Archive for the ‘abstinence’ Category
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence.
These “pledgers” are also significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they have premarital sex, reports a study by the federal government’s National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
A study by RAND Corporation found that adolescents who made pledges to remain virgins until marriage were less likely to be sexually active over the three-year study period than other youth who were similar to them, but who did not make a virginity pledge.
When it comes to virginity pledges, studies reveal mixed results. The government may want to take a long, hard look at the results of research conducted by Dr. Janet Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, before spending more than $176 million to fund abstinence-based sexual education programs in some of America’s public schools.
Virginity pledges are promises made by youths to remain a virgin until married. Pledges may include additional promises, including avoidance of looking at pornography and not lying down-even while watching television-with members of the opposite sex.
Rosenbaum probed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which surveyed 11,000 middle and high school students about their sexual behaviors and opinions in 1995, and conducted two follow-up surveys with the same participants over a span of five years.
Rosenbaum’s rigid analysis used more than 100 variables in order to narrow her research to 3,400 students who in 1995 had not had sex or pledged and shared the same views on sex, religion and birth control.
Do these pledges have staying power? Rosenbaum found that 82 percent of students who had taken a pledge denied ever having pledged and withdrew from their commitment. More than half of both pledgers and non-pledgers engaged in various types of sexual activity, had experienced sex for the first time by age 21 and had an average of three sexual partners.
Rosenbaum also discovered that unmarried pledgers were less likely than non-pledgers to use birth control or condoms to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). “Teens learn condoms don’t protect you completely from human papillomavirus (HPV) and herpes, which is true, but they may not realize that they protect against all the fluid-based STDs,” Rosenbaum told Health Magazine. “People end up thinking you may as well not bother using birth control or condoms.”
Both groups in Rosenbaum’s study reported similar numbers in occurrences of STDs. In an unrelated study, researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had found that the overall STD rate among 838 girls in a recent federal study was 26 percent, which translates to more than 3-million girls nationwide.
Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, an expert on preventing sexually transmitted diseases at the CDC, said in The New York Times that under the Clinton and Bush administrations, the agency has promoted abstinence as the one sure-fire way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
How can one stay on top of information that is accurate? Ask a doctor. If relying only on internet resources, Rosenbaum suggests to gather information from a broad range of sources, from Focus on the Family to Planned Parenthood.
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Saturday, January 24th, 2009
Legislators this week withdrew a bill aimed at forcing pharmacists to dispense “morning after” birth control medication despite religious or other objections they may have to abortion.
Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, tabled Senate Bill 6189 — a bill she proposed — pending the outcome of a court case dealing with the same issue.
“After consulting a number of attorneys, the consensus was that I should let the courts go address the issue before going any further,” Keiser said.
The bill would have required all druggists in the state of Washington to dispense legally prescribed medication in order to renew their pharmaceutical license.
“This obviously runs right into the middle of a First Amendment issue,” said Dan Kennedy, chief executive of Human Life Washington. “To waste their time on an issue that is before the federal court is a disservice to the people of Washington.”
Kennedy said it would be unconstitutional to force pharmacists to fill “morning after” pill prescriptions if they have religious objections, and called Keiser’s legislation an “abortion lobby bill.”
But proponents of the legislation say women seeking prescriptions in rural areas with fewer pharmacy options are affected the most by refusal to dispense medications.
“People have this fantasy that there’s not a lot of refusal going on in pharmacies, but it actually occurs in something like 10 percent of them,” said Karen Cooper of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington.
Advocates for Keiser’s tabled bill say allowing pharmacists to choose which prescriptions they fill would allow too much discretion and may lead to AIDS patients being denied medication if druggists object to their lifestyle choices.
The debate over religious objections to filling prescriptions for “emergency” birth control is currently before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The legal challenge was prompted by a state pharmacy board ruling made last year under pressure from Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire. The board changed pharmacy governance rules, requiring pharmacists to fill “morning after” pill prescriptions.
But after two pharmacists and a pharmacy owner sued the state in response, U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton issued a preliminary injunction, giving pharmacists reprieve from the new rule pending the outcome of the suit.
Leighton issued the injunction on grounds that the pharmacists would likely win the suit based on the First Amendment’s freedom of religion protections.
