California Prop. 73Follow

Well, you did a good job of obtusely misinterpreting his comment.

"The programs that focus on promoting chastity while neglecting safe sex and contraception leads to more babies."

If, using all contraception-based programs, our teen birth rate is 3%, and we switch to abstinence-based programs and our teen birth rate rises to 5%, that's....

...wait for it...

More babies!


It's a question of relative value. Of course with NO programs whatsoever, our teen birth rate would be higher, let's say 8%. So in that regard, abstinence programs lower the birth rate. But because the programs are mutually exclusive, the abstinence-based ones, in effect, result in a higher teen birth rate.

I know exactly what he was going for. I also know that in the numbers game, it does mean more babies. The point I was making was an attack on the paradigm asssociated with that. Its not the programs or lack there of that cause the babies, its more kids being irresponsible about having sex.

The way the problem was being addressed is backwards.

No girl who is a minor is equipped psychologically or emotionally to make a decision as life altering as one that concerns abortion. To make it law that parents will be informed of medical issues concerning their children is nothing but a good thing.

Totem

Dude.

Which would be great, if those were the correct numbers. You're forgetting that the very fact that we do encourage and teach birth control encourages more teens to have sex in the first place. The fact is that unmarried *births* have increased 10 fold in the last 60 years, and most of those are to teen or "young women" (18-22). We can assume that this statistic represents a dramatic rise in unplanned pregnancies, and can therefore *also* assume this results in a rise in need for abortions as well.


You're argument is like saying that new base jumping equipment results in fewer deaths from falling off bridges and mountains each year. The fact is that while jumping off a bridge or mountain is "safer" with newer equipment, becuase it's seen as safer, more people do it and so the small number of "accidents" despite better equipment results in a higher overall rate.

Same thing here. Because we teach teens to have "safe sex", that iimplies that it's possible to have truely "safe" sex. However, even the best birth control methods are still only around 99% effective. So that means that 1% of the time, a pregnancy will occur despite using them. When you look at 25 million teens, that 1% figure becomes significant. That's a lot of teens each year getting pregnant despite being on the pill and using condoms.

You say that "of course with NO programs whatsoever, our teen birth rate would be higher...", but don't really support that assumption. The fact is that after 60+ years of "sexual revolution", with massive increases in sex education, and massively improved birth control technology, the rates of teen pregnancy has skyrocketed. While obviously there are other issues involved, I would think that the increased reliance on birth control methods as a means to avoid pregnancy rather then the "old way" of just not having sex until you were married certainly has something to do with it.

But maybe that's just too obvious?


Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the sexual revolution. I'm just saying that it's silly to ignore obvious consequences of it, and automatically dismiss alternative approaches. After all, you aren't saying that abstinence wont decrease teen pregnancy, you're saying that abstinence wont prevent teens who are having sex from getting pregnant (duh!). Those aren't quite the same thing...

I have to agree with Neph here. With the acception of the big R word there really is no excuse to have an abortion. I think that if your under 18 it should also be legal. Just to protect those yougner people who did things before they really had the maturity to realize what they did.

I know a few people who just didn't have the maturity to pick their life up untill they were 18 or older, i say 18 because that when yourlegally an adult in the states, anybody under that age should have some protection for this. Hard to put into words... bah.

Anyways, Accept for minors and Rape cases you have to assume that every time you have sex you WILL have a child. Realisticly if you use the pills and condoms you probably wont, but accidents happens. You assumed the risk of having a child when you had sex, even if you used measure to protect against it. If for some reason my SO and i have kids before we plan on it due to pill failure or the misuse, or total lack of a condom, we plan to keep that child anyways, even if we hadn;t "planned" on it. We fuc[i][/i]ked around in bed, we assumed the risk.

I'll buy you a map to the point, if you haven't found it yet.

If the program is the reason why kids are being irresponsible with sex, then yes, the program is the cause of more babies.

Abstinence-only education not only fails to prevent kids from choosing to have sex, but also increases the likelihood that when they do make that choice, they will not be safe about it.

That is because abstinence-only education gives inaccurate and insufficient information on safer sex. The program directors are too busy shaking their fingers chidingly and saying, "don't do that, it's wrong!" and not enough time saying, "these are the risks to you, your future, and your health, and even though we don't believe you should have sex, and that sex before marriage is immoral, here's how to protect yourself if you do have sex, because at the end of the day, only you can make that choice."

