Passive Pregnancy

No, as long as preachers and pols continue to treat pregnancy as something that shouldn’t be discussed factually or prevented effectively, teen birth rates will stay stubbornly high.
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And you wonder why so many of us are disenchanted with a white-gloved “focus” on the interaction of religion and politics.

“”I don’t want to get (my partner) pregnant but if it happens, it happens.”"

Oh yeah, speaks volumes about the state of sex education in this country. No one has any clue about the results of unsafe sex – I image you could write volumes about how little these kids know about STDs – but they certainly know how to have sex.

When will the GOP just realize, sex is not a partisan issue. It’s a human act, always will be. No matter how hard you hide it, people will still go and have sex. But of course, we’re dealing with the party that would rather spend more in getting these kids in a military uniform, rather than provide them with any kind of real education – sex-ed or otherwise.

Both sides are equally to blame for everything.
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There, I can write it too. Note that I didn’t do any fact-checking or specify which liberals or conservatives say anything, nor weigh their relative power in the two parties. Hire me, Time!

WTF?????????

“Conservatives have helped to encourage the passive mentality with relentless attacks on family planning and labeling Planned Parenthood the seat of ‘the abortion industry.’”
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Gee, conservatives don’t like abortions, that whole “human life” thing. But it’s our fault that some 15 year old decides to have unprotected sex . . . . ummmmm gotcha. And it’s our fault that people tend to euphemize their own responsibility for situations they find themselves. I could stand to lose 20 lbs–but you know, it just happened. Is this what passes for analysis at Time? Good grief.

I would love to get an honest answer out of grandma and grandpa about their responsibility in all of this. Based on the article it sounds like she got more advice from her teenaged friends then she did her own parents. A certain number of people may not be in favor of sex education in school and want to leave it up to the children’s parents. But this of course assumes that the parents will give their children open, honest and accurate answers. Which many parents clearly don’t.

I’m not sure the fact that 43% of 18-29 year olds agreed with the statement: “I don’t want to get (my partner) pregnant but if it happens, it happens” is passive.
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I’m 18-29, I agree with that statement, and I make darn sure we take as much action as we can (other than abstinence) to prevent pregnancy from happening.

queencersei, it’s NYC, there’s sex ed in school–I went to HS in a NYC public school, and we had it, and it was pretty explicit (and not in a bad way). The teacher was very careful though not to say that premarital sex was OK or anything like that.

I agree with spob– you can do sex ed w/o presenting it as the latest must-do craze. My public HS had us learn a bunch about how worked (I suspect less explicitly than spob’s, and therefore probably less effectively), the facts about a pile of really gross STDs, and abstinence as a possible approach. That seemed sensible enough to me.

Not being from NYC I can tell you there are a lot of school districts out there that allow parents to opt their kids out of sex ed. I think it is safe to say that most of those parents aren’t giving their kids much information beyond “don’t do it”. Clearly not an effective approach to say the least.

it’s our fault that some 15 year old decides to have unprotected sex….
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Insofar as conservatives are responsible for fighting education efforts concerning protection then yes, that’s true. It’s not fair to use ‘our’ in this context. After all you might be personally all for people making educated choices. But the people who aren’t are rarely as concerned with the unborn as they’d have you believe. Otherwise they’d be handing out condoms themselves.
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I could also make a note that the passivity Ann makes note of is actually part of the human design. If every time we were aroused, we suddenly thought of babies, we’d have died off eons ago.

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You know something spob, the one problem with this statement ‘it’s our fault that some 15 year old decides to have unprotected sex’ …is that it’s our fault that we don’t educate kids about sex in the first place. Because imagine this, teens have sex. I don’t know how old you were when you first had sex, but if statistics are any indication, the majority of human beings on the planet have sex before marriage (looking for links now) and I would bet a majority before the age of 21.

I don’t know, maybe a little education minimizes all the other costs that our society will now have to contribute to sustain her and her daughter. Wow, now there’s a thought, a little education, minimize the worst possible outcome (a teen single mother) and then pay out far less in social services down the line. A rightwingers wet dream if you ask me.

