Oliver Willis at 3:30:

"As Dave demonstrated, through statistics and not "feelings", the rate of teen pregnancy has decreased."

Oliver Willis at 10:59:

"…yelling at kids "don’t do it!" and doing nothing else is leading to more unwanted pregnancies, not less."

So which is it? Do we have a decreasing rate of teen pregnancy, or one that is increasing? This is pretty sloppy stuff, Oliver.

Look: Teen pregnancy problem. I happen to believe Dave’s "stats" are b.s., but even if teen pregnancy is declining, look at what it coincides with: A revolutionary dismantling of the Great Society welfare system, and the resulting growth of the black middle class, which btw is the fastest-growing middle class in America. There’s no denying that when there are no incentives not to have children out of wedlock – when there aren’t a many government safety nets in place -  teen pregnanices go up. When people have to take responsibility for themselves, they go down. You can see it on the macro scale, and you can see it on the micro scale too: Watch what happens when you stop cleaning a kid’s room for him. After a few days, things start getting neater because the kids realizes that it’s better to be neat than messy, and that no one is going to make things neat except himself.

"How? With a magic wand? You can say that’s the world you want until you’re blue in the face, it won’t happen. I’m discussing the world we live in and what we do to solve the problem. If every country had infinite food we’d have no hunger, but that’s not reality."

I’m discussing the world we live in too, Oliver. I’m saying that for hundreds of years, when individuals had to take responsibility for their actions, and families and churches were the primary enforcers of what was and was not socially acceptable, we had a country in which teen pregnancy was nowhere near the problem that it has become since the 1960′s, when liberal social engineering attempts were loosed on the land. I am saying that your claims we can’t return to that state are ridiculous, and are based on extremely pessimistic and prejudicial assumptions about entire classes of people.

The difference between what I am advocating and what you are advocating is that we’ve tried my solution, we’ve seen that it works, and I believe we should go back to it. We’ve tried your solution, we’ve seen what a disaster it is, yet you want to keep on doing it.

"Dispense with all your straw man talk of what the mythical "American liberal" wants and discuss what can be done – now."

That’s not what a straw man is. If anything, it’s a Fallacy of Composition, but when one person’s views (Oliver’s) can be accurately extrapolated onto an entire class of people (liberals), then it’s not a fallacy, it’s a statement of fact. Anyway, please get your fallacies straight before accusing me of committing them.

Besides, I am discussing what can be done now:

- Stop teaching sex eucation in public schools. Or, barring that, teach only abstinence. Teaching that sex is perhaps appropriate for 8th graders, assuming that kids are going to stoop to their basest desires all the time every time, and passing out free condoms to enforce those low expectations, which get you exactly what we have: Children getting pregnant and ruining their lives.

- Implement punitive measures for those who fail. If you get pregnant, there will be no free ride. The state will not support you. Watch what happens when mothers start telling their daughters the wrath they’ll have to endure if they come home pregnant. Things will get better, fast.

- Stop assuming that parents can’t do the job. Again, low expectations will yield low results. You talk as though the parents most at risk of having their children get pregnant are incapable of intellectualizing the ramifications. They are not, and to keep insisting that they are, and that the government must intervene and dictate how they handle things in the privacy of their own homes, when a parent talks to a child, is simply ridiculous.

Now: Here’s a fallacy. It’s called a "false dilemma," and it happens when one sets up only X number of undesirable choices, when in fact there are more than X number of choices available:

"We have 2 choices.  We can just let them be, let them go into the world with no clue, or we can have the big bad government provide some aid. That’s the 2 choices. Pick one."

Absoutely, indisputably false. We have two choices, and they are:

1. Have no government sex education, no free condoms, and no legal abortion. The result, as we saw over 300+ years of American history: No teen pregnancy crisis.

2. Have government sex education, free condoms, and legal abortion. The result, as we’ve seen over the last 40 years: A national teen pregnancy crisis, with grave iplications for future generations.

Myself, I’ll choose door 1. This notion of yours, that our choices are either chaos and bedlam on our own, or order and happiness with government assistance, is flat-out false. Take a deep breath and look around: Married couples of a men and a women have been raising good kids who avoid the trap of teen pregnancy for centuries. The only time the teen pregnancy problem has risen to the level of national crisis is when the government has tried to do what parents should be doing. Sure, some lousy parents will always screw it up for some kids, but the government has shown that the best it can do is to screw it up for tons more kids.

"The left advocates having government funded sex ed, parental planning, etc. The right advocates wishing it was 1950-something."

No, Oliver, the left advocates that the government say, "Hey, sex is no big deal. We realize you want to do it, and we know there’s nothing we can do to keep you from doing it, so here’s some free condoms. And if you get pregnant anyway, come to the free clinic in confidence and get your abortion." Then, they’re shocked that we have a teen pregnancy crisis.

The right says, "Stop telling young people it’s OK to have sex before marriage. Stop enabling them with free condoms and free abortions. Stop giving young women incentives to get pregnant. Stop subsidizing their housing, stop increasing the amount of their welfare checks. LET. FAMILIES. DEAL. WITH. IT. As with all social issues, if government is your answer, Willis, then you’re asking the wrong question.

Oliver,

First of all, no one here, certainly not me, ever claimed that we should return to a world in which we "made women wear scarlet letters for being unwed mothers," or that "things were just hunky-dory in the 40s and 50s."

What we are claiming is that we should return to a world where people are held responsible for their actions; where there are intact families to both explain those responsibilties to young people and stress the importance of doing so, and provide positive reinforcement and negative punishment in response.

You say, "It’s not very healthy for a kid to be stuck in an abusive relationship, or in a household where the parents don’t love or like each other, simply so they can say that they aren’t unwed mothers."

This is certainly true in some cases, but it may not be true in others. To use this as a case for abortion reaches into the ridiculous; there are degrees of unpleasantness some of which may be perfectly acceptable if the eventual outcome is deliverance from, or reparation of, the situation. Again, you’ve decided that an entire class of people is unable to change its circumstances on its own, and that the only answer is for the state (under the direction, presumably, of liberals such as yourself) to try its hand at social engineering by way of public school sex education and free condom handouts. in case no one has pointed it out yet, this is another example of the soft bigotry of low expactations. Again, look at the difference between then and now: Now, people in that class can count on government assistance for their out-of-wedlock children; they can count on free condoms and easy abortions; they can, perhaps most important, count on a class of educated liberals to pat them on the head and say, "There there… it’s not your fault… it’s society/the establishment/whitey/______."