No one wants their kids having sex before they're of an age to handle it. No one wants their kids getting pregnant. No one wants their kids getting STDs. But isn't it better to equip these kids with accurate knowledge about how to prevent those things if they DO decide to have sex, then simply dismissing them with a "don't do it"?

So yes, the numbers show that the programs are, in fact, causing more babies. There are plenty of school districts who can show that when factual, safety-emphasizing sex-ed was implemented (in most places in the 70s and 80s) teen pregnancy rates went way down. And those same school districts can show a RISE in teen pregnancy rates since the abstinence-only programs were implemented in place of the factual ones. Those same schools are also showing that, in order not to break their "virginity" contracts they are often compelled to sign at the completion of these programs, they are contracting oral gonorrhea and chlamydia.



Actually, you are quite wrong.

Studies have shown that factual sex ed with an emphasis on sexual health and STD prevention causes many kids to rethink the decision to become sexually active and wait for a later date. The numbers are out there; more kids (not all, but more) make the decision to defer sexual activity when they get the whole truth about sex then when they get either no sex ed or a candy-coated moralistic version thereof.

Addressing the dangers of sex and STDs realistically without moralizing allows the kids to actually THINK about what they are doing. They assume more responsibility for their own choices and own health.



This has everything to do with the loosening of sexual mores and taboos in our culture and the glorification of sex in popular media, and nothing to do with sex ed "encouraging" kids to have sex. STDs and teen pregnancy were epidemic before schools finally implemented sex ed programs--the kids were ALREADY having sex with or without the program. Factual sex ed has NEVER been shown to encourage kids to have sex. All sex ed does is make them think responsibly about it.

My own high school, in the Bible belt of western Michigan. Before sex ed was implemented in the mid-80s (they were a bit late getting on the bandwagon) they had the highest teen pregnancy rates in three counties (about 6 girls in a class of 100). The year after sex ed was implemented, that rate dropped to 1 girl in a class of over 100, and stayed in that area. And many times, the pregnant girls were those whose parent's opted out of allowing their children to take the sex-ed course, whoch was one of the concessions the school had to make in order to be allowed to implement the program to begin with. Guess where the highest pregnancy rate in those three counties was when I graduated? The local catholic high school, which still didn't have a reproductive health program.

That story is repeated over and over again in virtually every town and city and state across the country. Give the kids the facts, and they will make better choices. Moralize to them, and they will blow you off and do what they want to do.

Abstinence ONLY is the problem.

You can't compare the societal position on abstinence in the past to the way abstinence is approached today.

During those years, women weren't abstinent because someone shook his finger at her and TOLD her to be abstinent. They were abstinent because their entire survival hung on being marriagable, and they weren't marriagable unless they were a virgin. They also were not being inundated with cultural images that encouraged and glorified sex.

These days, women's survival doesn't depend on getting married. They can support themselves, their job choices are not limited to dockside ***** or tavern strumpet. And their chances for marriage are not limited by the fact that they are a virgin.

Abstinence-only education doesn't work when you've got a couple voices on one side telling you to be abstinent, and an entire world on the other side glorifying and celebrating sex and sexuality.

Your comparison is very flawed. We need to deal in the now, and give up on this idea that, "well, it USED to work."

You are a funny, funny man.

Guess what? People have always fuc[b][/b]ked outside of wedlock. Single women have always gotten pregnant. Abortions have been performed for hundreds of years. It simply wasn't talked about in polite society and certainly wasn't the subject of popular literature or drama, so people tend to think it was a rare occurrance "back then".

It may not have been as common as it is today, but it's never been a rare occurrance.

So you have people like Neph or Leondol that are saying that abortion shouldnt be necessary except in the case of rape mainly because we have all these wonderful contraceptives. Condoms used along side the pill should make it unnecessary.

However then they support a program that refuses to teach teenagers about condoms or the pill and instead has been shown to further increase ignorance and false information when it comes to sex.

I will state that I am on the fence about the whole "informing a parent", my main disagreement with the legislation is its wording and definition of the fetus (as Yans husband pointed out). I just bring in the whole "Chastity Only" angle to show you the flaw in the whole "abortion shouldnt happen" argument.