Say Anything Blog

When first hearing this great news I couldn’t believe it! YAY!!!!

Doc, thanks for the info.

Weird that those services don’t get more attention. 

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Rob, I’d also ask why those who are so strongly against abortion also the people who are against sexual education, giving out condoms and other forms of contraception? Somehow I think yelling at kids "don’t do it!" and doing nothing else is leading to more unwanted pregnancies, not less.

I would like to see the actual facts that says that not handing out condoms and such lead to more pregnancies.  Abstainence may not work the best but it should be the foremost program that we teach kids.  You would like organizations like NOW and planned parenthood would think that.  What better why for a woman to empower herself, then by controling her sexuality. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Oliver: Nice try.  I was talking about elementary school sex education.  If they get indoctrinated then, by the time they become teenagers, it’s way too late.  If they get on the sex ed train when they are that young, they have a real good chance of becoming teenage parents.  On the other hand, if their curiosity isn’t aroused, and they are taught good moral principles by their parents, they may have a chance.  I said "kid" not teenager.  Why would you think teenagers have no interest in sex?  Everybody knows that isn’t true.

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!

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

Glad to see abstinance mentioned by PP.  This is and should be not only taught, but lived by parents and PP.  That would go a long way to not giving children mixed messages.  Hollywood and the soap operas could also help, but won’t because they are interesting in money and corrupting our children also.  That makes them feel good and validates their own poor choices.  The previous is speculation on my part, but I would be open for speculation on someone else’s part.

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.

Oliver, either you misunderstand, or you’re deliberately mischaracterizing those who oppose abortion. They aren’t "against sex education"; they’re against their kids being educated on sex in the schools, where the parents have no control over what is taught, and where groups like Planned Parenthood seem to have undue influence over what is taught. They’re not "against handing out condoms"; they’re against handing out condoms to ten-year-olds. Your other remarks on this thread seem to reveal that you think the proper place for sex education is in the schools. It is not. It is something properly reserved for parents, in the home.

Zsa Zsa,   Thanks for the supporting testimony.  I heard this generically, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it from honest people.  The same is true of how our guys were treated when returning from Vietnam.  Some on the left have tried to say that it was a lie that they were spit on, feces thrown on them, physically attacked and name called.  Clinton did more to corrupt our youth than Hollywood because he was elected to the highest office in the US.  The movie industry is just a small microcosm that does not represent the vast majority of people in America.

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. 

Greg, I second that and thanks for bringing out those clarifications.  I did teach "sex education" as part of a Health Education course in grades 7-9.  The movies and films shown were always family oriented within marriage; children should be discussed between the married couple.  When asked, I mentioned that personal products and information were available in confidence from the local health department which was about three blocks away.  Only a few people to my knowledge took the opportunity.  One girl, who was quite "loose" came back to class, blew up the condoms and laughed about when the nurse had told her.  Not too many in class laughed with her.  I agree, this is another example of the liberal elites trying to impose their corrupt ideas on our children.

<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.

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).

Oliver...I am not in favor of abortion. In the past there was social shame of Unwed Mothers. Today is different. My daughters High School has a program for Unwed Parents and pregnant mothers… Back alley abortions, orphanages,and cemeteries with abused children? Sure some of these things such as child abuse is and always will be. As far as orphanages new born babies are in Demand. There is a Waiting List for New Borns and also Down Syndrome babies! It is my belief that since the birth control pill came out. Attitudes have changed about pregnancy! It is never good to lose a life in a back alley or in the womb. Birth control is too easy to get these days for that kind of care less approach. I know too many adult women who would rather get an abortion than prevent a pregnancy using the pill. I know young women who after seeing their ultra sound think different about opting for an abortion. In my opinion teaching elementary age children sex ed. is not the time to do that. Teaching girls about what period is ? That is quite another topic!

Do a few "back alley abortions" and the problems that arise with that, justify the millions of children killed?

No one can say that the sex ed programs have been anymore effective then abstinence programs.  Some one had said "abstinence works everytime" condoms don’t, pills don’t.  It also greatly takes away from the childhood and respect for women. 

A buddy aims me to say I’ve been debating Oliver Willis. Guess I should’ve checked the URL on the name .

Well isn’t that interesting. Oliver, I thought you were supposed to be one of the left’s leading commentators or something. are you really going to trot out the "back-alley abortion" canard?

The version of the past I cite is not "mythical" in the least. It really happened, and we have millions of people who remember those days, and tons of stats to prove how these things were handled better back then. So while I’d like to return to a version of the past, it is certainly not "mythical," and it certainly was better, in terms of the teen pregnancy and unmarried mother crisis, than the "utopia" you’d have us dive headlong into. As I mentioned, The only thing that’s changed as far as the family, child, sex and pregnancy issues go is that we’ve tried our plan for generations, and it worked. We’ve tried your plan for 40 years, and it’s been a disaster. So obviously, the last thing we need is more of the same.