“I don’t want to get (my partner) pregnant [so therefore I take the pill and use a condom] but if [that one in a million chance]it happens, it happens [there's absolutely nothing I can do about that, except abstinence of course].”
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Is it possible that this remark is less about passivity and more about the recognition that no matter how slim the odds, no form of contraception is absolute.
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Okay AS I do blame conservatives for their relentless combat against every attempt to provide comprehensive sex-education. However, I fail to understand how not treating our children like pariahs, at their most vulnerable moment, or moving away from the days of mistreating the children born out of wedlock makes liberals equally to blame.

I had a comment that got eaten but I have two points:
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In response to this:
Gee, conservatives don’t like abortions, that whole “human life” thing. But it’s our fault that some 15 year old decides to have unprotected sex
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It’s not conservatives fault if fifteen year olds have sex. But if you actively oppose education efforts than you certain bear some responsibilty for the unprotected part. If abortion opponents were really acting out of concern for the unborn, then they’d be handing out condoms themselves.
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Also I have to note that the ‘passivity’ that Ann is complaining about is actually part of the human design. If every time we were aroused, we suddenly thought of babies, our species would have died out eons ago.

queen, the problem is that in many places, the sex-ed basically tells kids it’s ok to have sex. It’s not. I don’t want my kids taught that. The mechanics, the plumbing, the diseases etc., that’s cool. But not where it undermines parental authority, and I do not want any teaching of “homosexuality is OK”.

PD, no we wouldn’t. You think for a second I am going to buy my sons condoms when they’re in high school? NFW. I don’t think juveniles should be having sex. Period. Not because I think that kids having sex are sluts or what have you, but because I think that the dangers far outweigh the benefits. I don’t seriously think that I will be 100% successful with my own kids, but if you set the expectations high, when they’re not met, at least the deviation won’t be too much (hopefully).
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Mistakes happen. It’s life. Kids get pregnant. You deal with it. I would be a lot more disappointed in my daughter if she had an abortion than if she gets pregnant at 16.

Is sex ed mandated in NYC schools?

Liberals haven’t helped either, using passive language to avoid focusing blame on young parents.

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Link please. Not that you will ever respond to comments Amy Sullivan but you are full of fail.

I didn’t think my son should be having sex as a teenager; I didn’t think he should contract diphtheria either, but I made damn sure he got the vaccine. Unless you can reliably control the causative behavior (and I’m looking at you, Moose Woman) it’s irresponsible not to take reasonable precautions against the adverse consequences.

I thought about abortion. But people was telling me, ‘That could be your only chance. It’s not guaranteed that you could have another one.
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This strikes me as extremely odd. I never heard an “only chance” argument within my circles of friends in high school or college in reference to abortion as an option for unwanted pregnancy. It sounds eerily like a RW / Pro-life talking point generated to scare teens away from abortion, and apparently it’s working.

I am just curious spob, how would you like sex education classes in school to handle discussions on homosexuality? It would be bound to come up, whether written into the curriculum or not. Do you advocate sex ed teachers just not discuss the issue or give students the option of going to the library for that portion of class or something else? When I was in high school and took sex ed parents had the option of either opting their kids out altogether, having their kids take a “modified” course that was really restrictive in what it taught, or allowing their kids to take a full spectrum course. I ended up in the anything goes section, but don’t remember the teacher advocating that it was okay for us all to go out and have sex. Or condeming/promoting homosexuality one way or the other.

I should have said UNTRUE talking point. To my knowledge, the most universally performed procedure (6-8 week) has no repercussion with regard to fertility, unless in very rare cases of complication or infection.

The phenomenon of homosexuality is teachable. The idea that homosexuality is ok morally is not. (And I don’t really have any issues with homosexuality–I just don’t believe that it’s the role of a public school to teach that it is ok.)

