From: jfh@rpp386.lonestar.org (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: Re: fetus vs. baby
Date: 12 Aug 92 14:01:36 GMT
Distribution: tx
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Austin TX

In article <1992Aug11.231935.11842@watson.ibm.com>, john@johniac.austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti) writes:
> My original statement, if you recall, was that people had pre-marital
> sex before the "Pill" was available.  I have proven this.  You're the 
> one who brought up the pregnancy red herring with your flawed
> assumption that premarital sex always causes illegitimate children.
 
Grrrr.

You have to come up with some REASON that premarital sex doesn't cause
illegitimate children.  You can't just hypothicate that women didn't
get pregnant before there was birth control, or that every man who ever
got a woman pregnant married her immediately.  We KNOW that the
illegitimate rate was 3% or so.  We KNOW that sex and pregnancy are
well related.  What we are trying to determine is whether or not people
jumped up and got married the second the woman became pregnant.  Birth
control is far more effective today than it was 40 years ago.  Certainly
more pregnancies resulted from whatever sex there was.

Four or five times now I've asked you to come up with some numbers to
support your claim that men and women married the second the woman became
pregnant.  You've yet to do this.  Now I am going to ask those people in
this group who have sibblings that were conceived before their parents
were married to all step forward.  When I did this earlier this year,
EVERYONE that wrote me said their parents were married before the oldest
sibbling was conceived.  The way USENET usually works is people mostly
write to DISPROVE what you are claiming.  Now let's see how many people
come out of the woodwork to support your claim.

Women didn't suddenly become fertile because birth control came into
being ...

> Read again what I wrote.  Fifty-three percent had intercourse
> BEFORE their 18th birthday, not while they were 18.  This is additive.
 
It may be additive, but if 0% of all 10 year olds are having sex, the TOTAL
doesn't get any benefit.  Likewise, if 0% of all 11 year olds, and so on.
Remember that MY claim is only that 78% of all teenagers DON'T have sex.
Not that 78% of all 17 or 18 or 19 year olds.

> |> Remember that 11 year old kids are teenagers, too.
> 
> Oh I see, it's that language problem again.  Everyone else in the
> English speaking world defines TEENage as the ages that have the
> string TEEN in them (ie. thirTEEN through nineTEEN).

Huh?  TEEN age is the years in the TEENS.  That means, after the first
TEN.  Twenties are after the first TWENTY.  What do you call a ten year
old?  A "less than teenager?"  Decades come in groups of ten, not in
groups of seven ...

> |> If
> |> kids were into playing with themselves as much as parents worry about kids
> |> playing with themselves, there'd be more blind, bald 4 year olds than you
> |> can shake a stick at.
> 
> Please please tell me that you don't really believe this.

Of course I believe this.  Really.
-- 
John F. Haugh II                   | Life's Little Instruction Book:
Ma Bell: (512) 251-2151            | "#138.  Learn Spanish.  In a few years,
UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh |  more than 35% of all Americans will speak
Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org      |  it as their first language."