How to reduce teen pregnancy

[Jarhyn]

Better late than never: here's to Toni and Bronzeage on the subject of delayed puberty, sexual development, and overall outcome: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/09/16/3567886/transgender-puberty-suppression-study/

The facts are with me: if you want to help kids in every way learn who they want to be before they are stripped of any choice by biology and the combination of biological drive and ignorance, delaying puberty works.

The solution to children making uninformed choices about sex is and always will be to give them time to develop mentally before it becomes an issue.

 

[Toni]

Statutory, yes. Forcible--some 12 year olds consent to sex. Some even actively seek it out.

AFIK, sex with a 12 year old is not legal. Period. Sure, there are 12 year olds who seek out sex. How often do you think this happens? What do you think the prevalence of previous sexual abuse or severe economic insecurity is in the history of these 12 year olds.

Anyone who chooses to carry a just-in-case condom should be carrying a just-in-case condom. If there's any possibility of sex one should have condoms.

There should be no possibility of sex for a 12 year old. Or 13-15 year old. In any state. Whether 16+ should be having sex is debatable. I would argue that they probably would be better served, long term, by delaying sex.

How about paying attention to reality: They're getting knocked up now.

Boys are getting knocked up now?

Or you mean: it's really just a girls' problem?

The fact that girls are getting pregnant, and STIS while still in high school and sometimes younger means that we really ought to quit dicking around and start teaching boys some responsibility and to have higher expectations for boys and girls. Like NOW.

 

[Toni]

Such correlations don't show education causing reduction in reproduction. The correlations are least partly if not mostly due to age of first pregnancy, number of kids (and socialized desired for kids) causing a reduction in educational attainment. Also, third variable factors (like lack of intellect, impulsive/risky decision making, social factors related to SES, etc.) all contribute to that correlation by causally impacting education and pregnancies (both intentional and non-intentional).
The degree of causal impact of education on better sex and reproductive choices is only a fraction of the observed correlation between education and those outcomes.

Their is already a good deal of education on pregnancy and STDs. In the modern age, one has to be rather dense not to grasp the extent of the many risks from unprotected sex. Odds are that those making bad choices in this area are not doing so for lack of availability of valid info about the consequences, but rather because other aspects of themselves or environment prompt them to disregard this info in their decision making.

Second, while I cannot speak for Toni, I think providing free contraception is not a bad idea, but that provision may reduce the urgency for promoting education.

Their is no reason for such a trade-off, unless one takes Toni's approach of myopically emphasizing a singular solution and denigrating others, rather than recognizing the multi-causal nature of bad choices and negative outcomes, and thus the requirement of multiple combined solution paths.
IF we did for some reason have to choose between free and easily accessible contraception over an increase in "education", the contraception would likely prevent more life damaging unwanted pregnancies than the education, simply because the info related to pregnancies is already readily available to most who make the bad choices, and the causes lie elsewhere. Those still making such choices despite the info already available will be less likely to benefit from yet more information, either because they are unable or unwilling to learn it, and unlikely to apply it even if they do learn it. Education cannot hurt, so we might as well have more of it, but we should not impede free available contraception under the delusion that greater info about consequences is a more effective solution.

I think you misunderstood Toni's argument. What she's arguing, they way I understand her at least, isn't more sex education, but more educational opportunities to give girls the notion that they can build their own future. She somehow seems to believe that self-confident girls who have their own goals in life won't give in to their sexual desires or social pressure and refrain from having sex, that more or less the only girls that do give in a girls that don't have any options in life, so the problem of teenage pregnancies would go away by itself if only we give girls more opportunities.

No, I believe that girls who believe that they can build their own futures will be much more likely to put their future as a higher priority than whatever some random boy is pressuring them into doing. And that they will be more likely to use birth control. And to insist that boys use condoms and avoid STDs and STIS. And have a better future.

This is patent nonsense of course since there is no contradiction between getting sexually involved and pursuing your own goals. Sometimes, girls have sex not because they're too weak to resist but because they know what they want, and one of the things they want is sex, a reality Toni is implicitly denying.

Ah, yes: girls just cannot wait to spread their legs, bear every medical, physical and social consequence of early sexual involvement with guys who care only about getting off. This is evidence that they are enlightened.