However, Charles Haynes, a senior scholar with the First Amendment Center based in Washington, D.C., said religious-based First Amendment claims are increasingly difficult to win.
The Supreme Court ruled against an Oregon man in 1990 after he sought an exemption from federal drug laws to use peyote for religious purposes.
Congress tried to reinstate protections eliminated by the high court’s ruling through the Religious Freedom Act, but the court struck the act down in 1997.
“Washington state has a very strong tradition of separation of church and state under Washington’s constitution. It’s stricter than many other states and it’s often interpreted that way,” Haynes said. “It going to be a tough row to hoe.”
Various states have passed their own versions of the Religious Freedom Act, but Washington is not among them.
The Legislature’s brief consideration of the bill comes with the passing of the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade — the Supreme Court’s decision protecting women’s right to abortion.
On Tuesday, the Capitol Campus was teaming with charter buses, carrying more than 4,500 activists who oppose abortion to the Legislature’s steps to protest Roe v. Wade and lobby lawmakers for legislation.
Abortion opponents view emergency birth control as a means of terminating life after conception.
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Saturday, January 17th, 2009
Biology is often stronger than willpower. You don’t have to wear a lab coat to know that, but your words carry more weight if you do.
Teenagers follow through less than half the time on pledges to abstain from sex until marriage, according to a study in this month’s scientific journal Pediatrics. In fact, more than four out of five denied ever making that promise.
Research will never win the fight against libido or selective memory. It might, however, be able to influence what the nation teaches kids about sex. That’s a pretty timely topic, given the $176 million Congress could soon approve for abstinence-centered sex education programs.
The Bush administration has been a huge backer of those programs, and chastity until marriage is still a worthy goal to be promoted. Students who didn’t take pledges had premarital sex just as often and just as early as those who did, the study found. But, even though the study specifically focused on students with similar views toward sex, the non-pledging group was 10 percentage points more likely to use birth control.
Proponents of abstinence education counter with other studies that suggest it’s working where “comprehensive” teaching fails. The two camps should stop spending so much energy trashing each other’s science. This is supposed to be a push toward a common goal, not a boxing match where one side needs to score a clear knockout.
If that goal is to minimize the number of teen pregnancies — and whose isn’t? — then a mixed approach is clearly best. Educators can stress that condoms or birth control pills will greatly reduce the chances of becoming pregnant. So can parents, if that meshes with their beliefs.
They can also stress that abstaining is the only foolproof way to prevent it. Really, it’s possible to teach both approaches without one undermining the other. They’re not mutually exclusive.
“Even parents who approve of premarital sex are still afraid that if they teach their kids to use condoms, it might be misconstrued as encouraging sex,” the author of the study, Janet Rosenbaum, told Time magazine. “And there’s no basis for that.”
If anything, research like hers spotlights the limitations of any public program. Teens can sign any paper they’re asked to sign, but until they’re confronted with that emotional situation there’s no real weight behind that John Hancock. Nor is a demonstration on condom use a guarantee headstrong boys will wear them.
Taken together, though, the approaches are too important to abandon. Despite the can-do attitudes of celebrities like Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears, teen mothers face tough statistical odds. So does the rest of society; American taxpayers’ costs of supporting teen parents added up to more than $9 billion in 2004.
To accept a two-pronged approach, of course, national leaders will have to resist a biological urge of their own, which is to throw money around indiscriminately.
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Thursday, January 15th, 2009
Religious teens lose their virginity later than those who are not religious — waiting on average three years longer than their peers, a recent study reported.
Janet Rosenbaum, a post doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote in this month’s issue of “Pediatrics” that those with strong religious backgrounds became sexually active at about 21 on average —regardless if they took a pledge to remain a virgin until marriage.
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, carried out in 1995 and 1996, Rosenbaum followed up with 934 from middle and high school students around the country who never had sex. Some students had taken a virginity pledge and others had not.
Rosenbaum’s study showed that making a virginity pledge doesn’t play a role any sexual behavior because teenagers who take a pledge are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence. The study also revealed that those who took virginity pledges where less likely to use condoms that non-pledgers, she said.
Rosenbaum told FOXNews.com she compared apples to apples. “The behavior of teenagers who have never been to church before is pretty irrelevant when understanding the behavior virginity pledgers,” she said.