But back then, those same people knew that if you had a baby out of wedlock, Mama and Daddy were going to be unhappy, because that meant another mouth to feed, another kid to clothe, another set of doctor bills to pay, etc. Of course, back then there was a Mama and a Daddy. Notice a pattern developing here?

At any rate, using some hypothetical unhappy home situation as a reason to keep abortion legal is just preposterous. It’s like telling someone with appendicitis, "We’re gonna have to euthanize you, because the operation carries some risk, and that’s unacceptable. You’re better off dead."

You then say, "Yes, in an ideal world every child has two parents who love each other and their kid – we do not live in that world and must address reality, not fantasy."

Listen to what you’re advocating, Oliver: You’re saying that because some adult parents have failed to educate their children on responsible expression of their sexuality, the complex task of doing so should be done by the government, which is notoriously inept at almost everything, in the setting of a school, which happens to be one of the most spectacular examples of government’s failure.

Or… and this is even more horrifying – that the task should be left up to the children themselves. Sort of like saying, "Well, serial murderers and rapists, because the prison system has done a poor job of rehabilitating you, we’re going to let you go free."

No, it’s not reality that every kid has two loving parents, but saying that because that’s the case, we need more of the same failed plan that spawned this crisis in the first is… how do I descrieb it… insane.

Here’s the reality, Oliver: American liberals have convinced themselves – in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary over the last 4 decades – that the government is not only an appropriate teacher of sex education, but a competent one as well. Neither could be further from the truth. It is plain as the sun in the sky that the liberal plan of stripping away all stigma attached to having babies out of wedlock; of devaluing marriage to the point of irrelevance; and of passively encouraging teenage sex through free condom handouts, has been an abject failure. Why in heaven’s name, if you’re genuinely interested in fewer abortions, would you advocate doing more of the same exact thing that’s failed us for four decades?

Thanks for the response, Chief. I am not interested in lefty or conservative partisan points. My question is this happen and if it did then the facts. From what I read some stuff happened, but I think many stories turned into urban myths. I certainly think this guy is lying.

http://www.mountainx.com/news/2003/0319troops.php

 

Oliver,

Not to quibble, but accusing your opponents of ignoring "the fact" of  orphanages and cemetaries "filled with abused children" is a bit more than your usual strident verbiage, and in most peoples’ minds amounts to a pretty vehement suggestion.

I am also more than a little intrigued by your suggestions as to how we ought to deal with the question of sex education and children’s natural curiosity about sex.  May I assume that your thoughts on these matters are based on certain favored academic points of view, rather than the more reality based, personal experience of raising kids?  It does make a difference.

To sugggest that "society is better off when kids have some sort of knowledge" is true enough, but it does not follow that such concerns for "society" justify undermining the authority of the child’s parents.  It doesn’t take a village, Oliver.  It takes a concerned parent or parents, who are willing to discipline the child when he/she is wrong, defend and laud the child when he/she is right, and above all willing to teach that child the difference between the two.

<i>we’ve got an epidemic of underage sex and underage pregnancy which leads to more abortions</i>

Yes, and we didn’t have this epidemic when sex education was left exclusively to parents. Neither did we have hordes of unmarried mothers. When these matters were dealt with primarily by parents, families, and peers, there was a clear understanding: Being an unwed mother is an undesirable thing; giving birth to a bastard child is an undesirable thing; your parents having to support you and your child is an undesirable thing. The point was driven home in many, many ways, and in settings that have meaning to young people: The family dinner table, where morality was taught; around the kitchen table, where bills were paid. Now, you’d have us do these things in the same setting that we learn about conjugation and quadratic equations.

The main thing that’s changed between then and now is that groups like Planned Parenthood, and people like you, are preaching that sex outside of marriage is no big deal; that sex at increasingly young ages is no big deal; that if you’re "going to have sex anyway" (a faulty assumption, btw), then here – use a free condom; and that if you don’t use that condom, well, no big deal, you can get a Free Abortion! And  you don’t even have to tell your parents!

At the same time, liberals have preached that marriage is an institution of no value that should be opened up to homosexuals, and while we’re at it, to polyamorous relationships as well. So you’re trying to do away with what is by far the single most effective preventative against unmarried mothers and teenagers having unprotected sex: A two-parent, married household.

Instead of placing all the blame on parents, trying to remove all the responsibility from them, and giving it to the state, you need to be asking yourself: "What can we do to HELP parents meet their responsibility?" The solution, in other words, is not "let the government do it," but "help parents do it better."

There’s a surprise waiting for you, though. If you actually did that, what you’d find is that when you went to "parents" - meaning "a mother and a father," what you’d find is that the job is being done pretty well. When you found the problem cases, you’d find that the vast majority of them don’t involve "parentS" at all – they involve a parenT – and the reason they involve a parenT is because they have bought into the aforementioned lies that liberals have been peddling for the last forty years.

Are you seriously saying teenagers have no interest in sex until their gym teacher starts talking about the reproductive organs and then they get all hot and bothered? Are you FOR REAL? Have you ever actually been a teenager? Your analogy about loaded guns is right, but the abstinence only people seem to think the only thing to tell someone with a loaded gun is "Don’t shoot. I won’t tell you why or other things you could do to make shooting the gun less deadly, but even though it would feel great to shoot the gun… don’t."

If the kid, like most human beings, has hormones – he’s already got a loaded gun. That’s basic biology. 

Weird that those services don’t get more attention.

About as weird as why Peter Singer’s choice of Pepsi over Coke doesn’t get more attention in the media.

Joe would you like us to count the actual used condoms and birth control pills.

Cheif…Not only Hollywood! The News blasted it everyday during the Clinton administration. My daughter was 8 years old and asked me what oral sex was. During and after the Clinton Administration oral STD’S amoung elementary school age children were an epidemic… Perhaps??? It is a coincident that this happened??? I doubt it.

In IdealWorld, we wouldn’t need sex ed in school. Parents would do the job. But they aren’t, and we’ve got an epidemic of underage sex and underage pregnancy which leads to more abortions – supposedly what you guys want to stop. At some point along the lines, kids have to learn about sex and need to be given the tools to stop the plague of underage sex and pregnancy and abortion. It’s simply a matter of public health that this stuff needs to be taught to kids. What I find interesting is that it seems people with no hands-on experience with public school based sex ed feel fit to opine on it. Do you think there’s an epidemic of kids being forced to do sex ed without parental consent? Because it isn’t true. You get a permission slip, that must be signed by a parent, in order to be part of a public school sex ed program. Practically every time upset parents run to the media to complain about a sex ed program, it turns out that they signed the permission slip for their kid to be in the class in the first place.