Who needs birth control? Certainly not boys. Boys don't get pregnant so it's not their problem. After all, girls WANT to have sex with random guys who will dump them and if they are too stupid to use whatever the latest birth control out there exists, then certainly they don't care about their futures so why should the boy? In fact,why waste any time or effort or money into educating girls? Let them pop out as many kids as the boys can manage, and then, if the girls prove themselves worthy and produce sons, maybe some guy will cave and marry her. If not, she can always go to school later.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

AFIK, sex with a 12 year old is not legal. Period. Sure, there are 12 year olds who seek out sex. How often do you think this happens? What do you think the prevalence of previous sexual abuse or severe economic insecurity is in the history of these 12 year olds.

I doubt anyone knows the percentages.

Anyone who chooses to carry a just-in-case condom should be carrying a just-in-case condom. If there's any possibility of sex one should have condoms.

There should be no possibility of sex for a 12 year old. Or 13-15 year old. In any state. Whether 16+ should be having sex is debatable. I would argue that they probably would be better served, long term, by delaying sex.

Should and reality are two different things.

And whether they would be better served by delaying it says nothing about what's going to happen. You're still letting perfect be the enemy of improving things.

How about paying attention to reality: They're getting knocked up now.

Boys are getting knocked up now?

Or you mean: it's really just a girls' problem?

The fact that girls are getting pregnant, and STIS while still in high school and sometimes younger means that we really ought to quit dicking around and start teaching boys some responsibility and to have higher expectations for boys and girls. Like NOW.

You don't want them having sex and see making long term contraception affordable means they'll have sex. What you don't seem to be able to understand is that the pregnancy rate shows they are having sex anyway. Making long term contraception available can't make a non-celibate person non-celibate.

Furthermore, long term contraception is either hard to see or invisible. There's no reason she needs to tell a prospective partner. If I had a daughter I would certainly encourage her not to mention such contraception so it's easier to argue for a condom.

 

[Jokodo]

Such correlations don't show education causing reduction in reproduction. The correlations are least partly if not mostly due to age of first pregnancy, number of kids (and socialized desired for kids) causing a reduction in educational attainment. Also, third variable factors (like lack of intellect, impulsive/risky decision making, social factors related to SES, etc.) all contribute to that correlation by causally impacting education and pregnancies (both intentional and non-intentional).
The degree of causal impact of education on better sex and reproductive choices is only a fraction of the observed correlation between education and those outcomes.

Their is already a good deal of education on pregnancy and STDs. In the modern age, one has to be rather dense not to grasp the extent of the many risks from unprotected sex. Odds are that those making bad choices in this area are not doing so for lack of availability of valid info about the consequences, but rather because other aspects of themselves or environment prompt them to disregard this info in their decision making.

Second, while I cannot speak for Toni, I think providing free contraception is not a bad idea, but that provision may reduce the urgency for promoting education.

Their is no reason for such a trade-off, unless one takes Toni's approach of myopically emphasizing a singular solution and denigrating others, rather than recognizing the multi-causal nature of bad choices and negative outcomes, and thus the requirement of multiple combined solution paths.
IF we did for some reason have to choose between free and easily accessible contraception over an increase in "education", the contraception would likely prevent more life damaging unwanted pregnancies than the education, simply because the info related to pregnancies is already readily available to most who make the bad choices, and the causes lie elsewhere. Those still making such choices despite the info already available will be less likely to benefit from yet more information, either because they are unable or unwilling to learn it, and unlikely to apply it even if they do learn it. Education cannot hurt, so we might as well have more of it, but we should not impede free available contraception under the delusion that greater info about consequences is a more effective solution.

I think you misunderstood Toni's argument. What she's arguing, they way I understand her at least, isn't more sex education, but more educational opportunities to give girls the notion that they can build their own future. She somehow seems to believe that self-confident girls who have their own goals in life won't give in to their sexual desires or social pressure and refrain from having sex, that more or less the only girls that do give in a girls that don't have any options in life, so the problem of teenage pregnancies would go away by itself if only we give girls more opportunities.

No, I believe that girls who believe that they can build their own futures will be much more likely to put their future as a higher priority than whatever some random boy is pressuring them into doing.