Overall, religious students, regardless of whether they take virginity pledges, are more conservative than their non-religious peers. When compared against national averages, “they are having sex an average of about three years later than the average American,” Rosenbaum said.
“It is something that I think can be looked on as encouraging,” she said. “Kids who are choosing to be religious are also choosing to abstain.”
Of those sampled, almost 60 percent had sex and more than 50 percent had oral sex five years later, and more than 80 percent of those who had taken virginity pledges had forgotten they ever did so.
Both groups had about the same number of sexually transmitted diseases as well and had, on average, three sexual partners. Teens who took the pledge had 0.1 fewer partners, on average.
Unlike previous studies on the subject, Rosenbaum told FOXNews.com that her sample only included religious students. Those who took virginity pledges were twice as likely as those who did not to be Born Again Christians.
“The past studies actually compared virginity pledgers to the general population and they relied on statistical adjustments in order to correct for the differences between the tow groups. For a lot of statistical reasons that’s not good practice but its one that’s very common in social sciences,” Rosenbaum said.
Her study also only looked at teens who were unmarried five years after taking virginity pledges, now ages 20 to 23. “The married are out of the picture, so they’re not as interesting,” she said.
While conducting her research, Rosenbaum said she corresponded with one of the founders of the virginity pledge movement, and was surprised to learn that even though the movement promoted abstinence, feelings on birth control and education varied.
“Teaching birth control in schools is actually not at all controversial,” she said, citing a study that showed over 90 percent of parents thought schools should teach about birth control. “Even religious parents,” she said.
“It’s really vital for kids to learn accurate and comprehensive information about birth control, including how to use condoms in school,” Rosenbaum said. “But on the other hand, schools can’t be doing it all. Parents have to be teaching their kids about sex.”
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Friday, September 19th, 2008
Abstinence is a nice idea, but sex education is still needed!
I don’t imagine the 17-year old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate, and Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin, is very excited about the national spotlight landing on her, pushing her into the position of poster child for teen pregnancy.
But, while it has nothing to do with her mother’s ability to lead, it’s a good jumping off point for this nation to engage — again — in a discussion about sex education.
Palin’s mother doesn’t believe in it. Her personal platform, and that of many in the of her the Republican Party, seems to be in supports of an abstinence-only education programs. The idea of abstinence as a form of birth control is a great idea. It’s simple and it works. If you don’t have sex, you won’t get pregnant.
According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the teen birth rate had been in a steady decline since 1991, but showed an increase – with 41.9 births per 1,000 15- to 19-year-old females reported in 2006.
Here’s what we do know about teen pregnancies — it can happen to anyone. Regardless of your stance on abortion, whether a child comes from a family worth millions or one struggling in poverty –Â the truth about teen pregnancies is that the vast majority are “unplanned.” (I’d like to think every single one is unplanned, but I can’t find statistics to be certain.)
What we do know is that a teen pregnancy effects not only the two initially involved, but also their families. Only a third of girls who become pregnant before age 18 finish high school. One report estimated nearly 80 percent of unwed teen mothers end up on welfare.
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy estimated in 2004 that $9.1 billion in public funding was expended on teenage childbearing costs including public assistance, health care and child welfare.
The United States has a shocking amount of teen pregnancies when compared to other industrialized nations.
I wish abstinence-only programs worked — you can’t get any more certain of eliminating teen pregnancy than endorsing abstinence — but to rely on abstinence is to rely on the wish that we can convince teenagers (boys and girls) to remain abstinent, at the very minimum, until they graduate from high school (and prom night doesn’t count). Unfortunately, wishes don’t count for much. My grandmother used to say “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
Teens with the best intention of remaining abstinent can make a mistake. And it only takes once. I was a very conservative teenager.
That might shock you, but it’s true. I was a “good girl” and the likelihood of me having sex as a teen was as farfetched as me becoming a candidate for vice president. I was a good student. I didn’t drink, smoke or take drugs. Not even recreationally — and it was the ’70s.
My family attended church regularly. My parents were married and both were attentive and involved. And I became sexually active while still in my teens. Hope that doesn’t shock you. I was an old teen — but still a teenager.