Again, ideally parents are doing the teaching, but the data says they aren’t. So out of concern for our national well-being, schools have to do the job or we as a society end up paying more money into the social safety net for a generation of kids that have had no sexual education. 

Also, Oliver, you’re making up the part about back-alley abortions and cemeteries full of dead abused children. If you have any data to support it, we’d love to hear it, but absent that, you’re just making up a dark, scary past that is, well… mythical.

Doc…Amen! That brings us back to teaching our kids to be responsible. Teaching them they are entitled to share in the consequences of their actions!…

Docdave,

I agree there’s a lot of dancing around the issue, but I’d go one further and say that the issue, as Rob notes, is about killing unborn babies.

The line of reasoning (such as it is) that Oliver and the rest of the far left want to take is: We don’t want abortions either, but people are going to have sex at young ages, and women are going to have sex with men that aren’t going to marry them, and we’re going to have all these unwanted kids, and they’re just going to be abused and end up dead in cemeteries, or the mothers are going to have to resort to back-alley abortions, so we may as well make abortion legal, easy, and preferably free.

Well, it’s a string of falsehoods. There is actually a growing tendency of young teenagers to remain abstinent, which, while granted not sweeping the country like wildfire, is nonetheless happening, and is an indication that teaching abstinence, at least for some kids in some places, seems to be working.

It is not a given that women are going to have children out of wedlock and there’s nothing we can do about it. For 300 years, almost all women in America managed to avoid this predicament. It is only since the 60′s that things began going to hell in a handbasket. To say that women were never able to avoid having children out of wedlock is simply not true; to say that they are uncapable of turning things around is to sell them quite short, which is ironic coming from a wing of the political spectrum that continually trumpets women’s equality.

Neither is it true that children are unwanted. As a previous poster points out, adoption agencies have a huge surplus of parents wanting to adopt, and a huge deficit of children. So the notion that there are hordes of unwanted hcildren in America is just plain false.

No, the real question is why the left seems hell-bent on making aborting a baby no more immoral than having a tumor removed. Because no matter which faulty premise they begin with – "back alley abortions," cemeteries full of unwanted children, whatever – it all comes down to this: Killing an unborn child is OK.

I believe abstinence is one of the choices I stated. Sorry, women cannot get pregnant alone so men bear responsibility too – particularly if the forced-pregnancy people insist that every woman have a child, danger to her life or not. Women wouldn’t have to worry about having unwanted children if men weren’t just as involved and responsible.  I find it horribly sexist to say that the process that creates life is only a woman’s responsibility along with adequate protection.

One thing that really cracks me up is that the only men who have flipped totally out like psychos when I chose my option for friendship only and abstinence have been so-called devout Christians and pro-lifers …  Nutjobs, every last one of them. I don’t think  pro-life men have a care in the world about unborn children. I think they have a deep seated hate of women and the desire to punish them for daring to reject their seed.

Anyhow.  I’ve said all I am going to say. Everyone should trust their heart, their soul and their true intention when developing these views and making these decisions. People should have the ability to choose their own fate and face their own maker. 

 

Doc,… never knew Planned Parenthood offered those services. I am glad to hear it! I’m not sure who said it but I think it was my Mom? "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"… Great advice!

It is not a given that women are going to have children out of wedlock and there’s nothing we can do about it. For 300 years, almost all women in America managed to avoid this predicament.

I like the Bible’s solution to this problem – if you rape someone, you’re obliged to marry them. Ergo – no children born out of wedlock.

The anti-war pukes never give up.  Now they are trying to rewrite history.  After all, they tried to sell John Kerry as a hero.  They will stoop to anything to advance their leftist agenda.

your suggestion that the way to prevent possible child abuse in the future is by aborting babies/fetuses in the present is still horrific

Possibly, if I had made such a suggestion. But I didn’t. I want to give kids the tools they need to prevent pregnancies, abortions, child abuse, etc. And robert108 your nonsense about sex education indoctrinating kids into having sex is just not supported by the facts, and neither is the ludricous assertion that it makes them more open to be abused sexually. No matter what you want, children are going to eventually be aware of sex – the best strategy is to have them fully prepared to make the right choices. Yes, ideally the best teacher of this information is the parents, but sadly that isn’t the reality – the choice nowadays boils down to – learning it in school or not learning it at all. Its clear society is better off when the kids have some sort of knowledge. 

All– I am back at home, have published my latest on The Truth and have reviewed this thread.  I saw a comment directed at me that I will respond to so that my name will not be besmerched, nor my integrity questioned:  It went something like, ~ when asked by students about X, I told them to go down the block… ~  A person who I will not reply to directly and apparently does not know how to engage in questioning, but instead makes false assertions instead.  I had students like him.  They really didn’t want to learn anything and were there just to disrupt the classroom and prevent others from learning.  I will let this group draw its own conclusions When any student asked any pertinent question, I always replied honestly, and with correct and appropriate information.  We used many resources.  We had fun and learned a lot.  There were criminals in the class, there were some drug dealers, there were some prostitutes there also.  Most students were there to learn, and did.  We did not dispense condoms in Middle School in the classroom.  For these products, I suggested a visit to the local health department, a state tax supported institution.  On only one occasion in my 28 years of teaching did this question come up about where to get condoms.  Students are not stupid.  Even the girl in question already knew the answer to her question.  She just wanted to get a laugh and get out of school, and did, after first processing through the school nurse.  When she returned later in the day, she blew up the condoms and threw them under some student’s desks.  This about one to two week chapter of the 12 chapter Health Education course was appropriate, and we explored Eric Erickson, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Koheberg for guidance in growth and development.  I also showed pictures of fetuses, embryos during the gestation period so they could see the development of the human being.  There was no doubt how "babies were created" after that chapter. I challenged a friend of mine to substitute in school for just one day when he commented on how easy it must be.  I offered him $100 cash plus whatever he would be paid by the district.  He never took me up on the challenge.  That was ten years ago.  Now his is trying to get others to sub and he get the credit.  He is a phoney.  There are many like him.  I hope I have done a small part in exposing similar people and will continue to tell The Truth.   

MI: I love real debate.  I rarely if ever get it from you.  Instead, you resort to personal attack and name-calling, like in your last post.  It generally signals a lack of facts and ability to think coherently and logically.