I can’t even parse a sentence that would attribute a nation’s mores on sex to a fictional sitcom mom, with the intention of denigrating and marginalizing it. Perhaps you’re contemptuous of the sexual morality of 1950’s America, I don’t know; but one thing is certain: There was no teenage pregnancy crisis back then. There is now.

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. 

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

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.

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.

Oliver,
So in other words, to prevent the filling of “orphanages and cemeteries with abused children” you would recommend that we simply kill them off before they become such a nuisance.  We solve the problem of child abuse by aborting them before they can be really “abused.”  What a perfectly horrid set of ethics you’ve developed there!!

We are never going to agree on whether abortion is murder or not, I happen to not believe it is but I respect your right to believe otherwise. But I think its safe to say that we both want the amount of abortions to be reduced, right? The best way to do that outside of locking up every teenager in America, is through educating kids and giving them the tools to prevent pregnancy.

I don’t think it was a good time in America when we made women wear scarlet letters for being unwed mothers, nor do I think we should be holding them up as social icons. This idea that things were just hunky-dory in the 40s and 50s is just so much nonsense. 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. 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.

Oliver: I agree with you.  Abortion isn’t murder, because murder is illegal killing, and Roe v Wade has turned it into a constitutional right.  It is killing, though, and that truth needs to be told.  My point about sex ed in elementary school is that old saying: "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree."  If you sexualize children at an early age, as soon as they can experiment with it, they will.  Kids are curious, and if you essentially tell them about something while saying they shouldn’t do it before they are married, they will generally do just the opposite.  Anyone with any experience with children can tell you that.  I also think it makes them much more vulnerable to sex abuse, because it takes away the natural prohibition against hearing about sex from a stranger:  the teacher.  So, they are deconditioned in class and when a stranger approaches them and starts talking about sex to them, it feels less weird.  Not a good thing.  Even though parents are imperfect teachers, IMO it’s better than any of the alternatives.  Witness the disintegration of sexual mores since sex ed was introduced into elementary schools.

Oliver,

Regardless of the position one takes on the question of abortion as murder, your suggestion that the way to prevent possible child abuse in the future is by aborting babies/fetuses in the present is still horrific.  And you know it.  To speculate on the possibility of child abuse, while ignoring the "abuse "of 40 or 50 million lives lost, regardless of one’s legal or religious position on abortion, is simply gratuitous.

The fact that the abortion question is such a contentious issue, 30 years plus after Roe, is a clear indicator that this is not properly a legal question at all, but one that should properly be decided through the political process… contention and all.

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…

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

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. 

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."

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. 

 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. 

 I finally figured out what scares you so much, doc---the idea of consenting adults having sex for pleasure instead of procreation.

As for your desire to turn back the clock sixty years---does that extend beyond sex? Do you want to bring back Jim Crow, or is it just women you wanna keep in their place?

Dave: Observation. You might try it sometime.

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

You’re too funny.

When asked, I mentioned that personal products and information were available in confidence from the local health department which was about three blocks away. 

So when your students came to you with a valid question about the very topic you were teaching, you turned them away? You told ‘em "Fuck off, slut, and go down the black?"

Christ almighty chief---not only does that make you a very, VERY bad teacher, it makes you a piss-poor human being as well.

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.

Don Myers spits, I finally figured out what scares you so much, doc---the idea of consenting adults having sex for pleasure instead of procreation.

As for your desire to turn back the clock sixty years---does that extend beyond sex? Do you want to bring back Jim Crow, or is it just women you wanna keep in their place?

Take notice that this was a mature conversation until Don Myers showed up.

Dave: Your willful ignorance is not funny, it’s pathetic.  Observation is seeing what is really going on, not just parroting some stats you find in an agendized web site.  Your method is to "feel it"  not mine.  Observation is the opposite of "feeling it".  Nice try, leftie.

bob, what the hell would you know about "observing?" You never leave your momma’s basement!

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.

Robert108: You have claimed that the teenage birthrate "continues to increase." Where have you "observed" this?  How do you "know" this? What’s your methodology? Why should I take that claim more seriously than Joe Blow’s claim that it’ll rain tomorrow?

Explain yourself.  "What is asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence" -Hitchens.  If you provide no evidence for your claim there is no reason I should accept it or give it a second thought. So please explain your observations.

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?

