchase that screams, “I’m having sex… or at least I want to!”.
So I think the more we normalize sex and contraceptive use, the more likely people are to use it as a result of being made more comfortable in buying it.
As for making birth control free, well people will line up around the block if you’re giving something away for free. It can’t help but increase the level of use even if individuals don’t always cite cost as the prohibitive factor in non-use.
It’s also likely to help reduce the stigma I mentioned in my earlier point.
Not giving people free birth control is not “treating women like dirt”. Just because I support the use of birth control does not make it a governmental obligation.
Education, however, is. It should not be an option for adults to stunt the students’ understanding of reality because of their own hangups.
It is exactly the same attitude that makes these people oppose mortgage regulations because if poor people get snookered into loans they can’t afford it is their own fault, and they deserve to be homeless.
I made no claims that a majority of people do that. But opposing free birth control for the reasons Saraya does are treating women like dirt. People who are opposed for libertarian reasons are just short sighted.
IUDs are awesome for this, and here is why. They are insert and forget, which is exactly the kind of birth control you want for people who might be a tad irresponsible. Condoms which are free are a bit more of a problem. Even if birth control pills are free they need to be taken and renewed. Making IUDs free thus is effective in reducing births because it does not require responsibility. Yes, it would be nice if everyone were responsible, but if they were socialism would work.
So I understand that the results of the study are ideologically unpleasant for you, but they are what they are.
Given the attitudes common to libertarians, I think that generally it’s still about treating women like dirt; the difference is, it’s not about misogyny for many* of the libertarians, it’s about treating everyone like dirt.
*Not that I haven’t noticed a fairly strong misogynistic streak among libertarians
No. No, we must not. What we, as a supposedly benevolent society, must do is protect those children from people who happen to be their parents. Parents’ rights to be assholes does not, should not, must not, trump children’s rights to be healthy and educated.
I know over my many years of girls that came from good parenting who still got pregnant. Human nature as it is, in a moment of passion all talk goes out the window. If birth control is wrong it is worse to have a child that is not wanted, abused or cared for, back in the 40’s and early 50’s there was abortions and women died from back ally abortions. And also strangely back years ago during the Crusades, Inquisition etc. life just didin’t seem so important then…Did it? Plus even now many lives are lost in wars, yet it seems there still are wars over religious beliefs and mostly innocent people are killed. The death penalty is also killing of a born person, but many pro-Lifers ignore that.
There are too many children left to fend for themselves, and in the big cities( like Chicago) many unintended already born children are killed or maimed. The time, money etc. spent worring about what a woman does with her own body, could well be spent mentoring ,supporting, or caring for the children, but I see very few Pro-lifers doing anything for them. Perhaps they should put their money and time where their mouth is? The peole they like to call’ pro abortion’ are in reality pro-the already born!
Are you saying that sending a child to a public school is the government raising them? They teach other subjects other than sex education, which is a good part of Biology.
That is absolutely true. In a moment of passion all talk goes out the window.
It doesn’t however excuse bad actions.
Separate issues and not a case of causality.
Removing children from the equation altogether in attempts to avoid mistreatment by mean spirited people is not a solution, it’s a band-aid and silly logic.
There are already privately funded clinics and churches that do this.
Most adopting parents are pro-life. Many of the churches and clinics are run by pro-life organizations.
In this day and age, yes kids learn more at public school about life than they do about actual subjects. Between overly self righteous teachers, left leaning faculties and lazy parenting, schools become the new parents.
Wrong, biology discusses sexual reproduction. ‘Sex ed’ on the other hand has devolved into sessions about the social side of sex, how it makes people feel and a whole plethora of non biologically related issues. Sexual education as we think of it, is a moral responsibility of parents. And furthermore, no parent should have to ‘opt’ their child out of a class that shouldn’t exist in the first place. It s not the state or government’s moral or economic responsibility, and no school should have ‘sex ed’ classes.
Going back to what was discussed on the last page, we should recap a few things:
A) Abstinence is an act, not an absence of sexual education.
B) No schools should be giving out birth control or condoms regardless of whether they teach sex education.
C) Under no circumstances should contraceptives be given to under aged children. It doesn’t matter if the consent age is sixteen in their state and they are seventeen.
Let’s give a format to each side with some examples and then we’ll pull-up some other controversial subjects to draw parallels.
Person A teaches their children about sex.
Person B teaches their children the same exact things.
Person A goes on to say ‘do not have sex until you are an adult( or in some cases married)’
Person B goes on to say ‘..if you should have sex, here is a contraceptive…’
Person A has educated the child, and then told them their limitations.
Person B has educated the child, then began to compromise with the child.
Person B has admitted defeat to the child and that will NOT go unnoticed. It sets a bad precedent. Parents should not compromise with children over such matters - it’s absolute rule or nothing at all.