As I remember, the Earth is Mostly Harmless, like those of us who live here.  Where are you from? 

Oliver: By your logic, then, teen pregnancy is now the fault of the sex ed system, since it has replaced the vastly inferior parental system.  Whomever educates the child is responsible for what arises as the result of that education.  You keep harping that Christian America is so imperfect;  Is socialist govt America any better?  You repeat the leftie mantra that individuals are the govt, but you conveniently leave out the existence of the highly agendized political class that actually runs the govt.  Sure, we get to vote every now and then, but the govt is mostly run by unelected bureaucrats and judges, who are only accountable to the public very indirectly, and are insulated from the consequences of their actions through legislation and unions.  They confiscate our money, line their pockets at our expense, educate our children, and then tell us that it’s our fault that Johnny can’t read and Susie is pregnant.  If your system is so great, why hasn’t teen pregnancy vanished altogether, or at least become substantially reduced?  Give me the stats on how well sex ed in school has improved that situation, then justify the cost, both in dollars and cents and in the loss of power of parents over their children.  Tell me how much more perfect the world has become since you socialists have successfully taken over from imperfect Christianity.  While you are at it, please explain how ordinary people, upon being elected and selected to become part of govt, suddenly become so wise and all-knowing that they are more qualified to run my life, educate my children, and spend my money than I am.

Qusan: The number of abortions would be low if people who didn’t want to have children abstained from vaginal intercourse.  That is called responsibility, no "pro-choice".  Since no method of birth control is 100% reliable, using birth control methods isn’t so responsible.  It is more responsible than not using it at all and having vaginal intercourse, but it is still irresponsible.  No amount of fancy languaging changes that fact.  Since few pregnancies are a result of forced sex, the responsibility is shared between the mother and father.  In fact, since sex without the woman’s permission is illegal, it could be said that all pregnancies are the responsibility of the woman.  That is not subjugation in any way, it is asking women to be responsible.  So much for your "Taliban" reference.

Joe:  Because we tell them they are not responsible for their behavior, and they can just kill it. Abstinence works every time it is tried.  It requires responsibility for your own behavior.  It is easier to give them the easy way out than to require them to be responsible for the consequences of their own behavior.

Oliver: Sex education in schools is the sexual equivalent of giving a kid a loaded gun.  Sooner or later, someone is going to get hurt, maybe killed.  Giving the kid a gun and then telling him or her not to use it isn’t as effective as not giving them the gun in the first place.

docdave writes: 

Back when I was a kid in the 40s, if a man impregnanted a woman, he was obligated to marry her.  We called that shotgun weddings and understanding the controversy around forcing the union, it worked to some degree as a deterent to the males to avoid unprotected pre-marital sex which I believe is mssing today.

http://www.delmar.edu/socsci/rlong/data/TeenPregnancy-Nativity/NationalTrend.htm

Notice something? The decade that saw the higest rates of teen pregnancy was the 1950s; that rate has been dropping steadily every year for the past 40 years.

There is no controversy, there is no epidemic. But, if it helps those "Family" groups raise more money…

Lyndon Johnson was an advocate of free love?

Wow, to think that we doubted your wisdom Greg… 

Dave: As usual, you lie.  I said that the rate of teen pregnancy is decreasing slightly, but the number of pregnant teens is still larger. Smaller rate of a larger number=an increased number, unless the rate is  plummeting, which it isn’t.  Even so, what is an acceptable number of pregnant teens to  you?  I’m curious. What evidence do you have that early sex ed in our public schools has benefited society at all?  There is more than teen pregnancy involved.  We have more child abuse and more child sex abuse.  Is that OK with you?

S: Dunno. I do know that he was an advocate of escalating the War in Vietnam.

Multiple typos above:

"…will be taken care of BY family, friends, and churches…"

"…return to a PARADIGM…"

…and likely several more.

Oliver: Nice dialectical materialism!  "There are only two choices…"  Your agendized description of the "two sides" is not accurate.  The lefties want the state to assume the role of parent through the public schools, and to instruct impressionable young people from a central agency in DC.  The conservatives want the state to stay the hell out of their childrens’ sex lives and teach them reading, writing and arithmetic, like it is supposed to.

There are many reasons for an abortion and nobody is pulling live, viable human beings out of bodies and killing them with a brick.  Heck, I see why so many people keep getting knocked up for no good reason! They are stupid if they don’t have basic biological concepts down.

Even the Catholic church has vacillated over the issue of abortion over the years. Everyone has theirr own ideas about when life starts.  People’s religious views on when life begins have no place in the legal system.

If you believe that every egg a woman drops during ovulation should be fertilized, get off line and take care of business with your wife (if there is one out there daft enough to put up with you).  If you think that no sperm should be wasted, make SURE you stay off those "other sites" and that one of your arms isn’t bigger than the other. If you think that women are nothing more than breeding machines, go to Afghanistan and knock yourself out!  No, a zygotes and non viable fetuses are not human beings. If they were, women would never miscarry (many times without even knowing it).

AND, pro-choice means the ability to choose. To choose contraception and partners (because reading some of the posts on this board, a lot of women made some really bad choices regarding who they chose to breed with). 

Dave: You are right, in a narrow sense.  The act of putting on a condom, or inserting a diaphragm, or taking a birth control pill regularly, is an act of individual responsibility.  If the condom was paid for by someone else through taxes, or if the individual performing the act was brainwashed in school by an agendized govt educational system that this act would give him or her full protection from the consequences of having sex with someone not intended to be the mother or father of his or her child, then it wasn’t so independent.  It would then be the expression of dependence on the big govt lefties, which makes my point.  Thank you for pointing that out.

"i dont think (PRO-LIFE) men have care in the world about unborn children"

 

Actually the unborn child has NOTHING to do with it. Anyone with a fifth grade education can see what the real deal is when it comes to abortion. It is all about PRIVACY and unfortunately the MORAL,RIGHTEOUS,"CHRISTIAN" right lunatic fringe side of our political fence has no clue what that is.

So in other words, you would rather indulge in some mythical version of the past, ignoring the fact that in order to deal with the societal shame of unwed pregnancies women died during back alley abortions or filled orphanages and cemeteries with abused children. I’m not in favor of sex outside of marriage or underage sex, but unlike the right I know that we cannot pretend these things out of existence and we need to do concrete things to stop them rather than holding out hope for the re-animation of June Cleaver (who was a fictional character).