Avast spongy – I’d be darin’ ye t’ provide an example o’ a sex-education teacher a tellin’ a 15-yr old it be OK t’ be havin’ sex. I believe tha’ be a figure o’ yer overactive imagination, or, more’n likely one o’ those nutjob talkin’ points ye never bothers t’ discover whether be true or no. I’d be bettin’ “NO”, ye quiverin’ mass o’ urchin guts.

An’ spongy – tha’ be a verified instance, not one o’ those rumor-wisps tha’ can’t be pinned down one way or ‘nother.

I have to say that is “phony mean” stuff is driving me up the wall. It is also pretty dumb to post things on a blog and never engage the commentators. Is that not the entire reason you write on a blog in the first place? Or is it to see your name in (online) print more than once a week?

Spob, many argue that it is not the role of public school to teach sex ed at all. Yet many at least offer it as an option as many parents do not teach sex education in any form at home. Beyond “don’t do it or I’ll kick you out of the house”. My question is, where do you draw the line from a teaching standpoint? Teach abstinence, but leave birth control? Teach about the various STD’s, but not the best methods to avoid them? Seems inevitable that in a discussion about sex many issues, including homosexuality, would be bound to come up.

I don’t have time because I’m at work, but I would LOVE to see a comparison of health risk and total cost between early abortion and full-term childbirth. I think it would give this issue some perspective…
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Amy Sullivan?

Pirate Wench – I must have missed the class where they taught you how to convert from pirate speak to English. Can I please get a translation? Do you speak that way all the time or what? If so, you might need to seek psychiatric help.

Scherer is on Hardball.

Amy Sullivan: http://www.soundboard.com/sb/crickets_sounds_audio.aspx

Amy-This is a people problem. It ain’t just a liberal vs conservative thang. If the libs all STFU and Conservs also STFU. Guess what? Kids would still be getting pregnant.
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If people would start seeing it as an issue that involves us being humans maybe we could actually get some friggin place. Its because the kids are having sex by the way. the pregnant thing I mean.
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Besides, in todays world of STDS. You should be thankful thats all it is. You could get stuck with a lot worse at 14, 15 or 16. Worse you can never ever recover from. Just some perspective.

Today’s Fresh Air had an interview with a world perspective on this topic. There is an excerpt on the link I give that discusses how the in the cold war and later American attitudes about reproductive rights began to change. The author also speaks about it on the radio interview. Really interesting. Another one that should be right up Amy’s street if she ever read comments.
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The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, And The Future of the World, Journalist Michelle Goldberg argues that granting reproductive rights to women internationally can help to control overpopulation, banish poverty and slow the spread of AIDS.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103022290

spob – It’s funny how the conservatives never want to talk about homosexuality out in the open, but they are inevitably the ones that are caught in a “misunderstanding” with their pants down in the men’s restroom (Sen. Larry Craig, Bob Allen).

spob – It’s funny how the conservatives never want to talk about homosexuality out in the open, but they are inevitably the ones that are caught in a “misunderstanding” with their pants down in the men’s restroom (Sen. Larry Craig, Bob Allen).

spob – It’s funny how the conservatives never want to talk about homosexuality out in the open, but they are inevitably the ones that are caught in a “misunderstanding” with their pants down in the men’s restroom (Sen. Larry Craig, Bob Allen).

My comment keeps disappearing into cyberspace!!

Let me offer another read on what you hear as passive.

Consider a happily married couple with two sturdy careers, two meticulously planned children, and plans to have a third in a few years, saying “What’s the worst that can happen?” one night in their mid-thirties.

Twelve months later, consider husband in the same couple telling wife that the urologist wants to be sure she knows vasectomy is not a 100% guarantee there won’t be a fourth child, and the wife saying, “In which case, I’ll laugh like Sarah, name the kid Isaac, and assume he’s meant to be president.”

That’s grown-ups saying they can live with a little risk. It’s a controlled choice to live with a life that’s not perfectly in control.

The adult “if it happens” can be read that way, and have my full support.