Let’s see how this works in similar situations on other subjects.
Firearms and gun control:
Person A teaches their children to respect guns.
Person B also teaches their children the exact same.
Person A goes on to say 'do not use these guns anywhere but a firing range, with a certified gun handler and never take them to school(and any other obvious no-nos you can think of).
Person B goes on to say '…if you happen to have the gun on you, for whatever reason and are in a situation, here is a bullet proof vest, just in case.
Note the ‘if you’ once again, admitting defeat in that you didn’t tell the child NO, rather you compromised with them.
As absurd as the scenario sounds, it’s entirely plausible. If the logic is that preparation is not enough, and prevention must also be in play, then by all means necessary correct? Ideally the child never takes a loaded gun out onto the street. A vest may not entice them to take the gun kids will be kids, they may do that anyways, but it will certainly encourage them to actually use it, by providing a false sense of immunity and physical stature.
Alcohol :
Person A teaches their children about alcohol.
Person B also teaches their children the same things about alcohol.
Person A goes on to say ‘do not drink until you are 21’
Person B goes on to say ‘…if you have to or are going to drink, then do it at the house so we can keep an eye on you..’
Note once again the ‘if you,’ and how it’s presented as almost an inevitable act - that the child will do it - so the compromise is that it should be done in a controlled environment. The parent is faced with a situation regarding control (which is what these are all about). However oddly, the parent has control to begin with, then gives it up by admitting defeat to the child, then attempts to wrestle back some of the control with a face-value compromise.
I would be happy to simply write these methods off as reverse psychology, yet sadly this isn’t what we find really happening.
The parenting prose here is that things are bound to happen, so let’s equip children with all the tools to prevent these things, no matter the cost.
What’s lost between the cracks, is the age old reality that things will still happen no matter what, and life is an amalgamation of choices. You have to let people learn some things on their own and more importantly how to deal with those things after the fact. This is what builds knowledge, experience, wisdom, confidence and etc.
Sadly, people everyday have to learn these attributes the hard way, with irrevocable decisions and life changing results that they highly regret. Yet if no one ever faced these, life would cease to be life.
We all care about our children, and we’d do a lot to protect them. Yet releasing them into the world on a loose-leash covered in candy toffee apple is negligent at best. It sets them up with a false sense of the gravity of situations, the real consequences of their actions and those actions effects on the world around them.
Evidence does not support the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education. It has been found to be ineffective in decreasing HIV risk and does not decrease rates of unplanned pregnancy. Abstinence-only education does not decrease the sexual activity rates of students, when compared to students who undertake comprehensive sexual education classes. Teen pregnancy rates were higher in students who had undertaken abstinence only education, when compared to comprehensive sex education.
Do you support child proofing homes? Because if a kid gets under the sink when told not to, and eats poison, it is a bad action, and you might as well send the kid to the hospital rather than try to stop it. And that is what your sick and immoral position boils down to. Kids make mistakes, that is part of growing up. Kids will make mistakes involving sex, especially considering all of our sex drives. Making sure they have access to contraceptives will protect them, just like locking cabinets.
The drinking age in Europe is pretty much 18, 16 for beer and wine in Germany. It was 18 in New York when I was growing up. In most of these countries (except England) it is legal to serve alcohol to minors in your home. There is nothing absolutely moral about the drinking age being 21 instead of 18. I happen to think that teaching kids responsible drinking before 21 makes a lot of sense.
You should start dealing with reality. Yes it would be nice if parents taught kids about sex. Many don’t. Why should kids be kept from learning the facts. It would be nice if all kids were abstinent until 18 or 21 or whatever. They will not be. It is stupid to punish them for having one or our most basic human drives. If puberty began at 18 you might have a point. It doesn’t.
Mind if I go back to the 1900’s? The morals were supposed to be good then, better than now. There was premarital sex,people were forced to marry, it meant many children were treated as a burden, a mistake. and yes, there were abortions. Even in the time of Jesus there was abortions, there have been found bones etc. of babies etc. by what were houses of ill repute. Then of course there was the chasity belts, in Spain, woman had to have an escort if on a date to prevent sex before marriage. Even thinking of sex was a sin in some churches. It was believed that if one was kept ignorant of sex it wouldn’t have happened. Even in the 50’s Girls went to another state, had a child,and either it was aborted, adopted by the parents and raised as a sister to the girl, or adopted out to another family. Just as people still kill others even though there is a law agaist it. That doesn’t stop killings. Girls who are taught to use birth control as a deterant to pregnancy are more likely to be more responsible, and there is no reason why the State should decide when a married couple should have a child or how many, but should be taught the proper way to not conceive in the first place ,if they don’t want a child at that time.Just saying don’t have sex when a person is in the middle of passion doesn’t work, human nature isn’t that way. Perhaps it may work if the 2 people involved have a low sex drive but it is not the norm!