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Polonius wrote:What does even one year of public education cost the various levels of government?

Good question. I hope someone from the netherlands, sweden etc can answer.
When I take my kids to visit their grandparents in Reykjavik, I am always astounded by the level of sexual education, and the lack of unplanned births. Yet teenagers over there like to "feth" like bunnies as it were.

Ahtman, to put it better, I don't understand how government providing borth control is any better than anyone else providing birth control. Would it be any more difficult to go down to the ol goverment condom depot than it is to the corner store? Are they just going to start mailing them out to people? And how do they decide who gets them if they do? I don't see this having any real impact, birth control these days is more than common and not expensive or in any way hard to come by. The only way it would be easier is if it were free(well, at the point of picking it up, someone still pays for it). But even with the widely available and affordable forms of birth control, people are still having children they cannot support that become drains on goverment spending(Pelosi said this? Surely this is the end times!). That is the problem, and I don't see subsidized contraceptives solving it any more than what is available now.

Railguns wrote:Ahtman, to put it better, I don't understand how government providing borth control is any better than anyone else providing birth control. Would it be any more difficult to go down to the ol goverment condom depot than it is to the corner store? Are they just going to start mailing them out to people? And how do they decide who gets them if they do? I don't see this having any real impact, birth control these days is more than common and not expensive or in any way hard to come by. The only way it would be easier is if it were free(well, at the point of picking it up, someone still pays for it). But even with the widely available and affordable forms of birth control, people are still having children they cannot support that become drains on goverment spending(Pelosi said this? Surely this is the end times!). That is the problem, and I don't see subsidized contraceptives solving it any more than what is available now.

Government subsidies for female contraceptive pills would help a lot, as it's easier to get women to take a pill than convince guys to wear a condom.

Better, perhaps like that. I don't know the going rate myself but then if people become dependant on subsidized birth control pills then you may very well have a sustained spike in cases of std proliferation and illnesses associated with unmonitored birth control usage. Moreso the medicinal issues really, as if people are getting pregnant at such an alarming rate then STD transmission probably can't get any worse.

Railguns wrote:Ahtman, to put it better, I don't understand how government providing borth control is any better than anyone else providing birth control. Would it be any more difficult to go down to the ol goverment condom depot than it is to the corner store? Are they just going to start mailing them out to people? And how do they decide who gets them if they do? I don't see this having any real impact, birth control these days is more than common and not expensive or in any way hard to come by.

That depends on where you live. Some places, like St. Louis, make it incredibly difficult for anyone under 18 to gain access to birth control without parental consent.

Railguns wrote:
The only way it would be easier is if it were free(well, at the point of picking it up, someone still pays for it). But even with the widely available and affordable forms of birth control, people are still having children they cannot support that become drains on goverment spending(Pelosi said this? Surely this is the end times!). That is the problem, and I don't see subsidized contraceptives solving it any more than what is available now.

We could also teach real sex education in public schools instead of the garbage that is usually spouted off. Sure, the genital warts freak-out slide show has its purpose, but it really doesn't convey any useful information to a 16 year old boy/girl who is smitten and possessed of an invulnerability complex.

What do you suggest teaching then? Are there really endemic numbers of kids out there that believe for some reason un-protected sex won't cause pregnancies? I'm sure it isn't comfortable but do parents not teach their kids anything anymore either? I know teenagers can be stupid, but are they really stupid enough to believe that millions of years of evolution would stop so they could have consequenceless sex without contraceptives?

I've seen students at my school, a pregnancy and kids in distress education center, get pregnant because their friends were. They are even more foolish than we can imagine.

Railguns wrote:Ahtman, to put it better, I don't understand how government providing borth control is any better than anyone else providing birth control. Would it be any more difficult to go down to the ol goverment condom depot than it is to the corner store? Are they just going to start mailing them out to people? And how do they decide who gets them if they do? I don't see this having any real impact, birth control these days is more than common and not expensive or in any way hard to come by. The only way it would be easier is if it were free(well, at the point of picking it up, someone still pays for it). But even with the widely available and affordable forms of birth control, people are still having children they cannot support that become drains on goverment spending(Pelosi said this? Surely this is the end times!). That is the problem, and I don't see subsidized contraceptives solving it any more than what is available now.

It isn’t just handing out condoms. There are also education and information programs, helping people make informed choices.

Well, I assume so anyway, these kinds of programs normally include that stuff.

Railguns wrote:What do you suggest teaching then?

A short list:

sex is not immoral
sex is not wrong
sex is not dirty
sex is natural
sex has consequences
you can deal with those consequences
your body is your own, not your parents'
contraception is proof of responsibility

Railguns wrote:
Are there really endemic numbers of kids out there that believe for some reason un-protected sex won't cause pregnancies?

Yes. Largely because, despite popular illusions to the contrary, there are ways to strategically prevent pregnancy without contraception. They aren't as effective as actual contraception, but they do work more often than not. Something which is usually good enough for two kids that are nervous about telling the world they are having sex.

Railguns wrote:
I'm sure it isn't comfortable but do parents not teach their kids anything anymore either?

Parents tend to teach their kids to the standard by which they were taught, which was woefully inadequate in most cases.

