knittedstudent

Now what?

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Anger

So there are not many things that get me riled up, but I can't help but rant about the stance of uber-conservatives on sex. It's not about moral beliefs, but about common sense. If you stick your head in a hole to avoid the problem of teen sex, then don't be surprised when the teen pregnancy rate goes up along with the STD rate. Oh, and you're against all abortions for any reason? Then reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. How do you do that? Sex-Ed! When I was a young teenager my CHURCH taught me about contraception and STDs and what causes pregnancy versus what does not. Sure they tried to do it in such a spiritual way to encourage us to live by church law when it comes to sex and relationships, but they were willing to teach us what we needed to know because it is always an inevitable thing that there will be people within that group, even if it is a church group, that will not keep that vow; and honestly I have no disrespect for any of those people. Beliefs and ideas of religion change. Sometimes it's an accident, but preparing us for that possible outcome has made it such that I don't know of any person in my group that went to Sex, God, and Me that accidently got pregnant or contracted an STD.
So to recap: my CHURCH taught me sex-ed because no one could be bothered in the school system to do something like that, some teenagers will have sex no matter how many lies you tell them about how ineffective condoms are, educating them about how to prevent disease and pregnancy will help cut down on these consequences, likewise, not condemning condoms and prescription birth control will help avoid these consequences as well, and preventing unwanted teen pregnancies will cut the rate of abortion as well. For a group of people who claim to value life (as in pro-life and the more extreme people who value a fetus' life over the mother's life in basically all instances; don't even get me started on them!) they definitely don't seem to be logically taking steps to ensure that every single baby born in this world is cherished. Shouldn't that be the goal? Being anti-birth control and anti-sex-ed seems like the complete opposite route that someone should take for any reason. We don't need any more babies born with everything stacked against them, we need all babies to have parents who are celebrating their arrivals and are prepared to take that responsibility. Don't like birth control? Don't use it. Don't like teen sex? Don't have it. Don't like abortions? Don't get one. But don't impose your beliefs on everyone else in this country and be surprised when people don't do an about face and follow you like ducks in a line. Abstinence only isn't working, as evidenced by Bristol Palin, and unfortunately that hasn't seemed to be the huge wake-up call to her mother that it would be, and should be, to many parents.

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