How is that a "No"? That's a paraphrasis of what I said. And you're still assuming that the only way girls can end up having sex is by being pressured into it.

The closest I ever came to having sex with a 15 year old (me being 16 at the time) was when that girl insisted on separating from a group for a walk just the two of us and led me to a secluded area. I was to socially inept to realise at the time, but I learned later that she wanted to have sex with me but was waiting for some kind of signal or action on my part. It didn't materialise, but not because of lack of pressure on my part, but because of my apparent disinterest. (I don't know if I would have been interested had I understood the situation - it's been a while - but at any rate I didn't.) So apparently girls sometimes know what they want and what they want is sex, even, as in this case, with "some random boy"; in your world, this girl doesn't exist. And that's ignoring the fact that some girls that age actually have relatively stable relationships. That woman who moved in with her boyfriend when they were both 16 (they're still together), who's now one of the most promising students in the programme I'm teaching and for whom I'll confidently say that she knows what she wants better than the vast majority of other 20-year-olds (and presumably did so at 16) also doesn't exist in your universe.

And that they will be more likely to use birth control. And to insist that boys use condoms and avoid STDs and STIS. And have a better future.

This is patent nonsense of course since there is no contradiction between getting sexually involved and pursuing your own goals. Sometimes, girls have sex not because they're too weak to resist but because they know what they want, and one of the things they want is sex, a reality Toni is implicitly denying.

Ah, yes: girls just cannot wait to spread their legs, bear every medical, physical and social consequence of early sexual involvement with guys who care only about getting off.

The medical and physical consequences are improved by readily available (ideally: free) contraception, which is what this thread is about. The social consequences are improved if we get rid of the stigma, to which your attitude is counterproductive.

And whoever said that the guys "care only about getting off"?

This is evidence that they are enlightened.

Who needs birth control? Certainly not boys. Boys don't get pregnant so it's not their problem. After all, girls WANT to have sex with random guys who will dump them and if they are too stupid to use whatever the latest birth control out there exists, then certainly they don't care about their futures so why should the boy? In fact,why waste any time or effort or money into educating girls? Let them pop out as many kids as the boys can manage, and then, if the girls prove themselves worthy and produce sons, maybe some guy will cave and marry her. If not, she can always go to school later.

Random rant which has nothing to do with anything I wrote. I'm sure you can do better than this.

 

[Jokodo]

Providing long term contraception in no way interferes with what you are after unless you're after playing the Christian game of promoting abstinence by making sex dangerous.

Since no contraception provides 100% protection from conception, it certainly does interfere since sometimes it will fail.

I missed this. Seriously? Hormonal IUDs have a failure rate of 0.2/100 women/year. That's an order of magnitude safer than the male condom (2/hundred women/year) in a perfect use scenario, and almost two orders of magnitude better than condoms in actual practice (15%/year). So even if we accept your premise that a large number of girls who would refrain from sex if unprotected will have sex when on long-term contraception, the math doesn't work out: In order for more girls to become pregnant because of contraception, the knowledge that they have an IUD would have to make your typical girl more than 400 times (yes, fourhundred) more likely to have sex.

I'm sure you can see that's an unrealistic assumption.

 

[prideandfall]

I'm sure you can see that's an unrealistic assumption.

ha!

 

[ronburgundy]

No, I believe that girls who believe that they can build their own futures will be much more likely to put their future as a higher priority than whatever some random boy is pressuring them into doing. And that they will be more likely to use birth control. And to insist that boys use condoms and avoid STDs and STIS. And have a better future.

I agree with this, but such a belief is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for good choices. Girls that believe this still have sex, because they also want to have sex and what people want now often trumps what for their future. Girls that don't believe this often have less sex than those that do, because other socialization and opportunity factors play a bigger role. IOW, such believes play a minor role of making reckless sex choices somewhat less likely. Also, even when they play a role they often do so not by making them choose abstinence but by making the girl want to use birth control and avoid ruining their future via pregnancy. Thus, highly available and free birth control is an enabling condition that allows these beliefs to have optimal impact in connecting these beliefs to actual behaviors that reduce some of the harmful outcomes of sex.
Also, the modest role of such beliefs doesn't speak directly to the role of education, because it is likely that overt "education" has minimal impact on these beliefs. Beliefs, especially regarding personal agency and goals, are a product of many many interacting factors, of which overt efforts to instill them are a tiny contributor. Thus, "more education" is a tiny contributor to this beliefs which is itself only a very modest influence on sex choices, and part of that influence depends in a positive way upon contraception availability.