Quasan…"eliminate fertilized eggs" ? Yeah riiiiiight! Try using the pill or something else besides abortion for your little oops! Pathetic,careless, self centered and irresponsible without a conscience? What a wonderful person you must be and how nice to go through life like that!…Someone needs to hand you a shovel.

Sure, abstinence works. But teaching kids abstinence only is a fools game that wouldn’t make any sense in the Victorian era, let alone modern day America. This sure doesn’t look like Planned Parenthood is against abstinence. And you don’t need a study to tell you the common sense that a woman using a condom is less likely to get pregnant.

A bit of data on abstinence pledges (although related to STDs, the implications for teen pregnancy are obvious): 

After the promise: the STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges

 

 

Hannah Brückner, Ph.D., and Peter Bearman, Ph.D.

 

Abstract

 

 

Purpose: To examine the effectiveness of virginity pledges in reducing STD infection rates among young adults (ages 18–24).

 

Methods: Data are drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative study of students enrolled in grades 7–12 in 1995. During a follow-up survey in 2001–2002, respondents provided urine samples, which were tested for Human Papilloma Virus, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Trichomoniasis. We report descriptive results for the relationship of pledge status and sexually transmitted disease (STD) rates as well as health behaviors commonly associated with STD infection.

 

Results: Pledgers are consistently less likely to be exposed to risk factors across a wide range of indicators, but their STD infection rate does not differ from nonpledgers. Possible explanations are that pledgers are less likely than others to use condoms at sexual debut and to be tested and diagnosed with STDs.

 

Conclusions: Adopting virginity pledges as intervention may not be the optimal approach to preventing STD

 

 

or if the individual performing the act was brainwashed in school by an agendized govt educational system that this act would give him or her full protection from the consequences of having sex with someone not intended to be the mother or father of his or her child, then it wasn’t so independent. 

No sex ed class I ever had said that.

The "problem" with abstinence is not in the theory, but in the practice, yet you all say that teaching abstinence is wrong. 

I don’t think anyone said that. What they said was that abstinence-only education is not as effective as programs that teach both abstinence and safe sexual practices.

The only thing I can throw into this conversation is anecdotal evidence. I was in high school not too long ago, probably more recently than just about everyone on this thread (with the exception of maybe Dave who’s probably the same age). My parents are Christian (liberal Christians) and taught me only abstinence. Despite their teachings, I still went right along and had sex at 15, not because I had sex ed but because I was a horny 15 year old. But I’m really glad that I was educated in safe sexual practices, because it allowed me to take a more responsible approach (not as responsible as abstinence, but better than no safegaurds).

My point is, abstinence-only education will only work on a small number of students. Why? Because teenagers at that age are physiologically meant to be interested in sex. They’re at an age, where for most of human existence, they were supposed to be having sex. The problem is, unlike for most of human existence, they’re not getting married at these ages. The human body has not yet evolved to fit in with our rapidly changing society.

bF: Could you possibly squeeze in a few more leftie talking points in your next post?  Maybe a few more personal attacks instead of facts?  What do you know about the defecit?  Do you know what it is?  Just asking.

Qusan said, Let me get this straight. Southern, right-wing Christian pro-life whites are against Planned Parenthood because it may have originally sought to control the number of children that black people had? Riiiiiiight.

Why did you say this?

Heck, I see why so many people keep getting knocked up for no good reason! They are stupid if they don’t have basic biological concepts down.

Why do you assume people are dumb? I notice that your main arguments fall apart when one takes away this assumption. Oliver’s argument falls apart without this assumption as well. Assuming that if a kid gets herself pregnant, it has to be because she is ignorant to the consequences of sex. I just want to know why this assumption is so prevalent and what you think happens to your argument if you remove it.

If you believe that every egg a woman drops during ovulation should be fertilized, get off line and take care of business with your wife (if there is one out there daft enough to put up with you). If you think that no sperm should be wasted, make SURE you stay off those "other sites" and that one of your arms isn’t bigger than the other. If you think that women are nothing more than breeding machines, go to Afghanistan and knock yourself out!

Who would believe this? Can you argument survive without this kind of straw man?

To choose contraception and partners (because reading some of the posts on this board, a lot of women made some really bad choices regarding who they chose to breed with).

Why do you insult those who believe that abortion is wrong?

One thing that really cracks me up is that the only men who have flipped totally out like psychos when I chose my option for friendship only and abstinence have been so-called devout Christians and pro-lifers … Nutjobs, every last one of them. I don’t think pro-life men have a care in the world about unborn children. I think they have a deep seated hate of women and the desire to punish them for daring to reject their seed.

Perhaps this is more of a statement about you and the men you chose to spend your time around.

bill FALAFEL o’reilly tries and falls flat.

I am not advocating an all or nothing at all approach to the problem of teen pregnancy.

Alright, I thought you were, but it must have been my mistake.

The message "Don’t do it, but if you do, use this." Comes across as  "this will protect you from all consequences." or even "it’s OK to do it if you do this first."

I can see where you’re comming from, however I don’t really think that’s the way it is. Sex ed classes teach all aspects, but stress abstinence the most. Heck, they even show us all the pictures of what STDs do in order to keep us from having sex. Many commentors act as if kids are being lied to by their teachers, but speaking from my own personal experience, this is not the case. There is probably never going to be an agreement on how best to educate children so I’m open to all suggestions.

That is what The Pill did, if you ask me.

Andrew:  I am not advocating an all or nothing at all approach to the problem of teen pregnancy.  In the early years, if the school has to be involved in sex ed, I think abstinence should be the only theme.  Later, after the inevitable hormonal surge has manifested itself, prevention needs to be included in the mix.  I believe abstinence to be the only effective solution, we don’t seem to have the resolve as a society to be firm on the matter.  Whenever adults come across as squishy, teens ignore them, as they should. The message "Don’t do it, but if you do, use this." Comes across as  "this will protect you from all consequences." or even "it’s OK to do it if you do this first."

I’d like to say that sex ed is not all about just having sex. It’s about properly maintaining your body and knowing how it works. Back when I first had sex ed, I already had an idea of what was what, but it was still nice to know if I was normal or not. I’m glad that I could be told that talking to my mother was a good thing, otherwise I would be having health issues today. By the way, my sex ed took place in a private elementary school and did not involve anything but discussion of the sexual organs and their functions. I would be for knowing the purpose of your body parts prior to puberty just so you can be prepared for the changes that are about to happen.

