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 By now I'm sure everyone has heard about the supposed "pregnancy pact" that took place at a Massachusetts high school. When I first heard this story I thought "Awesome. The fucking crazy anti-sex, anti-birth control, anti-reality peoples are going to freak out and somehow blame sexual education for this." And, unfortunately, I was right!
Well, to be honest, one of my first thoughts really was "I don't believe for a second that 17 girls are all THAT good of friends in high school that they would all get together and decide to get pregnant." I don't recall girls or guys in high school hanging out in groups that big. Maybe 5 or 6 people MAX would be that good of friends. So... 17? No fucking way.
But let's get back to that article about how it was the school's fault that the girls got pregnant because they were provided sexual education that included contraception as well as abstinence.
From the article:
Local news reports have questioned Time’s characterization of the situation, but nobody is denying that these girls knew how to avoid getting pregnant and instead chose otherwise. To young girls who see teenage pregnancy as something desirable, making a pact like this is not unimaginable.
Local health officials in Gloucester, however, seem to have been completely oblivious to the aspirations of these girls. Gloucester High offers pregnancy tests and other reproductive health services through its school-based health clinic. At least some of the girls clearly were happy to be pregnant — slapping high fives when they heard the news — which suggests they weren’t trying to avoid conception. Yet the nurse who runs the clinic and the clinic’s medical director reacted by calling for greater access to birth control, even if the parents of the girls didn’t approve...
Let's first discuss the part I bolded there. Young girls..... see pregnancy.... as something desirable..... and it's sexual education's fault? WTF?? Which fucking side of this debate labels babies as "miracles" and places having children on the top of the list of "Things to Do if You Have a Vagina"? Not the side of the debate that I am on, I'll tell ya that much. These people have the gall to say that sexual education has glorified baby-having when THEY are the ones telling young women that the most important thing they will ever do in life is have children (and get married, of course) and that babies are "God's gift" and therefore should be had as often as possible. There is a term in psychology for what this dude is doing in his article... it's called "projection". Look it up.
Now... what does the fact that these girls were happy about being pregnant have to do with providing contraception? I mean, how is it a negative thing to say "WE NEED TO PROVIDE MORE CONTRACEPTION" when you see two dozen girls end up pregnant within 8 months of a school year? I think I need someone to hold my hand and walk me through this line of logic. Isn't this an obvious given? If kids in your high school are having sex (hint: this is a fact if girls are getting pregnant) then you need to provide better sexual education and make sure condoms are your top priority. At LEAST if the males in the school are wearing condoms (as they should be ALL the time) then it adds a little hurdle to the baby-making strategy. Although we all know how hard it is to get a guy to put/keep a fucking condom on. Especially in high school.
From the article:
It’s difficult to imagine a more counterproductive approach. These girls need more parental involvement, not less. These young girls know how to have babies, so further sex ed isn’t needed. They want to have babies, so contraception is beside the point. The problem is that they think that they are ready to have babies, and they aren’t.
That’s where the parents should be stepping in, helping the girls to realize that they aren’t ready to be mothers. Social-science data clearly shows that teenage motherhood is frequently a ticket to a life of poverty.
Studies show that teens are less likely to have sex if they think their parents disapprove. But parents are often kept in the dark, thanks to misbegotten health care policies which view them as a threat to their daughter’s best interests.
Our nation’s “experts” are spectacularly ill-equipped to deal with teenage girls who want to be mothers. Indeed, laws designed to make contraceptives available to teenagers often make the problem worse. Lawmakers should change these policies — and give parents the opportunity to teach their children well.
I'm sorry.... did I miss the part where the school forbids the children to speak with their parents when they go home? If your child is in high school and you haven't talked to them about sex yet.. .that is YOUR FUCKING FAULT. Not the school's. If you let them go through 6th, 7th, and 8th grade without once asking them about their daily lives, who they might have a crush on in school, how their friends are doing, etc. (all of which will give you a hint as to when a good time is to have "the talk") then that is YOUR FUCKING FAULT. Not the school's. The schools that are providing contraception and sexual education are not taking the parent's job away from them. They are making it EASIER if anything. How much easier is it to approach sex when the boundary has already been broken in the classroom? Here... for example...
"So I hear you started sex ed classes in school... what did you learn today?"
WOW! SHIT! I really pulled out all the stops with that one!
If you have a shitty relationship with your kid then you're probably not going to get the answer you want. Perhaps it's your fault that you have a shitty relationship with your kid. But perhaps not. There are plenty of people (mostly low income) who simply do not have time to raise their children because they are too busy working three jobs to make sure that the family has some kind of roof over their head and food on the table). It's not your fault but it also means that the kids go without a lot of parental input. If this is the case, then it is even more essential that sexual education is available in the school. Because if they are not going to talk to you about then at least they are learning about it from an educator.
If you have a good relationship with your kid then you have just started a dialog about sex. Awesome. Now you can tell your kid about how you feel about sex, casual sex, premarital sex, anal sex, oral sex, and all the other kinds of sex that you feel comfortable talking to your kid about. You can even throw STIs in there... chlamydia, gonnorhea, HIV/AIDs, crabs, scabies... and more fun bugs and bacterias! Then you can talk to your daughters about maybe making an appointment to go to the GYN to get on some birth control (if they are having sex or thinking of having sex).
I hate to say it parents but... fucking high schoolers have sex. Remember when you were in high school? Yeah. Shit hasn't changed. So, wake the fuck up. Your kid is going to have sex with someone someday. And there is a very, very, very, very large chance that they will NOT be married and will be younger than 18 when it happens.
So nice try blaming the schools for your own ineptitude at raising your children but it doesn't fly with the way the real world works. YOU ARE STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR TALKING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT SEX. Comprehensive sexual education and contraception availability are safeguards that the state puts in place to try to protect it's populace. Because not all parents are or can be AWESOME PARENT OF THE YEAR!!! like Mr. Daniel P. Moloney who wrote that article there.
Oh. And it turns out that there was no fucking 'pact' in the first place. That was a lie told by the principal of the school based upon "high school hallway rumors" that he heard. Fuckard. But don't let that stop the wingnuts from holding onto this for as long as possible.  Comment First! |  Quote This Article | E-mail
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