So, the notion of limiting contraception choices and opportunities in favor of educating such beliefs is absurd is likely to produce more harmful actions.

Ah, yes: girls just cannot wait to spread their legs, bear every medical, physical and social consequence of early sexual involvement with guys who care only about getting off. This is evidence that they are enlightened.

No, girls "can" wait. They just choose not to, because they also have a sincere non-coerced interest in sex itself and in the various social factors that surround it.
And most girls that care about and think they can control their future still choose to have sex, and no amount of "education" is going to eliminate that fact, even if it does have a small positive impact on where, when, how, with whom, and how often they have it.

Who needs birth control? Certainly not boys. Boys don't get pregnant so it's not their problem.

Only you are creating the false dichotomy between birth control for girls and other useful things like education and birth control for boys. You starting by attacking the idea of free long-term birth control options for girls under the false notion that it undermines the benefits of education or of developing birth control for boys.
The reality is that the consequences for boys are there but inherently less than for girls. Boys don't wind up with an growing organism inside their body that threatens their health whether they keep it or abort it and alters their body chemistry and inherently creates and emotional attachment that will either constrain their options or potentially cause them psychological harm if they make certain choices. No matter what ideal culture we try to manufacture to make things more "even" these will always be true for girls and not boys. Also, the reality is that we have a pervasive culture that is slowly morphing but not going away anytime soon that puts more expectations on the mother than the father in terms of childcare and career/job sacrifice. It is even likely that natural maternal attachment is stronger, thus even if the culture radically changes mothers will feel more pain and guilt about work-caused separations. Girls do and always will suffer greater negative consequences from unwanted pregnancies, and future limiting options from wanted pregnancies. Thus, it is cruel and stupid not to offer them ever opportunity possible to avoid those pregnancies, regardless of whether they choose to have sex.

After all, girls WANT to have sex with random guys who will dump them

No, girls want to have sex, and during the decision point, they want it more than they want to guarantee that avoid the merely hypothetical potential negative outcomes at some future point. Thus, they choose to have it.

In fact,why waste any time or effort or money into educating girls? Let them pop out as many kids as the boys can manage,

No one implied of the sort. You are the one arguing against their access to contraception and thus make any girls that choose to have sex wind up popping out more kids. Educate girls as much as possible. They will still have sex, even when its a bad long-term option, and if you don't give them more access to more effective birth control options then even that limited educational impact will be even less effectual in preventing pregnancies.

 

[Toni]

I doubt anyone knows the percentages.

Anyone who chooses to carry a just-in-case condom should be carrying a just-in-case condom. If there's any possibility of sex one should have condoms.

There should be no possibility of sex for a 12 year old. Or 13-15 year old. In any state. Whether 16+ should be having sex is debatable. I would argue that they probably would be better served, long term, by delaying sex.

Should and reality are two different things.

And whether they would be better served by delaying it says nothing about what's going to happen. You're still letting perfect be the enemy of improving things.

How about paying attention to reality: They're getting knocked up now.

Boys are getting knocked up now?

Or you mean: it's really just a girls' problem?

The fact that girls are getting pregnant, and STIS while still in high school and sometimes younger means that we really ought to quit dicking around and start teaching boys some responsibility and to have higher expectations for boys and girls. Like NOW.

You don't want them having sex and see making long term contraception affordable means they'll have sex. What you don't seem to be able to understand is that the pregnancy rate shows they are having sex anyway. Making long term contraception available can't make a non-celibate person non-celibate.

Furthermore, long term contraception is either hard to see or invisible. There's no reason she needs to tell a prospective partner. If I had a daughter I would certainly encourage her not to mention such contraception so it's easier to argue for a condom.

Actually this conversation would be much better served if you quit trying to telle what I believe and what I am saying instead of actually reading my words.