It’s a story I shared with my sons a long time ago when I did my best to explain that sometimes even the best of intentions can be lost in a heated moment. It is not enough to hope or wish for abstinence. We must educate children. Be smart, don’t take risks. What I did was stupid, what I ended up was lucky.
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Sunday, September 14th, 2008
I totally welcome more birth control options for men. I believe they should be ale to control their own destiny’s like women do. I mean think about it why is it that we have so many options to choose from and they only have three (abstinence, condoms or vasectomy). Pretty gloomy don’t you think. I think we don’t give men enough credit in this area.
You fail to realize all of the methods on the market are controlled/used by women. Meaning we control whether we get pregnant or not. If a man decides that he doesn’t want children why should he have to PRAY that the woman he’s with doesn’t sabotage/force him into fatherhood anyway? If men had the option of taking a pill knowing that it would prevent them from impregnating a women, I think they would take it.
That would be away of not blaming the woman if in fact she gets pregnant. They would be forced to look at/blame themselves for once. Personally, I get tired of men blaming women if the condom breaks or because we took our pill two hours later than normal. Also, why should the woman have to shoulder all of the responsibility of conception. Men shouldn’t be able to have lots of intercourse and leave the protection options up to the woman. It should be a shared responsibility. So I say “BRING IT ON!!”
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Thursday, August 28th, 2008
Contraception is a term used to prevent pregnancy. There are different types of them around. Some are used by men while others are for women.
There are two major methods of birth control namely barrier or hormonal. Aside from that, the other types include sterilization otherwise known as surgery, withdrawal, natural family planning and the simplest which is abstinence.
Let’s talk about each of them.
• The first is the barrier method wherein the male or the female uses a condom to prevent the sperm from ever entering the female’s uterus. The male condom comes in many brands, color and flavors and is usually made of latex rubber. This is placed over the penis when it is erect prior to intercourse.
The female condom on the other hand is made of polyurethane and is seven inches long. This allows it to protect the cervix, vaginal canal and the immediate areas surrounding the vagina. It is inserted into the woman’s vagina also prior to intercourse.
• Another barrier is known as spermicides. It is a chemical designed to kill sperm and this is available as foam, jelly, foaming tablet and as a vaginal suppository.
• You also have the diaphragm that is a soft rubber dome which stretches over a flexible ring that contains spermicides in the form or cream or jelly.
This is placed inside the woman’s vagina and placed over the cervix. Women should take note that this should not stay inside for more than 3 hours prior to intercourse.
• The cervical cap is a small cup made of the same material as a condom. It is also filled with spermicidal cream and inserted into the girl’s vagina and placed over the cervix.
• The last is the contraceptive sponge which is a soft saucer shaped device made from the same material as the female condom.
Now that we have discussed the different barriers, it is time to discuss about hormonal birth control methods.
Hormonal devices appear in the form or an implant, patch, pill or shot. They are designed to prevent the woman’s ovaries from releasing an egg monthly, cause the cervical mucus to thicken so the sperm will have a difficult time penetrating the egg or thin the lining of the uterus which reduces the chances of a fertilized egg from ever implanting on the uterus wall.
Some experts believe that they are very effective but they cannot protect you from sexually transmitted diseases or STD’s.
• Birth control pills can be acquired from your health provider. Depo-Provera is an injection that costs a little bit more than the pill and can prevent pregnancy for 3 months. Something similar to Depo-Provera is lunelle but this can only prevent pregnancy for up to one month.
• The Nuva Ring or vaginal ring is a flexible ring that is inserted into the vagina for three weeks before this is removed and replaced with a new one. The ring contains chemicals such as estrogen and progesterone that releases this into the body.
• The birth control patch works like the ring as it releases hormones into the body while the IUD is a small plastic device that contains hormones and copper and changes the cervical mucus to decrease the chances of an egg from fertilizing.
• Withdrawal is simply removing your penis out of the girl’s vagina before ejaculation. Sterilization closes the fallopian tubes permanently and this is better known as tubal ligation. Men can have the same thing and this is called a vasectomy.
• Natural family planning is simply controlling the number of kids that you want to have.
• Abstinence is not engaging in sexual intercourse at all that is perhaps the most effective type of birth control.
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Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
What to do if you miss to take Ortho TriCyclen birth control pills?