Don,...Doc is nice and you are very grouchy! That probably means he has been having sex lately. AND, it would appear you have not! You might want to get yor blood pressure checked ? Or get a date!…

As Dave demonstrated, through statistics and not "feelings", the rate of teen pregnancy has decreased. You decry social engineering, yet somehow we’re supposed to magically start once again shunning people who have children out of wedlock.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

that the government is not only an appropriate teacher of sex education, but a competent one as well

The government is a teacher of sex ed. It shouldn’t have to be, but it is. Dispense with all your straw man talk of what the mythical "American liberal" wants and discuss what can be done - now. The left advocates having government funded sex ed, parental planning, etc. The right advocates wishing it was 1950-something. One of these two plans are realistic and does something about the issue at hand. 

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?

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.

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.

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. Abstinence is the first and best line of defense, but abstinence-only education doesn’t work. 

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.

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.

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. But I’m also a realist. 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. 

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!

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.

Alicia, I don’t know when you took sex ed, but I can state unequivocally that my classmates were scared sh*tless about sex after our class detailed the information about sex (this was around ‘88-’89), and talked about all the things you noted. Not to go all personal on this, but I learned all this stuff from my mom - but it was new stuff to the vast majority of my classmates, and why I cringe when people think its ok to let kids with raging hormones go out into the wild without information.

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

First of all, it starts at home. My mother answered any question I had and I first remember asking about babies (or something along those lines) in 2nd grade.  She told me something about seeds and eggs which was still a little over my head but I got the general concept ... I got a bigger talk in 5th grade.  I went to Catholic Schools through 10th grade  and I think we learned about the reproductive system in 7th grade and saw the VD/repro organs movie in 9th and 10th grade. Then again as part of health education - not sex education. No one said anything about doing it or not doing it but unless you were autistic, you got the hint that you didn’t want a baby. I believe it was Jr. year at a public school, where we saw the different types of contraceptives, learned about VD again and saw a childbirth film.

You cannot teach and enforce morals and values in school. What you do is raise and groom rational, thinking children into making sound decisions. You cannot do with with fear (although those pictures in the VD films were pretty impressive), threats of hell or moral platitudes without attaching real life consequenses to it. I knew that there was no way on earth I would ever want to be caught getting pregnant before I was ready because I knew there was no place for a baby in my mother’s house, in my dorm room or in my life before I had a stable home of my own. It wasn’t fear, it wasn’t necessarily religion, it was plain old common sense ... If people stopped coddling thinking beings and treat them as though they have sense, maybe they’d act like it and there wouldn’t be boys or girls a) having sex before they are ready b) ending up even thinking about abortion clinics. In 2006, though birth may still be a miracle, it is not rocket science.  I tell my adult friends who get panicked about an ooops or careless moment the same thing.  No such thing today.

Planned Parenthood was founded in order to help prevent unwanted pregnancy

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. 

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

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?

The United States of America were founded by slave owners, many of whom (including Jefferson) thought that blacks were not human beings.  What’s your point.

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.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Oliver:  Here’s another version:  the Lefties want to cut and run; conservatives want to do the right thing.  Sound familiar?

 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....

Sanger advocated suppressing the birth rates of"undesirables", not just blacks, also Slovacs,Indians,Asians,Irish,Mexicans, and whites. You should read more than the thumbnail bio at wikipedia, dave. Try reading her opinions as set forth in HER writing. She was a thouroghly reprehensible excuse for a human being.

Dave: Again, you lie.  I said "observation", not "feelings".  If you have a valid point, there is no need to lie.  Margaret Sanger supported baby-killing, just like you.  I can see why you defend her, and ignore her obvious racism.

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.)

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.

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?

LOL! Remember, on this blog, racism is a defining trait of liberal thought.

Dave:  You too could observe Margret Sanger’s positions by reading her writings.  Much easier to rant leftie talking points, though, I guess.
Qusan: “eliminate fertilized eggs in their bodies”???  Call it what it is: killing a human fetus as a method of birth control, due to a desire to escape responsibility for one’s actions.  Nice leftie spin!

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.   

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.

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). 

Quasan is full of la poop...what a dumb bitch! STFU!

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.

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.

Qusan: Not with a brick, but with scissors or a scalpel, in the case of “partial-birth abortion”.

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. 

Q: Thanks for sharing your prejudices.

Okay, I lied. Not done. Have you ever really read about the desperate circumstances that merit partial birth abortions?  I hadn’t even read up on it until very recently.  This country has far too much available as far as resources and educational material for so many people to still be making comments and decisions on hysterical information,  exaggerated religious rhetoric and out right invalid information ... I know people are better than that.

Take the time to read this. 

It  seems that the agenda of some of the commentors isn’t to reduce teenage pregnancy, but to score political points. Greg and robert108 may be good examples.

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. Christi