 Planned parenthood also gives out birth control pills. I do not recieve these from the government, but instead, I get them from my own personal gynecologist and NOT specifically for sex. Anyone who wants to ban birth control pills needs to think about the health benefits of them (less cramps, normality, not being anemic…). I promised myself I would save it for marriage, but did it work? No. I’ve found a lot of people like me who have been raped and either keep having sex, or stop having sex because of what happened. I don’t think the woman should be held 100% responsible. It takes a man’s seed also.

Abstinence only programs will not prevent rapists. My rapist’s dad was very uninvolved in his life, despite being a nice man and seeming to care.

 Oh and when Clinton came on with the sex scandal, I did not know what it meant, but I sure made fun of him!!

I think it would be beneficial if children could feel comfortable talking to their parents about sex.

My mother learned sex ed in a public high school, and the one thing she remembers is the slide show of all the diseases you can get from sex. That is a VERY good way to deter young people from "doing it".

It’s all about the approach.

My public sex ed program told us that any type of sexual activity should be saved until later, marriage preferred, because that it where it is best and appropriate. They did not hand out condoms or show pictures of condoms. 

So if we have more unmarried mothers, we get less divorces, right? Just curious…

As a raped person, I feel that these discussions of not having sex before marriage are very disparaging. They leave me incredibly offended, as if I have damaged goods. I am not considered to be a morally "loose" person. My dad told me that if anyone ever wanted to have sex with me, kick ‘em in the balls. I told that boy that if he was not going to call the emergency room, I WAS. And that was that.

I dealt with the fact that I did not have the $10,000 mom wanted from me to cover my life-saving operation. I dealt with the fact that everyone blamed me because I wouldn’t tell them. I dealt with the fact that I had to have various counsellors and dr’s checkups to go to. I dealt with it all, and all my "boyfriend" complained about was having a headache, like it was more important than me. I dealt with the fact that all my doctors were telling me to charge him but I just didn’t have the strength to do it. I was the one who had antidepressants, and was diagnosed with PTSD. I was the one who ended up waiting 2 years before finding out I could ever have a child again. I was the one who got harrassing phone calls when I tried to leave. I was the one who got told she would get shot if he ever saw her again.

And I am responsible. 

 Marriage is sacred to me in the way that I know I can trust my partner. I know that my partner is my best friend and he will stick with me regardless if the sex is good or bad. Yes, sex is a part of marriage, but if it were the only part in marriage that had importance, then we would all be running around like we are getting divorced all the time.

Marriage is knowing that he loves you for everything you are, regardless of what people say. Marriage is sticking to that person like no other person has before.

 As far as I’m concerned, a single parent can be a good or a bad thing. -For example, my mother is a widow. Would you like to tell her that her child has no chance because of that?
-The father could be abusive, and the mother could turn out to be the more responsible party.

We’ve already implied that single parents can be irresponsible, so I do not feel a need to go over that again. 

I can’t discuss sex with my mother. That is the problem with society today- that we cannot discuss. I had a life threatening condition and I was too embarrassed to tell mom. Because it was coming from "that place". This is the attitude that society reflects. Just as it is embarrassing for someone to buy a condom. Or for me to go to the store once a month. (Is that same checkout guy going to notice what I’m buying and when?)

 Sorry I’m jumping around- just writing this as I’m reading.

I have to say, this is the most open thing I’ve written. Please do not act rude about it. 

 

Why do so many threads dealing with unintended pregnancies focus on the unwed mother?  What about the unwed father?

Dave: True, the rate has decreased slightly, but the number continues to increase.  In this case, it’s the numbers that tell the story.  Nice spin, though.  "The problem doesn’t really exist."

Same old knuckle dragging – Planned Parenthood was founded in order to help prevent unwanted pregnancy – abortion is just a small part of their mission.

(In other words they "thought of it ") long ago.

Countries where they have real sex education also teach the parents – they know that many are nut jobs preaching "abstenence" 

 Dr. Schalet has asked how is it that 2 countries similar in terms of wealth, education, and reproductive technologies have had the highest and lowest rates of teen pregnancy, respectively, in the Western world.

The countries, of course, are the United States and the Netherlands, 

 

 Link

Let me get this straight. Southern, right-wing Christian pro-life whites are against Planned Parenthood because it may have originally sought to control the number of children that black people had?  Riiiiiiight.

In civilized, new world countries, reproductive health is a priority. Women have access to contraception methods as well as access to safe ways to eliminate fertilized eggs in their bodies. It is insane that the disease rate, unplanned pregnancy rate and abortion rate in the US is comparable to that of a third world country. There is absolutely no excuse for it and THAT is the real sin.

Young children are curious.  When you tell them about something, they want to try it.

Sex ed class is the last venue that is going to make a kid want to go out and have sex. Having sat through more than my share, I can tell you nobody’s getting hot and bothered. But natural biology will kick in at some point – the question we have is, do we just ignore it and let the kids go do whatever they want? Because then you’ve increased the amount of abortions or broken homes or abused kids. 

rather than the more reality based, personal experience of raising kids

Actually my observation is based on having been a kid not that long ago, so save your elite academic straw for some other time.

but it does not follow that such concerns for "society" justify undermining the authority of the child’s parents

How in God’s name does it undermine parental authority to get their permission to teach their kids about sex and preventing pregnancy? 

It takes a concerned parent or parents, who are willing to discipline the child when he/she is wrong, defend and laud the child when he/she is right, and above all willing to teach that child the difference between the two.

Absolutely. And that is the ideal situation. But what do we do when we don’t have the ideal? Tell the kid "too bad"? Or do we do the best that we as a society can do to a) help the kid and b) lessen society’s burden of having to deal with the long term impact of an unwanted child and a parent that’s not ready for the job – which will lead to more abortions? No, I don’t think so. It is to our collective benefit to have that kid as prepared as possible for the future instead of pretending a problem isn’t there.

Sanger advocated suppressing the birth rates of"undesirables", not just blacks, also Slovacs,Indians,Asians,Irish,Mexicans, and whites.

Wow! Blacks, Slovacs, Indians, Asians, Irish (!), Mexicans, and whites.

Leaving only… Eskimos?

I believe that makes example number….oh, 25,000 of wild assertions put forth with absolutely no evidence on this blog…. TODAY!!! (Remember, since that’s a "belief", I don’t have to provide evidence for it. I’ve just "observed" it.)

but the number continues to increase.

Source?

Dave: Observation. You might try it sometime.