While it is imperative that you must take your birth control pills daily, however, if you ever missed then you don’t need to be panic and you still have chance to know how to take it. Please read below.
1) If you miss 1 white, light blue, or dark blue “active” pill: Take it as soon as you remember. Then, take the next pill at your regular time—which means you may have to take two pills in one day. In this case, you do not need to use a backup birth control method during sex.
2) If you miss 2 white or light blue “active” pills in a row in WEEK 1 or WEEK 2: Take 2 pills on the day you remember and two pills the next day. Then take 1 pill a day until you finish the pack. You COULD BECOME PREGNANT if you have sex in the 7 days after you miss 2 pills.
You MUST use another birth control method (such as condoms or spermicide) as a backup method during those 7 days.
3) If you MISS 2 dark blue “active” pills in a row in WEEK 3 : Keep taking one pill every day until Sunday only if you are a Sunday Starter. On Sunday, THROW OUT the rest of the pack and start a new pack of pills that same day. However, if you are a Day 1 Starter, THROW OUT the rest of the pill pack and start a new pack that same day. You may not have your period this month, but this is to be expected. However, if you miss your period 2 months in a row, call your healthcare professional because you might be pregnant.
You COULD BECOME PREGNANT if you have sex in the 7 days after you miss 2 pills. You MUST use another birth control method (such as condoms or spermicide) as a backup method for those 7 days.
4) If you MISS 3 OR MORE white, light blue, or dark blue “active” pills in a row in WEEK 1, WEEK 2 or WEEK 3 :
Keep taking 1 pill every day until Sunday only if you are a Sunday Starter. On Sunday, THROW OUT the rest of the pack and start a new pack of pills that same day. However, if you are a Day 1 Starter, THROW OUT the rest of the pill pack and start a new pack that same day. You may not have your period this month, but this is to be expected. However, if you miss your period 2 months in a row, call your healthcare professional because you might be pregnant.
You COULD BECOME PREGNANT if you have sex in the 7 days after you miss 2 or more pills. You MUST use another birth control method (such as condoms or spermicide) as a backup method during those 7 days.
5) Forgot to take a placebo pill?
If you forget any of the 7 green “inactive” pills in WEEK 4, THROW AWAY the pills you missed. Keep taking 1 pill each day until the pack is empty. You do not need a backup method.
6) Still not sure?
If you still are not sure what to do about the pills you have missed, use a BACKUP METHOD (such as condoms or spermicide) any time you have sex. Keep taking 1 “active” pill each day until you can reach your healthcare professional.
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Sunday, June 29th, 2008
“…Elaine Lissner, director of the Male Contraception Information Project…has high hopes for two nonhormonal options that have been making strides recently. An injectable compound called RISUG has completed phase II clinical trials in India, she says, and it seems to prevent a man from fathering a child for up to 10 years—although it is readily reversible during that interval. Likewise, the Shepherd Medical Co. has received FDA clearance to perform a clinical trial on a type of implant that would function much like a vasectomy. Theoretically these ‘intra vas devices,’ which are sutured to the vas deferens (the tube that helps transport semen from the testes to the urethra), are removable. However, humans tests are required to see whether fertility can be restored after long-term use.
“Both female and male activists for male contraception say there are ample reasons that men should start agitating for better contraception options. Lissner lays out a slew of reasons why men—and society, too—would benefit, including the fact that the current options for men are relatively unreliable. Two of the three options available to American men—condoms and withdrawal—have failure rates of 15 percent and 27 percent, respectively, after a year among couples who use them, according to the Mayo Clinic. The third option, vasectomy, is much more reliable, but its potential irreversibility is a serious drawback.”
He writes, that I “argue that women enjoy the power over the timing of reproduction” and that I’m “egg[ing feminists] on.” My argument is that while some women will be happy about the male birth control because it takes the burden of contraception off of them, others may not be so happy because it eliminates their current near-monopoly on reproductive choice.
Do Women Really Want a Male Birth Control Pill?
Women have long lamented the unequal burden they shoulder in the area of contraception. Today researchers are reportedly moving closer to perfecting a male contraceptive that is free of side effects, easy to take, and reversible. But do women really want a male birth control pill?