 

[Toni]

I agree with this, but such a belief is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for good choices. Girls that believe this still have sex, because they also want to have sex and what people want now often trumps what for their future. Girls that don't believe this often have less sex than those that do, because other socialization and opportunity factors play a bigger role. IOW, such believes play a minor role of making reckless sex choices somewhat less likely. Also, even when they play a role they often do so not by making them choose abstinence but by making the girl want to use birth control and avoid ruining their future via pregnancy. Thus, highly available and free birth control is an enabling condition that allows these beliefs to have optimal impact in connecting these beliefs to actual behaviors that reduce some of the harmful outcomes of sex.
Also, the modest role of such beliefs doesn't speak directly to the role of education, because it is likely that overt "education" has minimal impact on these beliefs. Beliefs, especially regarding personal agency and goals, are a product of many many interacting factors, of which overt efforts to instill them are a tiny contributor. Thus, "more education" is a tiny contributor to this beliefs which is itself only a very modest influence on sex choices, and part of that influence depends in a positive way upon contraception availability.

So, the notion of limiting contraception choices and opportunities in favor of educating such beliefs is absurd is likely to produce more harmful actions.

Ah, yes: girls just cannot wait to spread their legs, bear every medical, physical and social consequence of early sexual involvement with guys who care only about getting off. This is evidence that they are enlightened.

No, girls "can" wait. They just choose not to, because they also have a sincere non-coerced interest in sex itself and in the various social factors that surround it.
And most girls that care about and think they can control their future still choose to have sex, and no amount of "education" is going to eliminate that fact, even if it does have a small positive impact on where, when, how, with whom, and how often they have it.

Who needs birth control? Certainly not boys. Boys don't get pregnant so it's not their problem.

Only you are creating the false dichotomy between birth control for girls and other useful things like education and birth control for boys. You starting by attacking the idea of free long-term birth control options for girls under the false notion that it undermines the benefits of education or of developing birth control for boys.
The reality is that the consequences for boys are there but inherently less than for girls. Boys don't wind up with an growing organism inside their body that threatens their health whether they keep it or abort it and alters their body chemistry and inherently creates and emotional attachment that will either constrain their options or potentially cause them psychological harm if they make certain choices. No matter what ideal culture we try to manufacture to make things more "even" these will always be true for girls and not boys. Also, the reality is that we have a pervasive culture that is slowly morphing but not going away anytime soon that puts more expectations on the mother than the father in terms of childcare and career/job sacrifice. It is even likely that natural maternal attachment is stronger, thus even if the culture radically changes mothers will feel more pain and guilt about work-caused separations. Girls do and always will suffer greater negative consequences from unwanted pregnancies, and future limiting options from wanted pregnancies. Thus, it is cruel and stupid not to offer them ever opportunity possible to avoid those pregnancies, regardless of whether they choose to have sex.

After all, girls WANT to have sex with random guys who will dump them

No, girls want to have sex, and during the decision point, they want it more than they want to guarantee that avoid the merely hypothetical potential negative outcomes at some future point. Thus, they choose to have it.

In fact,why waste any time or effort or money into educating girls? Let them pop out as many kids as the boys can manage,

No one implied of the sort. You are the one arguing against their access to contraception and thus make any girls that choose to have sex wind up popping out more kids. Educate girls as much as possible. They will still have sex, even when its a bad long-term option, and if you don't give them more access to more effective birth control options then even that limited educational impact will be even less effectual in preventing pregnancies.

No where have I argued AGAINST making birth control available.

I will repeat what I wrote in response to Loren above: this conversation would progress much better if you quit trying to tell me what I think and what I believe and instead actually read what I wrote.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

this conversation would progress much better if you quit trying to tell me what I think and what I believe and instead actually read what I wrote.

Wow. You don't seem to get the internet.

 

[Jokodo]

Apparently, we're all a bit dense. So can you please explain your first contribution to this thread, quoted in full below and in response to an OP that celebrated the quantitative results of offering free long-term contraception to girls, in light of your claim that you have no problem with making contraception readily available (to girls)? Step-by-step, sentence-by-sentence? Thank you very much.

I am always thrilled whenever men try to solve the issue of young girls and women and unwanted pregnancy by suggesting something girls and women need to do to reduce the inconvenience of unintended early pregnancies which has the added benefit of requiring zero effort or thought or inconvenience for men and leaves the girls and women available for sex with men. Especially when the same men also argue against free birth control for women.