The teen version of “it happened to me” can be a way of saying the same thing. When I read it, I shake my head and worry because there’s so much more risk without education, job skills, and maturity to handle what’s coming. And yet, I think there’s an element there, too, of deliberately accepting the risk rather than passively falling under it.

CP – be ye be needin’ psychiatric help fer yer postin’ problem?

If ye don’t be likin’ pirate-speak, don’t be readin it, mate.

Since we have kept good track of these things, starting around 1972, the US teen pregnancy rate has soared, then declined, and is now fairly low by comparison to the 1980s. Same for the abortion rate, which at one time almost equalled the birth rate, but now is about half of that:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf

Nonetheless, even among women older than 20, about one in four pregnancies ends in abortion. Why, with all the sex ed and the information available from everywhere, plus near-universal access to the Pill, does one in four women still become pregnant and seek abortion every year?

Because “to become pregnant” is not a decision made in the intellectual part of the brain. I have three friends, who were at the time unmarried, highly educated, well-paid professionals, who all became pregnant because “it just happened.” They all had abortions.

I don’t think women (and certainly not men) like the idea of “planning” to have sex. At some level in their (our) brains — not the sex ed level! — they want it to “just happen.” And I doubt that’s going to change real soon.

Amy: “or at the very least an adult who could give her realistic and accurate answers to questions like: I’m 15–is this my last chance to have a baby?”
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what is “realistic” view?, the fact that she still has a lot more opportunities to get many more babies if she gets rid of this one?
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My God, since when did babies become disposables? I’m never able to reconcile the sensitivity of people who will send a man to prison for making dogs fight (rightly so) with the callousness of the same people who will dump a living being in a trash bag.
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I don’t think a 15 year old baby having another baby is the ideal situation, but we live with many things that are not ideal, in fact, most situations in life are not ideal. Yet, we don’t just snuff life out of everything that makes life non-ideal for us.
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BTW, I’m a democrat who happens to be a social conservative, so please, none of that drivel that is the only defense against anybody who is not a “liberal” and agree with you that a living baby in a womb is just an inconvenience.

Abortion is so horribly politicized that it’s nearly impossible to find the basic facts and statistics about it online. I just tried to find and corroborate a few statistics and didn’t have much luck. I can only imagine how a teen would process the information.

One thing unspoken is age. In the 40′s, the average age for a woman to get married for the first time in the US was between 20-21. That means that more than half of women were younger than 21. 2 18 year olds getting married and 1 27 year old getting married averages out to 21.
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With so many people getting married as teens back then, the “teens having sex” problem we have now gets looked at in a new light. There are no factory jobs these days for 20 year old men in great numbers to be able to strike out, get married to an 18 year old and start having “moral sex” as a family these days.
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Yes kids are having sex younger, but not that much younger on average. The marriage age has climbed. What ticks me off about social conservatives who blindly follow economic conservatism that has led to craptastic wages for younger people, is that they are a big part of the problem.
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If they really wanted horny teenagers to get married first, perhaps they would start supporting policies that allow them to be able to be self sufficient. Or they could support more tax cuts for the rich, and go scream about kids doing the nasty.

Liberals haven’t helped either, using passive language to avoid focusing blame on young parents.

What do you want to do? Stone them? Shame them in public?

Pregnancy, like sex, is normal for teens. It’s abstinence and birth control that are new concepts. Teenagers have been having kids for as long as there have been humans. The idea of putting off family for career is only a couple of generations old and it has created tragic situations for many. While it is unlikely that that was the girl’s only chance for a child that possibility does exist.

Teenage parents can put an extra burden on their families and communities but let’s not blow it out or proportion. Two generations ago it was a normal part of life. Maybe kids these days are better able to deal with parenthood.

Anyway, liberal or conservative, after we educate them and give them our love and support, it’s time to let young people live their lives. As a parent, I have supported the sex education the kids get from school and we have open discussions at home. If one of them ended up a teen parent I’d expect that kid to live up to the responsibility and they’d have the full support of family. It’s not what I want for either but we’d deal with it.

