We’re Number One!
By Glinda
The United States has the highest teen birthrate of any developed country.
I’m sorry, but that’s inexcusable.
I’m going to lay a lot of the blame at the feet of the woefully inadequate “abstinence-only” programs that are basically a waste of everyone’s time and money.
Teenagers have sex.
Get used to it.
Give them all the tools they will need, including access to birth control, knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases, and you’ve got a pretty good shot at keeping someone from getting pregnant.
In the article linked to above, a quarter of the teens said that their partner did not want them to use birth control. Say what?
Teach your kids that if their partner doesn’t want them to use birth control, then that partner isn’t worth being with.
Humans are sexual beings. That includes teenagers. That ESPECIALLY includes teenagers. It’s like nobody ever remembers being a teenager.
What is wrong with people, anyway?
January 26th, 2012 at 3:09 am
When I was in my freshman year in an all-girls Catholic school in Manila, we had a very extensive sex education class that, while abstinence was emphasized, did not skimp on information on how our bodies worked, why we felt the way we did, and lessons on a variety of contraceptives (how to use them, how they work), etc., plus how to say no to boy’s arguments when they were insistent on having sex. By the time our batch of 200 graduated, only one girl had gotten pregnant. In contrast, another nearby all-girls Catholic school had no sex-education classes at all, reasoning that all good Catholic girls will wait until their wedding night. By the time they graduated, a least 15 girls I know of had gotten pregnant. I figure that because the nuns who ran our school were missionaries who worked with the poor, they were more aware of the reality on the ground. Now, over 30 years later, the legislature in the Philippines is STILL arguing over making sex education mandatory in public schools. Your country is not alone when it comes to fuddy-duddies who don’t understand human sexuality.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:25 am
What is wrong with people? What is wrong is that right now in the U.S., your decision-makers are puritan, theocratic jerks who hate the idea of a woman being sexual without any repercussions. The thought of birth control just sends them into a rage, because it allows unmarried women to have sex and not face any “consequences” for such an immoral act. How on earth are they going to scare teens away from having sex, if some of those same teens are able to have sex without getting pregnant or catching some awful disease, right?
And I wish I could say that it’s limited to just teens, but it’s not. They’re so screwed up in the head that the idea of sex solely for pleasure and not for procreation, regardless of marital status, makes them angry.
In other words, the inmates have been allowed to run the asylum for WAY too long.