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From: csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Re: Planned Parenthood posting
Message-ID: <655@mit-vax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 02:08:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-vax.655
Posted: Sun Aug 18 02:08:18 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 07:28:03 EDT
References: <598@mit-vax.UUCP> <932@bunker.UUCP>
Reply-To: csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe)
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 276

In article <932@bunker.UUCP> garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) writes:
>Teen-agers definitely need guidance.  Ideally, this guidance is
>supposed to come from their parents.  The world is sometimes less
>than ideal,

I'm glad to hear that you are aware that the world is less than ideal.
Your arguments, however are based on the following assertion:

	"Teenagers are reckless and irresponsible,
	 so their parents should guide them."

How could anyone argue with this idea? You can't. Unfortunately, it is
not working and had not been working for years. Years, Gary. For YEARS
parents have been fucking up their job of guiding the young. You can
tell the parents of America to start doing their jobs until your blue in
the face, but it won't work.

And what if it did? What if the parents became ideal? Obviously, the
reckless and irresponsible teenagers wouldn't listen to them, right?
Right.

Did you ever read Romeo and Juliet? I'm sure their parents were highly
responsible...

I've inferred (I could be wrong) that your children have not reached
their teenage years. When they do, how will you know whether or not they
are having sex? A lot of parents wouldn't suspect their children ("We
didn't bring them up that way.") Here at MIT, I have an even better
perspective. All of the girls (read "young women") here were the "best
of the class -- all around good little girls." Now they are in college.
It's interesting to see how many "never-been-kissed" types just hop in
the sack when they are free of oppressive parents (I know countless of
such types). It's also interesting to see how many of these girls, who
can run circles around me on the subject of math or physics, have only a
vague idea of what birth control is. All of them, luckily enough, are
well-versed in biology and are not likely to do anything stupid.

>I didn't know you were a teen-ager.  That might explain some things.

This is typical of your judgmental attitude. Now that you know my age,
you can label me as "too young to know" and throw away my arguments.
I'll have you know that everything I say is based on experience and
observation -- not what the Bible says or what my parents told me or
what the Moral Majority (which is neither) puts in it's pamphlets.

>After all, I am not a teen-ager anymore; I am a parent.  So, my ideas
>must be silly and out-dated, even though they are the same ideas (to a
>large degree) my parents had when *I* was a teen-ager and thought that
>the same ideas were silly and out-dated.
....
>And they think they know better than their elders, until years
>later, when they (we) finally figure out that their (our) elders
>weren't so dumb after all.

This just proves my point. I never said teenagers had the right answers,
but your are right -- they do think they know better. You seem aware of
the teenage mindset, so why don't you act with it instead of against it?
If a teenager won't listen to his or her parents, he will learn only from
experience, friends or AN IMPARTIAL THIRD PARTY.

"Don't trust anyone over thirty." Teenagers don't trust older people.
They are having too much fun discovering what life is like. If you tell
them what to do -- they'll get mad. If you tell them WHY to do
something, they might think about it. 

On the other hand, teenagers are not interested in philosophy. "It's a
sin" carries NO weight whatsoever with most teenagers. Value judgments
don't mean anything to a person who is FORMING their values. Teenagers
are not acting on presuppositions, they are TESTING them. Typical
exchange:
Kid:"Should I try pot?"
Authority:"No it's wrong."
Kid:"I know that, but should I try it."
Authority:"It's bad for you?"
Kid:"I know that, but how bad -- can I die?"
Authority:"No, but..."
In fact, faced with HONEST reports of the health hazards, rather than
biased rhetoric, many teens are staying away from pot. 

>...and so the guidance does not always come from the right
>place and/or is faulty.  The guidance that says that it's OK to have sex
>with anyone at any time for any reason, as long as one takes
>"precautions," is faulty.

This is just the kind of value-judgments that teenagers hate. Anyway,
who says the advice is faulty? The Bible? Society? These sources mean
NOTHING, to the average teen. NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING. 

>> >Groin control works if you try it.

So does LSD. Does that mean it's good?

>> [Groin Control] is a silly idea that was out of date a long time ago.
>First, the age of an idea, per se, has nothing to do with its validity.

Yes, but "Groin Control" is passe. I'm not talking philosophy, I'm
talking fashion. Maybe you can do a rock video or something and make
celabacy fashionable again, but I really doubt it.

I know, I know:
>Sad, isn't it?
But, as you said, the world isn't ideal.

>How unfortunate that her parents didn't teach her [birth control], as is
>their responsibility.

They did teach her not to have sex (a nice Catholic Family). Funny how
these things just never work.
>Sad, isn't it?
But, as you said, the world isn't ideal.

>"Smartness" has little to do with the facts available to you.

Which is why even the brightest of teenagers needs the option of birth
control counseling.
 
>> The "confused children" who go to PP are PLANNING TO HAVE SEX. That's
>> right.
>
>All of them?  How do you know?

Because a teenagers that had decided not to have sex (for sure) would
not venture into a Planned Parenthood office. I'm sure, every now and
then, one does, but that's a fluke. If they had decided to "abstain",
they wouldn't look into birth control. You are a man who, I assume, does
not cross-dress; do you go into womens' clothing stores?

>Ray says he knows some who visited PP because they were curious. Do you
>say that he is lying, or that the kids he knows lied to him?

No, but I ask: were they curious about birth control or sexual activity?
If it was the former, then I was right -- they were probably planning to
have sex. If it is the latter -- that is a value judgment that they
will make by themselves.