You go ahead with shame and punishment but keep it away from my kids. I’d give the kids my full support.

When I was in high school health class (4 years ago), when we went through the sex unit of the course, we learned about all the major STD’s, the risk of pregnancy, and the different methods of birth control. The unit also emphasized that abstinence, while not the only method of birth control, is the only 100% foolproof way (condoms have between 85%-90% success rate…not bad, but not 100% either). We also learned about how the success rate climbs into the upper 90s if two methods are correctly used. I really don’t see why there is such controversy over sex education, the way we learned at my high school was both effective and honest.
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In my opinion, if you aren’t prepared to face the possible consequences of sex (ie, pregnancy) you shouldn’t be having it, and more over there is absolutely no excuse to not use birth control. While I think abortion in many cases is simply a way to skirt responsibility, it’s also harmful to try to raise a kid as a single mom when you’re 15 years old. Adoption is the best option in these cases.

This is not the 1920′s or hell 1950′s. In today’ day and age and technology, there is no such thing as an unwanted pregnancy. You don’t want to get pregnant? Don’t have sex…PERIOD! Last time I checked, there has been only one incidence of immaculate conception in history(and hell, that can’t even be proven historically, just taken on faith). Otherwise, you run the risk of getting pregnant. But you just “gotta have sex” you say, then if ya want to cut down on the chance of getting pregant, then use a GOSH DARN condom, get some birth control pills, hell try the rhythm method if your completely naive and delusional, but there is no such thing as “it just happens”. NO IT DON’T. Unless your name is Mary, and your husband is Joseph.

Besides, “JUST SAY NO” works for having sex as well as doing drugs. (in most situations, not criminal…)

Looks like she can use use better education about English as well as sex.

Seriously, if our schools and their parents actually taught kids like this one to read and write and speak English, she might have had a better chance of getting the information she needed to make a choice (including the choice NOT to have sex at 14).

Scherer is on Hardball.
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For f–k’s sake, how does a chumpwad like that get a seat on Hardball?
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Did he make any actual points or did he just whine the whole time?

Living in a rural area in the Bible belt, I can say that sex education in our area does little to prepare teens for dealing with reality. Abstinence education is by far the primary focus. I support abstinence as one part of sex education, but only as one part of the whole. My stepson’s biological father is a minister and told him that sex before marriage was a ticket to hell. Masturbation was a ticket to hell. I didn’t get him until just a year or so before he hit his teens. His grandmother (lives with us) is a devout christian and thought that telling him not to have sex of any kind before marriage was the ticket. He was too embarrassed to talk to his mother about sex. His grandmother was adamant that I stay out of it. I took care of that by taking a pair of her underwear out of her drawer when she was in church, squirting some hand lotion in them and tossing them under his bed. When she cleaned up his room she begged me to have a LONG talk with him. That was nine years ago. He’s been responsible, respectful and doesn’t hesitate to talk to me about sex. I’ll never win any father of the year awards, but we sleep well at night.

Last time I checked, there has been only one incidence of immaculate conception in history(and hell, that can’t even be proven historically, just taken on faith).
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Technically, the term “immaculate conception” refers to the conception of Mary, who Catholic theology holds was miraculously conceived without sin, not the virginal conception of Jesus. I’m just saying.

“Even the most common description–”she became pregnant”–is a passive construction, unmoored from the actual procreative act that explains it.”

Sorry, assuming you’re actually talking grammar here, that is NOT a passive construction. It doesn’t contain a passive auxiliary OR a passive participle, and it has no active counterpart. It’s an inchoative, and it is an example of a syntactic construction which can be used (among other things) to suppress agency; but English is full of agency-suppressing syntax. The passive is only one example.

