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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!liz
From: liz@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Birth control and education
Message-ID: <1171@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Jul-83 18:53:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1171
Posted: Tue Jul 26 18:53:40 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Jul-83 09:45:23 EDT
References: ihlpf.174, <5590@unc.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 32


	From: tim@unc.UUCP

	The biggest problem was birth control.  It is difficult to
	get in a sex-negative environment.  Thus you manufacture
	preganancies where there need be none.  The forbidding of
	sex actually worsens the problems associated with sex, even
	though preventing those problems is presumably the reason
	for the forbidding.  The bottom line is that it doesn't
	work; to ameliorate problems you should spread information
	and enlightened attitudes, not ignorance and fear.

If educating teenagers about birth control simply helped the ones
who were active sexually use birth control, you might be right,
but there is a bit more to it than that.  For example, these days
some parents get their daughter onto birth control pills because
they are afraid of her getting pregnant.  This is a legitimate
concern, but often the daughter reads it as the parents approving
of her becoming sexually active or (at least) that they expect her
to be sexually active.  Then, she becomse sexually active sooner
than she would have if she had understood that her parents really
did not approve.  The parents, of course, did not mean to encourage
her...

Notice also that the incidence of teenage pregnancies has greatly
increased, not decreased in recent years as there has been more
emphasis on sex education.

-- 
				-Liz Allen
				 ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz (Usenet)
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