Studies show, by the way, that the majority of teenagers who seek birth
control do so at least a month AFTER they become active [Source: Ask
Beth syndicated column]. I wonder how many (or how few) virgins walk
into a PP office.

>I don't think Ray would say that.  Putting words into someone's
>mouth is not very nice.  I imagine that Ray would say, "It only
>takes once to become pregnant."

Unless, of course, you use birth control. In that case, you merely risk
being a statistic (a LOW statistic). I'm sure Ray could conveniently
forget that fact.
>There you go again, putting words in someone else's mouth.
True enough, but this is hypothetical.

>I'm all for telling teen-agers the "no-nonsense" (is there another
>kind?) truth about birth control.  I'm also for telling them about
>the risks of VD.  And *all* the facts about abortion, like the
>problems it can cause later (increased chance of miscarriage for
>future pregnancies, etc.), and the developmental stages of the
>fetus.  They should know exactly what it is that's being aborted.

Then why don't you work part time at Planned Parenthood? That's what
they do.

>> I happened to have liked, and respected, my parents during high-school.
>> If, however, I told anyone this, I was immediately put on the defensive
>> wherein I'd have to illustrate some "cool" behavior they'd exhibited in
>> order to win the respect.
>
>That may be the saddest thing you have said.  You didn't have a whole
>lot of respect for your parents, if you were ashamed to admit it.  Nor
>did you have a lot of respect for yourself, if you felt you had to
>give in to others' demands that you be "cool."

I wish you would read what I write (your just like a typical parent :-),
I said I was put in the defensive BY THEM. 

You have clearly demonstrated an incredible lack of understanding of the
teenage mind.

>Far from not accounting for it, that scenario is exactly the thing
>Ray's suggestion is supposed to deal with.  Remember talking about
>"getting some no-nonsense advice"?  This is where it should come in
>(actually, it should come in earlier).  Ray says teen-agers are
>impulsive, and suggests that they should be advised to take time
>to reconsider.  You're saying that that won't work, because they
>are impulsive.  I.e., the solution won't work, because the problem
>exists.

Wha...? Read what you said, Gary. Teenagers are too impulsive. Granted.
They should take more time to think things over. Fine. Unfortunately,
this "solution" fails BECAUSE THEY ARE IMPULSIVE. The solution won't
work because it won't work. An analogous set of arguments:
Man A:I hate my C compiler. I could write better code in LISP.
Man B:Then write in LISP!
Unfortunately, as we all know, you can't compile LISP with a C compiler...

Also, if you don't give them birth control, will that make them less
impulsive?

>> If I may be so bold, Ray: when were you a teenager? 50's? 60's? (I'd be
>> hard pressed to believe 70's).
>
>What makes you think that ten or twenty years make so much difference?

Remember 1965? (I must admit that I don't!) There was no MTV. "Prince"
was not singing "Little Red Corvette". The Pill was new. The sexual
revolution was STARTING. People who wanted to assert their sexual
freedom had the support of a vocal counter-culture.
Remember 1985? (I do.) MTV sells sex (50% off :-), Maddonna shows us
that a woman (and a girl) can have power through sex. The sexual
revolution is taken for granted. People who want to assert their sexual
freedom are given conflicting signals in an increasingly conservative
atmosphere.

Is that enough difference?

>> Maybe the kids of today have problems (I've sure seen enough), but as
>> engineers (for the most part), we all know that you can't solve todays
>> problems with yesterdays solutions.
>What makes you think that today's problems are so much different
>from yesterday's?  I guess every generation thinks that they're
>the first.

That's right. So some smart people learned from the past: kids will have
sex. Parents will not prepare their kids for this. Something must be
done. Thus we have Planned Parenthood.

>> You say, "the kids just shouldn't have sex, don't encourage them." They
>> ARE having sex (a lot, too). The DON'T need any encouragement.
>
>Ray is simply saying that they need *less* encouragement (to be
>promiscuous), which comes from the TV, the radio, the movies, peers;
>why should it come from PP also?

Planned Parenthood is the only positive thing going. It gives answers
which you call encouragement. Sex is fun -- nobody needs to be told
that. Planned Parenthood mentions pregnancy -- and how to avoid it. If I
saw and advertisement that mentioned birth control as well as casual
sex, I would faint.

>> The difference between a child and an adolescent is that a child can be
>> told what to do and an adolescent must be helped to make the right
>> decisions -- for him/herself!
>
>But the adolescent often doesn't think he needs any help, except from
>other adolescents.  Thus, one of the things a child needs to be taught
>is how to make decisions, so he will be ready for adolescence.

My parents taught me how to make those decisions, so I breezed through
life. Maybe you will teach your kids how to make decisions. Most
parents don't.

Also, would you make a decision if you didn't have all the facts? A lot
of parents hide the facts about birth control from their children. The
children, not having a firm understanding of pregnancy, go on to have
sex. If they'd known the facts... 

Also, I have seen that many parents who say "NO SEX" don't get around to
birth control. "I told my daughter not to have sex -- this is all the
birth control she needs to know." 
>Sad, isn't it?
Yes, it is.

From personal experience: I once turned down an offer because there was
not proper "protection." The girl was stunned, the idea that she could
become pregnant had never occurred to her.

I'm not arguing ideas. I'm talking facts. 
>Ideally,
Ideally, I can assert anything. I can say that pigs fly. I'd doesn't
change the truth.
-- 
Charles Forsythe
CSDF@MIT-VAX
"We pray to Fred for the Hopelessly Normal
	Have they not suffered enough?"

from _The_Nth_Psalm_ in _The_Book_of_Fred_