Two things that also work or have the potential to work:

1. Help girls envision a future fore themselves that includes education and economic security.
2. Develope long acting birth control for males, and make it readily available.

Birth control for either or both genders does not eliminate the risk of STDs nor does it mitigate the negative consequences of early sexual involvement.

 

[ronburgundy]

I will repeat what I wrote in response to Loren above: this conversation would progress much better if you quit trying to tell me what I think and what I believe and instead actually read what I wrote.

Hypocrisy meter pegged. Nearly every one of your posts here, including the one I just responded to are full of you trying to mock people that are merely advocating female birth control by implying that they are arguing against education or male birth control, even though no one has argued any such thing. Since no has here has implied that these things are mutually exclusive, yet you argue as though one negates the other, the only sensible conclusion is that you alone think they are mutually exclusive, thus explaining why you've spend so much time denigrating the simple suggestion that contraception is good.
Also, you made the following completely false claim in your first post that denies any positive benefit of birth control:

Birth control for either or both genders does not eliminate the risk of STDs nor does it mitigate the negative consequences of early sexual involvement.

Mitigate means "to lessen", thus you claimed that birth control does nothing to lessen the degree or number of negative consequences. That means either it does nothing to reduce resulting pregnancies, or that you think teenage pregnancies are not a negative consequence. Either way, it tells anyone literate in English that you think making birth control is at best a total waste of resources, and that would explain why you've been harping on about education as the solution even though no one has denied that education can be in combo with birth control.

In conclusion, this conversation would progress (and would just end in agreement) if you would just admit to be wrong that birth control does not mitigate negative outcomes of early sex, and admit that no one but you has implied that increasing birth control would or should entail less efforts to educate, and admit that education is not remotely sufficient to eliminate those negative consequences. These are the only points on which anyone is disagreeing with you, so clarify where you stand on each.

 

[prideandfall]

That means either it does nothing to reduce resulting pregnancies, or that you think teenage pregnancies are not a negative consequence.

well, not to put words in toni's mouth, but i read that as "negative consequences" being a host of other issues not necessarily tied to the biological mechanics of the act - ie, social shaming or the emotional pain that comes from a broken heart, etc.
which is technically true, but that's also like coming into a thread about a study showing the efficacy of a new cancer treatment and decrying that it doesn't do anything for one's digestive health.

toni has a pretty solid and consistent history of being "sex negative", in that they seem to view sex for women as automatically degrading and mentally/emotionally destructive, so the statement in context makes sense coming from the poster.

In conclusion, this conversation would progress (and would just end in agreement) if you would just admit to be wrong that birth control does not mitigate negative outcomes of early sex, and admit that no one but you has implied that increasing birth control would or should entail less efforts to educate, and admit that education is not remotely sufficient to eliminate those negative consequences. These are the only points on which anyone is disagreeing with you, so clarify where you stand on each.

to be fair to toni, i think you're harping on them for something they didn't exact say.

 

[Rhea]

Not too many people take risks and play Russian Roulette with a loaded gun, but we look on sex in a different way. Whilst these contraceptives are more efficient at preventing babies, there is still the risk of sexually transmitted disease. Once a woman consents to sex in a relationship, they have a greater emotional involvement, when these relationships break down, people are often left emotionally scarred.

Whilst I agree with you, that it is good to reduce unwanted pregnancies, I also believe it is better for a women to consent to sex only when there is consent for a long term relationship, preferably marriage.

You're wrong about what women think and how.

What made you decide you knew how women think about sex, just out of curiosity? And what made you think your opinion of it was made in the absence of the pressures of pregnancy risks?

Women are a WHOLE LOT LESS "emotionally involved" in sex when no pregnancies loom. You can find this out by interviewing women on and off birth control. It is definitely best to ask women about what women think. In my humble female opinion.

 

[ronburgundy]

well, not to put words in toni's mouth, but i read that as "negative consequences" being a host of other issues not necessarily tied to the biological mechanics of the act - ie, social shaming or the emotional pain that comes from a broken heart, etc.
which is technically true, but that's also like coming into a thread about a study showing the efficacy of a new cancer treatment and decrying that it doesn't do anything for one's digestive health.

toni has a pretty solid and consistent history of being "sex negative", in that they seem to view sex for women as automatically degrading and mentally/emotionally destructive, so the statement in context makes sense coming from the poster.