Power is the reward which comes with responsibility. For example, during the Cold War Americans complained about the money and manpower spent protecting a reputedly ungrateful world from communism. Yet these sacrifices also helped give the United States great geopolitical power, with its attendant perks and privileges.
Similarly, while women legitimately complain that biology has condemned them to bear the burden of contraception, this burden also gives women control over one of the most important parts of any human being’s life–reproduction. The male birth control pill will shift much of that control from women to men. Is the following conversation far away?
Woman #1: “My [husband, boyfriend, significant other] is selfish. He’s on the pill and won’t get off. I’ve asked him to stop taking it but he always says he’s not ready. He just won’t grow up. I don’t know what to do.”
Woman #2: “That’s what the pill has given men—a right to be perpetual adolescents. It’s given them veto power over women who want to have children.”
Despite the stigma that will develop against men who take the pill, the pill will be a success. While most women are responsible and want to have children with a willing, committed partner, studies show that lack of reproductive control can be a major problem for men today. For example, the National Scruples and Lies Survey 2004 polled 5,000 women in the United Kingdom for That’s Life! magazine. According to that survey, 42% of women claim they would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, regardless of the wishes of their partners.
Jo Checkley, the editor of That’s Life!, is correct when she says “to deliberately get pregnant when your partner doesn’t want a baby is playing Russian roulette with other people’s lives.”
According to research conducted by Joyce Abma of the National Center for Health Statistics and Linda Piccinino of Cornell University, over a million American births each year result from pregnancies which men did not intend.
The male pill will fill a genuine economic need. Child support levels are rising, generally comprising 15-25% of take-home pay for one child, in addition to add-ons for child care, health care, and other costs. There is also a trend towards extending child support obligations beyond the age of 18, and child support enforcement is increasingly wide-ranging and effective.
Moreover, most men realize that it’s difficult to remain a part of their children’s lives once the relationship with the children’s mother has broken down, particularly if the children were born outside of marriage. The pill will help ensure that men only have children in the context that’s best for men -a stable marriage.
The advent of the female birth control pill greatly aided women’s struggle for autonomy and fulfillment. The male birth control pill will also create great changes, but these changes will not be to some women’s liking. Be careful what you ask for—you might get it.
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Saturday, June 28th, 2008
Regarding the Minus 20 article, “Their right to a life” (April 7), I had to express my disgust.
It was misinformed, hateful and disgusting. If the writer has a problem with young women becoming pregnant, pushing for more birth-control education and funding would be a good thing, would it not? Instead, she does a lot of shaming of young women and pushing the “abstinence-only”
Sentiment that is ultimately harmful to young women. Yes, there are more important things in life than orgasms, but let me ask, “What about the boys involved? Why not shame them? Why? Because it’s OK for males to be promiscuous, but not for females? This writer clearly has a very low opinion of her own gender. Just because she may have run into women who believe they can use abortion as a birth-control method does not mean all women think this way.
I recommend the writer do more research. One book is entitled, He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know. If this young women educated herself, she would learn to have more respect for her fellow females and trust them. We are not all stupid, and can make decisions regarding our own bodies for ourselves.
The abortion issue is a controversial one, but think about this: we hear about pro-lifers chastising and shaming women for getting abortions, and telling women they should not have them. But when was the last time you heard a pro-choicer telling pregnant women they should be getting an abortion? The answer is simple: you don’t. The vast majority of pro-choicers are just that – pro-choice. We value life, too, but we also value individual choice, an inherent human right regardless of what this writer believes.
Nobody will force her to have an abortion, but the pro-life faction does indeed try to force women to carry fetuses, whether they are ready or not. And that is what they are – fetuses. Don’t kid yourself; a fetus is not a baby. If a fetus were a “citizen”, as she claims, and if a difficult pregnancy results in the mutilation or death of the mother, can the
Fetus be sued? Can the mother charge this “citizen” fetus womb rental? Get real!
I cannot and will not condone something that leads women to believe they do not have a right to educate and protect themselves as they see fit. Nor will I condone something that leads them to believe they should be ashamed of themselves or their bodies – or even their sexual appetite – for any reason! Women – even young women – should be able to have as much sex as they want, same as men. Abortion is not the issue – birth control is – and it should be available to everyone, along with proper education so women can make informed decisions about what’s best for then.
It’s not about orgasms; it’s about freedom.
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