Oliver: Young children are curious.  When you tell them about something, they want to try it.  When you decondition them to hear about sex from someone other than their parents, you make them more vulnerable to strangers.  Have you ever worked around children?  I don’t say that sex ed is all bad, just that the bad outweighs the good. 

 Judging by her public statements and private letters, the woman thought that blacks – southern blacks in particular – were simple, child-like brutes whose fertility needed managing the same way a farmer needs to tend to his breeding stock of sheep or cows.

Reminds me a bit of robert108′s "feelings" about teenage birthrates–no facts to back it up!

Sanger supported involuntary sterilization for the mentally handicapped, based on eugenic principles. The "feeble-minded" were the people they wanted to stop from having children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Eugenics  I know it’s not an anecdotal right-wing blog….

Hang in ther ROB,those of us who were raised in a catholic household understand your pain and your DISFUNCTION! As for me,I do what the majority of catholics do, I drown out reality with alcohol and pass myself off as RIGHTEOUS,MORAL and BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE. After all we have an INVISIBLE FRIEND we can always go to when the REAL WORLD tries to sneak in! Watch the show monday night and I will mention you on the air. 

Falafel…It appears you’ve had had a few tonight? Cheers man.

DocAmazing says, I’m a physician by trade, and I cringe to think of what weird misinformation is being peddled by the abstinence fans on this thread

What "weird misinformation"?

…small wonder rates of STDs are significantly higher in abstinence-only areas.

That doesn’t follow.

Small wonder red states have higher rates of teen pregnancy overall.

"Small wonder"? Do you notice where the teen pregnancy lies? Democrat controlled inner cities. Have the breakdown on how that would affect the overall state numbers? Of course you don’t. You just have enough information to get in a snotty insult.

Chief–sorry, your tale feils to move me. I’ve heard too much propaganda that read exactly the same way to believe you. The whole "vets spat at by peacenik demonstrators" myth has been too thoroughly and effectively debunked…

Hey Rob! This here "Doc" jackass is saying that your dad is a liar.

Robert108: Kerry was actually in Viet Nam.

Yes. We are well aware of that. Kerry seemed to mention it once every two hours during his campaign.

George Bush knew how to get out of Viet Nam.

He did? Well how did he do that?

You may now resume your laughing "Doc".

Dave: Observation. You might try it sometime.

LOL! "Who cares about the stats? I can just feel it!"

You’re too funny.

Zsa Zsa … I am pro-choice, not pro-abortion and have never had any reason to even think about having abortion … because I make good choices.  Pro-choice MEANS, for the daft, choosing when to breed, whom to breed with and if there will be any opportunity to breed at all. If you read my earlier posts,  I don’t believe in "oops" … But I do believe in birth control, family planning, abstinence and, yes, termination for the people too stupid to use those options.  The number of abortions would be relatively low and only in extreme circumstances if people implemented other methods.

Oliver, As a teen mother myself I think that knowlage is the answer to stopping teen pregnancies, If somone had really shown me how hard being a mother is, wow, I probably would have practiced abstinance or at least I would have been more careful in what i was doing. I also think teens need to be aware of alternantives to abortion such as adoption. When they have sex-ed classes they should include things like that, i would have remembered those things. I cant recall one thing they told me in sex-ed or even how old i was when i was in the course. Parents also take a huge role in this area i think if parents talk to there kids about their views and morals on the subject most kids just might listen more than pepople think.

I happen to believe Dave’s "stats" are b.s.,

Why use evidence and the scientific method when we have "beliefs"?

I believe astrology accurately predicts many things! I believe unicorns live at the end of the rainbow! I believe Dave’s stats are BS!

Wow! When we never have to back up our statements with facts, we can say whatever we want, and it’s always right!

We have a decreasing rate of teen pregnancy, but not in silly programs where people do nothing more than yell "don’t do it", which was my point.

You have data to back this up? May we see it?

The answer is competent parents, but your solution as to what to do when parents are incompetent is to ignore it. It feels good to sit there and say "Nyah! We cut off everything for you sluts!" but it doesn’t change the fact that if you have your way (a way, I would add, that not even mainstream Republicans would endorse) that we would still have hudreds – thousands of children born to single moms with no safety net. I thought the Christian thing to do would be to have some sort of compassion, instead you’re branding them with a scarlet letter – do you think those kids will grow up to be properly functioning parents? You’ve taken an already bad cycle and made it worse.

Christian compassion does not include welfare without limit, or charity given without consideration of the circumstances that brought the needy to their place of need. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3:

"…keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’"

The obvious counterpoint to 2 Thess. is in Matthew 25, where Jesus said:

‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

So Christian compassion is more complex than simply, ‘give a person what will help them most at the moment,’ especially if what will help them most at the moment will hurt them in the long run. That’s what the standard liberal prescription does: It confirms people in the failings, saying ‘That’s OK if you’re unable to control your sexual urges – here, have a condom, so that when you indulge your urges you may be protected from disease and unwanted pregnancy.’ Christian sexual morality demands much more, of course, growing as it does from the larger notion of salvation through transformation into something more Christ-like, not through affirming us where we are. Christians believe that sexualilty is a gift given to us by God – something immensely pleasurable, but also something infinitely sacred. We are expected to be stewards of this awesome gift, and to follow the Bible’s teachings on it, which can be summed up as describing two states of sexual purity: Faithfulness in marriage, and abstinence outside it.

It’s tempting even for me to say that Christian sexual morality is neither here nor there in this debate, except for the fact that, for the 300+ year period this country enjoyed without the scourge of teen pregnancy, most of the people in this country were religious. Of those, most were Christian. And of those, most took their faith seriously and tried – however imperfectly – to live into it. To believe in Christ is to believe in the promise of everlasting life as long as, among others, we accept what the Bible describes as sin, avoid it when we can, and repent of it when we can’t. Thus, for Christians who take their faith seriously, sexual morality is part of a whole that amounts to salvation; and when you believe that something is salvific in nature, you tend not to take too many liberties with it. That’s why, when the Christian faith was taken more seriously by more people, things like teen pregnancy were a lot less common. This is not at all to say that Christianity has a corner on the sexual morality market, just that most major faiths pretty much toe the same line when it comes to things like sex outside of marriage, and children out of wedlock.

Nutshell: True Christian compassion, like dealing with a drug addict or alcoholic, sometimes involves tough love. Refusing to reward undesirable behavior – not acquiescing to baser urges, establishing and maintaining value judgements on sexual behavior, not picking up the tab for unwed mothers – may seem unkind in the context of the moment, but it’s deeply compassionate in the context of an entire life.

