From: jennyg@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Jenny Gutbezahl)
Subject: Re: DATELINE: Bush fucks up!
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 20:47:20 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.175719.27402@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>>>It certainly depends on what we mean by education.  Obviously sex
>>>education is irrelevant because they knew how to get pregnant and
>>>wanted to.  (Voluntary birth control is also irrelevant.)
>>
>>Wait a minute.  Your not really saying that sex ed is pointless are you?
>
>I'm saying it can't reduce pregnancies by people who want to get
>pregnant.

So teaching children texactly what happens when you get pregnant, the 
pain of carrying a child to term, and the agony of labor.  What happens
when you start a family at the age of 15 and can't afford to care for
your children or yourself is not going to have an effect on young girls
who think that having a baby will give some sort of meaning to their
lives.  I think you're wrong.  I think that a fifteen year old who 
wants to have a baby probably hasn't thought through.  Most fifteen
year olds don't think much of anything through.  Giving them all the
information might help them make a more informed decision.  And that
decision will probably be to wait to have children.

>
>People who won't do something often think that their "if I was to do
>that, I'd do it because" comments tell us something useful about
>people who do.  Said commentators are wrong; their comments only tell
>us about them.  We know that they're very different from the people
>they're trying to talk about WRT the issue under discussion.
>

So you think that these girls who are getting pregnant have nothing
in common with the rest of the human race - that there is some intrin-
sic difference between teens who get pregnant and those who don't besides
education and social class.  There's some special I-want-to-get-knocked-
up-before-I'm-out-of-puberty-gene and those of us who don't have it can
never understand the way these girls think?  Please...

>>
>>So, what is exactly do with we do with a 15 year GIRL that intentionally
>>gets pregnant?
>
>I don't know.
>

For Christ's sake.  Educate her!  Teach her to take care of herself, and
her child if she opts to keep it.  And give her the option of continuing
school and her life so she can keep growing as an individual, as opposed
to stoping her life to bring up this child.

>
>It isn't obvious that abortion access is relevant either.  Abortion is
>chosen by 20-30 year old women, but the teens don't seem to keen on
>it.
>

Do you think this has anything to do with parental notification laws?
Do you think this has anything to do with the fact that 20-30 year old
women are better educated, if only in terms of having more life exper-
ience?  Do you think that if teenagers knew the responsibilities that
go with having babies *before* they have them, and how to keep from
having them, this might stop them from having them?

Just wondering....
Jenny


-- 
***************************************************************************
jennyg@titan.ucc.umass.edu is    :  I don't want to set the world
      Jenny Gutbezahl @          :   on fire, only Hoboken
    Univ. of Mass, Amherst       : 
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