That's what Rachel Lucas is doing. Well, someone has to do it, since society at large seems to have abdicated its role.
Like her, I was struck by the stupidity of this, reported apparently completely unironically, as though it made, you know, sense:
The Gloucester baby boom is forcing this city of 30,000 to grapple with the question of providing easier access to birth control...
Well, hey folks. It's hard to see what that would do for this particular little baby boomlet.
There may be some problems that are solved by easier access to birth control, but brainless young women going out of their way to get knocked up isn't one of them. I think, for that, there will have to be some other solution (unless by "easier access," they mean tubal ligation).
"tubal litigation"?
What kind of lawsuit is that? ;-)
That could well be "ligation", which is just as drastic.
I hear they finally approved depo provera in the USA a couple of years back, after it's been available for thirty years in the rest of the civilized world. That would work.
Obviously, it's a lawsuit over a spelling error that spell chequers won't find...
I guess on the bright side, if this keep up we won't have population issues like Europe and Japan.
I hear they finally approved depo provera in the USA a couple of years back, after it's been available for thirty years in the rest of the civilized world. That would work.
Unless you force teenaged girls to use Depo Provera, it will be useless. Those girls had access to contraceptives. The news reports indicated that they WANTED to get pregant. Even dumb teenagers are usually smart enough to know not to use birth control if they want to get pregnant.
What is the detailed argument that getting pregnant is a priori being stupid, if you're a teenage girl?
I fear it's going to be something brainless along the lines of you should stay in school and go to college first. This is not actually true. For those who want to be aerospace engineers and have the chops for it, this would be true, but those girls are not going to be getting pregnant anyway.
For others, college is just a waste of time and money. There's nothing useful to your life you're going to take away from deconstructing Zora Neale Hurston or learning to write PC bullshit with the assistance of Wikipedia. You'd be better off getting a real job, learning to balance books and handle customers in a small business, and, yeah, getting married and starting your family while you're young and energetic.
A good argument can be made that a girl shouldn't get pregnant until she's got a husband, has formed some stable dyadic within which to raise the child. But I doubt that argument will be made, although it's the good one. The argument that they're stupid because they're merely young and have willy-nilly replaced extended education and rat-race 24/7 career-building with starting a family is without merit.
> What is the detailed argument that getting pregnant is a priori being stupid, if you're a teenage girl?
I'd argue that a teenaged girl having a kid with a guy is pretty stupid just about any way you roll it.
(sorry, editing error in my earlier comment)
> What is the detailed argument that getting pregnant is a priori being stupid, if you're a teenage girl?
I'd argue that a teenaged girl having a kid with a homeless guy is pretty stupid just about any way you roll it.
Any way that's different from my final paragraph, Neil? Or are you agreeing with me?
Carl,
I almost wrote the same response as Neil. I won't speak for him, but I can agree that the comment does fit your last paragraph (one reason I didn't post it). However, you make the claim the argument will not be made, yet I've heard the story of the girl getting pregnant with the 24 year old homeless guy as the prime example of the foolishness of these girls.
Look, if the girl dallied with the captain of a football team, who is looking at a free ride playing for a D1 college, then maybe she's thinking ahead. I grew up across the street with a girl, who had her 2nd child at 16, because she knew it would give her more welfare benefits. Certainly foolish and short-sighted, but such action on her part was not necessarily stupid. The girl was able to determine an acceptable reward for her action.