As far as the bad cycle, that is exactly the problem with the liberal approach to this crisis:

- Lower the bar of expectations as low as it will go ("We agree you cannot control your urge to have sex").

- Strip away all value judgements from sexuality ("It isn’t right or wrong to have sex at 13, it just… is…").

- Reward undesirable behavior by those who are unable to deal with the consequences of unwanted pregnancy, and in the process, remove all incentives for women to value and seek out partners worthy of marriage. The result is fatherless children, who grow up with a devastatingly inaccurate view of what a healthy family life is.

…and the cycle begins again.

All along the way, they’re aided and abetted by people like you, Oliver, who do the most amazing gymnastics to blame everyone but those who are really at fault.

One thing I haven’t mentioned so far in all this ruckus is that, sadly, it may be that to truly and forever break the chain, a generation is going to have to really take it on the chin, to be thrown in the deep end in the hopes that they’ll teach themselves to swim. We can probably agree that in the worst case scenario that would be a tragedy, but I prefer to believe in people’s individual and community resourcefulness – that more people than you might think will learn to swim, and that most of those who don’t will be taken care of my family, friends, and churches. Certainly there will be those who are lost, and it will be regrettable, but if we don’t break this chain, we risk condemning generation after generation to this hell, not just one, or a part of one, or, in a good outcome, a small percentage of one.

I argue that you’re using a straw man argument, because you’d be surprised how conservative I am when it comes to how people should be in family matters.

Not likely, but my point was that "straw man" has a precise meaning in formal logic; it refers to someone setting up an obviously indefensible position, and claiming that his opponent is advancing it. Like what you’re doing here:

You’re proposing mythical solutions to real world problems, as if we can do like Mao and say "here begins Year Zero". Again, simply saying "stop having sex" will not stop kids from having sex and does nothing to help the kids who are.

Once again, Oliver, my proposals are not mythical. they have 300+ years of proven success in America behind them. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and as long as you continue to refer to three centuries of fact as "mythical," I can’t continue to assume you have a connection to reality.

Of course telling kids to stop having sex is not going to stop them, and that’s not even close to the approach I’ve been describing throughout this thread. Telling them to stop is necessary, but it’s by no means sufficient. What I’ve been proposing, if you’ll read up, is that the government cease being a party to whom pregnant teens can turn for relief and reward. I’m proposing that we return to a paradign in which parents and extended family are the only ones to whom they can turn. When we do, we’ll find what we found for three-plus centuries: That, almost without exception, Mom and Dad make it very clear from a very early age that sexual intercourse often results in pregnancy; that a pregnant teenager has no choice but to rely on her parents for support; and that such support will either not be forthcoming, or will come with conditions attached that are so undesirable that the teen thinks twice the next time her hormones start surging.

Again, Oliver: It worked for hundreds of years. Your plan has failed for four decades. How much more clear can it be?

Oliver: This ideal world where all of a  sudden we cut off the safety net for unwed mothers and that leads to a new age of sexual modesty is pure fantasy. I’m all for their being a social stigma to being pregnant underage and unwed (especially in the black community) – but acting tough doesn’t do anything to solve the existing problem, except lead to more broken homes and more abortions.

You guys on the right need to realize that this issue is more than making yourselves feel better or urging a return to the mythical ’50s. It is about the lives of children Today, right this moment. 

Few on the right, certainly not me, harbor no illusions about tough love leading to sexual modesty. What we know it will return us to is an age of sexual prudence, because, as I’ve explained, extraordinary things happen when people – even 13-year olds with raging hormones – realize that there is no route out of their predicament that doesn’t go through Mom and Dad. What it sounds more and more like is that I have faith in Mom and Dad – even those in the poorest, most ill-educated pockets of the black community – to raise responsible children, and you don’t. It sounds more and more like I believe that poor blacks – and, let’s be fair, hordes of poor whites – want better and are capable of better than the basketcase of teen pregnancies that plagues them now… and you don’t. It sounds more and more like I have faith in the individual, and you have faith in… the state.

Your talk about "reality" and "the moment" and "right now" sounds pretty spiffy and action-oriented, but the truth is, what you’re proposing is all about 1967, Lyndon Johnson, free love. Has-beens of social engineering whose failures have been repeated and proved ad nauseum. What you guys on the left have got to understand is that this is all about the future, our children, and our grandchildren.

Planned Parenthood was founded by a believer in eugenics who wanted to use abortions, among other things, to stop undesirable people (blacks, etc.) from having children. 

Did Sanger say that blacks were "undesirable," or was that just you, Rob?

Davey, you should learn to look things up yourself:

In the late 1930s, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, came up with the idea for the infamous "Negro Project." Sanger, despite the rosy and saint-like portrait the organization presents of her, was a frank racist. Judging by her public statements and private letters, the woman thought that blacks – southern blacks in particular – were simple, child-like brutes whose fertility needed managing the same way a farmer needs to tend to his breeding stock of sheep or cows.

Alarmed by the numbers of southern blacks who were migrating to northern cities, Sanger and her associates created the Negro Project. They believed that, by convincing black people to limit the size of their families, they would prevent the black population’s numbers from overwhelming those of the white population. It was assumed that blacks – they especially worried about the men – would look suspiciously on any white effort to meddle with their fertility, so a clever fiction was created. Black elites – doctors, educators and even ministers – were enlisted to preach contraception and, later, abortion. Black people were told that, if they just learned to limit the size of their families, whites would come to respect them for their self-control. One day, this fiction said, this respect would lead to greater civil rights for blacks. In other words, fewer black children would equal more freedom.

 

I’m not in favor of sex outside of marriage or underage sex, but unlike the right I know that we cannot pretend these things out of existence and we need to do concrete things to stop them rather than holding out hope for the re-animation of June Cleaver

Oliver, nobody here is denying those things exist.  I have no problem with contraceptives (I just don’t see why we have to hand them out to ten year olds).  But recognizing that people are going to have sex, and be pretty irresponsible about it, does not change the fact that an abortion is a murder.  You can toss around all the hyperbole you want about women dying from back alley abortions and children being born into poverty, but the idea that a woman might harm herself to get rid of a child or that an unwanted child might grow up in poverty and abuse is not, to my mind, evidence enough to write out that kid’s death warrant before he/she has even had a chance to live.

It isn’t a economic or even a health thing.  Its a "killing innocents is bad" thing.