Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site bunker.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittatc!bunker!garys
From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Re: Planned Parenthood posting
Message-ID: <932@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 13:53:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: bunker.932
Posted: Wed Aug 14 13:53:48 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 00:41:16 EDT
References: <598@mit-vax.UUCP>
Organization: Bunker Ramo, Trumbull Ct
Lines: 250

> As probably the only teen-ager on this newsgroup, I feel obligated to
> speak on behalf of the millions of young people that Ray Frank has
> decided to call children.

I didn't know you were a teen-ager.  That might explain some things.
(Yes, that was a cheap shot; my ability to resist temptation is a
little weak today.)  More seriously, have these millions of young people
agreed to let you be their spokesman?  As to being called children,
the first step to maturity is to realize that you're not there yet.
Though I could be twice your age (I doubt it, since you're out of
high school), in some ways I am still a child, which to me means only
that I have more to learn.  Not so bad, if you think of it that way.

> In article <10977@rochester.UUCP> ray@rochester.UUCP (Ray Frank) writes:
> >I don't believe that all kids who go to PP have entirely made the
> >decision one way or the other.  I've known kids who've gone there out of
> >curiosity or at the advice of their friends.  What they received was a
> >ten minute discourse on perhaps one of the most important decisions of
> >their young lives.
> 
> The decision has been made for them. It's been made for them on
> television, in the movies, on the radio, by their friends and by their
> own hormones.

I am sorry that the people you know have given up their ability to
make decisions.

> >Groin control works if you try it.

> This is a silly idea that was out of date a long time ago.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.
Second, there are millions of people who can testify that self-control
can work (they probably constitute a minority, but they still number
in the millions).  Have *you* tried it?  Probably not, if you have
let the media and your friends make your decisions for you.  And if
you haven't tried it, on what basis have you decided that it is silly?

> >Again, you insist on a non-gray area concerning the preconceived motives of
> >a child entering PP.  Too often they are frightened and confused about the
> >whole issue of early sexuality and have no real idea about the consequences.
> 
> Which is a good reason to get some no-nonsense advice. My girlfriend
> learned everything she knows about sex and birth control from her
> friends.

How unfortunate that her parents didn't teach her, as is their
responsibility.  (If her parents were not available, that's also
unfortunate.)

But what good is "some no-nonsense advice" if they have let the
media and their peers make the decision for them?

> Luckily, she's very smart (she got into MIT) and her friends
> were all pretty smart as well.

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

> Thus, she didn't learn some of the gems
> of wisdom that I've heard from the peers I had in high-school not too
> long ago.

> Some girls believed:douches are reliable birth control, abortion makes
> you sterile, only married people can get pregnant (I didn't believe she
> said that either), guys who smoke marajauna become sterile (sperm count
> drops *slightly*).
> 
> The "confused children" who go to PP are PLANNING TO HAVE SEX. That's
> right.

All of them?  How do you know?  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?  "That's right," is, I suppose,
intended to be proof, or substantiation?

> I'm sure I'll never convince Ray of that because he would sit
> them down and say:"Do it once and *Bango* you're pregnant!"

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."

> This would,
> of course scare the young lady into abstinence and create yet another
> misinformed teenage girl. What happens when her friend says,"I did it
> once, and I didn't get pregnant." She says,"OK, I'll do it once." Maybe
> she'll beat the odds like her friend.

> If you tell teen-agers the no-nonsense truth about birth control, they
> will use it.

If they don't forget.  If they're not too excited to stop long
enough to use a condom or a diaphragm, if that's the method of
contraception they chose.

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.

> If they are not planning to have sex they won't. If they do
> have sex, they were either raped, or had planned on it.

Or decided on the spur of the moment -- didn't you consider that
possibility ?

> >Sure the counselors are strangers to these kids, but so are their teachers in
> >schools, whom they were taught in advance to respect, obey, and look on as
> >a source of knowledge and wisdom.  This is called respecting your elders.
> 
> This is not a silly idea, but is way out of date.

Again, the age of an idea has nothing to do with its validity.
If it's not a silly idea, what does how old it is have to do
with anything?

> Kids in high-school know the weaknesses of their elders.

Do they know their own weaknesses?

> They often become disillusioned with the LACK of knowledge and
> wisdom they have.

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.

> Telling somebody to
> respect elders is one things, but respect must be earned.

> (I know, you'd suggest it could be "beaten" it).

There you go again, putting words in someone else's mouth.

> Although most of the problem can be found in the ignorance of
> teen-agers, a lot can be found in the lack of wisdom of "the elders".
> What makes you think the teachers get any respect?

You have a point here; teachers will only get respect if parents
have taught their children to respect both the parents and the teachers.

> >The parents are the established authority figures but the ideals taught at
> >home are in a constant state of errosion outside the home.
> 
> I beg to differ. Adolescence is a time of self-discovery. More often
> than not, this leads to a rebellion. All the the teen-agers I knew
> considered their parents as enemies.

Sad, isn't it?

> The parents didn't seem to
> understand what was going on. A teen-ager could go out in the early
> evening and get stoned with his friends, but if he came in after midnite
> because of a late movie, he'd be grounded. Such non-sequitorial
> authority is NEVER respected.

Yes, consistency is very important.

> 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."

> The "constant state of erosion" is a result of parents describing
> the world as one thing, and the kids finding out it's totally different.

Until they turn around and become parents, and find that it isn't
so different after all.  But why would you listen to me?  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.

> >I suggest that PP insist that children come back for several counseling
> >sessions to give impulse reactions a chance to be filtered out.  Second
> >thoughts are only good if you have a chance to use them.

> This is not a bad idea, but impractical. Teenagers are impatient by
> nature.  You do not account for the "I'm spending the weekend with my
> boyfriend in two days" scenario. Sure pills take a month to start, but a
> diaphragm can be gotten in a day.

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.

> 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?

> 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.

> 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?

> What they
> DO need is guidance. If you can guide them into celibacy, fine -- more
> power to you -- but I bet you can't. If they really didn't need
> guidance, there wouldn't be a Planned Parenthood.

Teen-agers definitely need guidance.  Ideally, this guidance is
supposed to come from their parents.  The world is sometimes less
than ideal, 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.  Now, as far as I know, PP doesn't
ever tell anyone that having sex would be a bad idea at this point
in his/her life.  If this impression is wrong, *please* let me know.
(I.e., tell me under what circumstances they advise against having
sex.)

> 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.

> -- 
> Charles Forsythe
> CSDF@MIT-VAX
> "I was going to say something really profound, but I forgot what it was."
> -Rev. Wang Zeep

Gary Samuelson
ittvax!bunker!garys