Was amused to read this the day after somebody linked me this: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i32/32b01501.htm , in which Geoff Pullum laments the poor understanding of the passive among today’s intelligentsia

Ok, this young girl lives in New York. New York is one of the most liberal and progressive states in the union, and you are blaming Republicans? Please.
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Apparently Planned Parenthood is NOT working, and the liberal education system, backed by the NEA is failing as well. When will you people stop blaming it on others, and take action?

Apparently 6 month old Bo is in for a rough ride in the confirmation hearings. And remember Bo’s parents have not (to my knowledge) released their tax records. They are obviously hiding something.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090413/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_dog

Rusty, yes NY is a liberal state but it also has some pretty Republican areas upstate which why the Senate in the state legislature tends to be Republican and a Republican can win a statewide race. Aside from that little tidbit, you might sound a little more knowledgeable if you also recognized that NY is an AFT stronghold.

Gunny isn’t it just absurd how much these folks are willing to politicize the children’s dog? And the attitude toward Malia’s allergy is like yeah we know but still getting a shelter dog would have sent a better message. These people should be ashamed or at least find something else to do — maybe get a dog.

NEA and AFT are basically one in the same Dee. What may I ask is your point?
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My point is predominantly New York IS a blue state. AFT and NEA are liberal progressive labor unions for Teachers. Both AFT and NEA promote sexual promiscuity so long as “education” is given to the child.
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My question, why are you all so hell-bent on blaming the right, when you should stop blaming and start asking those within your own party “why”?

Totally off topic but who wants to bet that Bernie Goldberg doesn’t get invited back to the Hannity Hatefest any time soon?
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http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200904130032?show=1
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Thats the perfect microcosm of the right at this moment. You have one guy in Goldberg who himself is an avowed wingnut whose book inspired a mad man to go shoot up a church last year. Yet HE is the voice of reason when it comes to Sean Hannity and still Hannity isn’t trying to hear any of it. The fail is so strong in that one!

No Amy… you should have titled this article “Passive Sex.”

And you know what? This might just be her “last chance.” It might be her last chance at the rest of a few remaining years as a girl. Her last chance at irresponsibility. Her last chance of less pressure to think only of herself. Her last chance doing what “everyone” else is doing.

Everyone else won’t have to face the challenges of being a teenage mother. Everyone else won’t care about her or this baby she brings into the world. Everyone else won’t care if she ever gets an education to be able to support her, above a fast food chain salary.

Kids need reality checks today. The schools resist anyone that could bring that to them. They certainly won’t get it at school sex education classes!

Here’s a guy that actually wants to get into schools to help kids.

http://elevateindustries.com/

Seems like this is something that should be covered by the religion reporter:

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http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDZlNjJmNmRlMGE1NGNkOWI5MzMzNWE2N2M4ODFiYjU=

[...] The Perils of the Passive Pregnancy (Time Magazine) There’s a lot of space in-between shaming sexually-active teenagers and pretending that there’s no agency involved in creating a baby [...]

There’s enough blame to go around for everyone. A major part of this problem is that we’ve divorced pregnancy from intercourse, and reproduction from responsibility. As parents, we owe it to our kids to provide them with information AND principles, knowledge AND expectations, boundaries AND supervision.

Sex is how humanity reproduces. Sex is fun, fantastic, mind-blowingly pleasurable. But is is how the species reproduces. Ask any couple who’s gotten preggers after “sterilization”. Biology finds a way.

Dee in Columbia, when society/parents/media/peers treat an action or outcome as undesirable, kids are less likely to engage in that behaviour. Why do fewer people smoke? Change in acceptance. Why do more teens engage in sex, and have an “if it happens” attitude? Acceptance. Too many parents are afraid of not being a kid’s buddy, of setting strong expectations and boundaries. We can teach them all the biology, but it better be matched with reality, with active parental expectations, participation, and supervision. Schools may need day-care centers, but most teen parents -mommies AND daddies- should lose the privilege of sports, of honors, anything that takes away from caring for THEIR child. Harsh? So is life as the child of teen parents, especially as the unwanted child, or the baby who fails at their job: providing unconditional love to mommie.