In conclusion, this conversation would progress (and would just end in agreement) if you would just admit to be wrong that birth control does not mitigate negative outcomes of early sex, and admit that no one but you has implied that increasing birth control would or should entail less efforts to educate, and admit that education is not remotely sufficient to eliminate those negative consequences. These are the only points on which anyone is disagreeing with you, so clarify where you stand on each.

to be fair to toni, i think you're harping on them for something they didn't exact say.

Without my reasonable interpretations of what Toni said, then nothing she(?) has said has any logical relevance to anything in the OP or anything that anyone else has said who she thinks she is disagreeing with.
I interpret people's words as though they intend them to have relevance to the words of those they are responding to. I am going to stick with that approach.

 

[prideandfall]

I interpret people's words as though they intend them to have relevance to the words of those they are responding to. I am going to stick with that approach.

well then you are going to have a rough time of it being active in this particular subforum =P

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Since no contraception provides 100% protection from conception, it certainly does interfere since sometimes it will fail.

I missed this. Seriously? Hormonal IUDs have a failure rate of 0.2/100 women/year. That's an order of magnitude safer than the male condom (2/hundred women/year) in a perfect use scenario, and almost two orders of magnitude better than condoms in actual practice (15%/year). So even if we accept your premise that a large number of girls who would refrain from sex if unprotected will have sex when on long-term contraception, the math doesn't work out: In order for more girls to become pregnant because of contraception, the knowledge that they have an IUD would have to make your typical girl more than 400 times (yes, fourhundred) more likely to have sex.

I'm sure you can see that's an unrealistic assumption.

Quit it with the numbers. Contraception makes women into sluts, that's all you need to know. Quit questioning God's plan!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I doubt anyone knows the percentages.

Anyone who chooses to carry a just-in-case condom should be carrying a just-in-case condom. If there's any possibility of sex one should have condoms.

There should be no possibility of sex for a 12 year old. Or 13-15 year old. In any state. Whether 16+ should be having sex is debatable. I would argue that they probably would be better served, long term, by delaying sex.

Should and reality are two different things.

And whether they would be better served by delaying it says nothing about what's going to happen. You're still letting perfect be the enemy of improving things.

How about paying attention to reality: They're getting knocked up now.

Boys are getting knocked up now?

Or you mean: it's really just a girls' problem?

The fact that girls are getting pregnant, and STIS while still in high school and sometimes younger means that we really ought to quit dicking around and start teaching boys some responsibility and to have higher expectations for boys and girls. Like NOW.

You don't want them having sex and see making long term contraception affordable means they'll have sex. What you don't seem to be able to understand is that the pregnancy rate shows they are having sex anyway. Making long term contraception available can't make a non-celibate person non-celibate.

Furthermore, long term contraception is either hard to see or invisible. There's no reason she needs to tell a prospective partner. If I had a daughter I would certainly encourage her not to mention such contraception so it's easier to argue for a condom.

Actually this conversation would be much better served if you quit trying to telle what I believe and what I am saying instead of actually reading my words.

Your position makes no sense, though.

Arguing that long term contraception will get them pressured into sex is pretty meaningless given the obvious reality that they are having sex now.

 

[Jokodo]

I missed this. Seriously? Hormonal IUDs have a failure rate of 0.2/100 women/year. That's an order of magnitude safer than the male condom (2/hundred women/year) in a perfect use scenario, and almost two orders of magnitude better than condoms in actual practice (15%/year). So even if we accept your premise that a large number of girls who would refrain from sex if unprotected will have sex when on long-term contraception, the math doesn't work out: In order for more girls to become pregnant because of contraception, the knowledge that they have an IUD would have to make your typical girl more than 400 times (yes, fourhundred) more likely to have sex.

I'm sure you can see that's an unrealistic assumption.

Quit it with the numbers. Contraception makes women into sluts, that's all you need to know. Quit questioning God's plan!

You're being unfair. I'm sure neither laughing dog nor Toni base their arguments on God's plan. I too find it hard to see the practical difference between their position and the position of those who do, though.