Railguns wrote:
I know teenagers can be stupid, but are they really stupid enough to believe that millions of years of evolution would stop so they could have consequenceless sex without contraceptives?

Yes. As someone who was a teenager not too long ago, I can say that, most certainly, yes.

The Republican sex education plan (in my state anyway) goes as follows: ABSTINENCE ONLY! SEX IS DIRTY! YOU"LL DIE FROM STD'S IF YOU EVEN SEE GENITALS!

The pill is cheaper then paying for pregnancy leave in both government and private sectors. Children cost money and give no tangible economic return for years. She's correct.


That said, man did she chose a bad way to phrase that crap.

Well I suppose we'll see either way in a few years. Where I'm from, my parents needn't have told me anything and I actually skipped out of sex ed and I knew better. I don't see how people can possibly screw such a thing up, but thats just me.

Railguns wrote:Well I suppose we'll see either way in a few years. Where I'm from, my parents needn't have told me anything and I actually skipped out of sex ed and I knew better. I don't see how people can possibly screw such a thing up, but thats just me.

Not being able to understand different ideas doesn't make you smarter than other people, it actually means you aren't as smart as you think you are more often than not.

Oh I realize that these kids are from different backgrounds with different experiences; brought up ignorant of many important facts or taught things contrary to reality. That doesn't mean that it still isn't at least a bit disheartening to think that there are people out there actually making such huge mistakes with their lives that are entirely preventable. Even moreso the fact that there is probably a subset of the population in every town and city making the same mistakes people have been making for years and keeping up a cycle that prevents their lives from ever taking off.

Edit:(not to flame but if that was an ego stab, I see what you did there.)

dogma wrote:

Railguns wrote:What do you suggest teaching then?

A short list:

sex is not immoral
sex is not wrong
sex is not dirty
sex is natural
sex has consequences
you can deal with those consequences
your body is your own, not your parents'
contraception is proof of responsibility

Railguns wrote:
Are there really endemic numbers of kids out there that believe for some reason un-protected sex won't cause pregnancies?

Yes. Largely because, despite popular illusions to the contrary, there are ways to strategically prevent pregnancy without contraception. They aren't as effective as actual contraception, but they do work more often than not. Something which is usually good enough for two kids that are nervous about telling the world they are having sex.

Railguns wrote:
I'm sure it isn't comfortable but do parents not teach their kids anything anymore either?

Parents tend to teach their kids to the standard by which they were taught, which was woefully inadequate in most cases.

Railguns wrote:
I know teenagers can be stupid, but are they really stupid enough to believe that millions of years of evolution would stop so they could have consequenceless sex without contraceptives?

Yes. As someone who was a teenager not too long ago, I can say that, most certainly, yes.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

I believe that children are our future.

We need hardly worry about the economic consequences when there is already rampant unemployment and the main effect of having children is to devalue women's salaries, thus making their labour cheaper.

There are people ignorant enough to think that you can't get pregnant the first time.

The way to deal with such a problem is proper sex education. Look at what works (the Scandinavian and Dutch systems) and compare it with what doesn't work (the British and US systems.) Then pick a system that works. Hardly rocket science.

Scandinavia and Holland have much better social welfare then the UK and US. Obviously good welfare, sex education and free contraceptives do not cause an explosion of teen pregancy -- if anything, they would seem to discourage it. (Correlation =/= causation, of course.)

One reason that teenage girls get pregnant is because they have no better life prospects. Armed with a crappy, low quality education they are condemned to stacking shelves in Walmart if they are lucky. Becoming a mother gives them some kind of self-esteem.

Railguns wrote:Well I suppose we'll see either way in a few years. Where I'm from, my parents needn't have told me anything and I actually skipped out of sex ed and I knew better. I don't see how people can possibly screw such a thing up, but thats just me.

The education, or the expectations about sex?

The education gets screwed up because the most overtly moralistic members of any given school district, or state, tend to be the most vocal with respect to what is being taught. There was much talk of shenanigans when I was in high school because our health teacher refused to use the D.A.R.E. program because it didn't teach kids how to handle things like alcohol poisoning, or drug overdoses. Something about 'endorsing unsafe behavior'. Never underestimate the ability of a bored housewife, or church group, to hold aspirations to 'The Good Society'.

The expectations get screwed up because we as a nation, are ungodly squeamish about sex. We don't talk about it, and we look down upon the people that do talk about it. This manifests itself in a number of ways culturally, but the most obvious one at this point is the gay marriage debate. Yes, a lot of people are uncomfortable with homosexuality, but the reason they are uncomfortable with it is that it forces them to take sexuality as something which isn't a given. It isn't something which can be assumed, or written out of the public square. It has to be addressed, and questioned.

Even the English language shows the extent to which we refuse to imagine sex. For example, the word 'sexual' denotes anything between the sexes. It took on its modern meaning, something more akin to sensual, only after the proliferation of media made it impossible to ignore the fact that there was something different that went on in the bedroom. At about the same time 'sex' became a means of referring both to the general classification of 'male' or 'female', and the actual act of sex. Something which also came to be know as 'sexual intercourse', an archaic concept which denoted only interaction between the sexes but increasingly applied to physical intimacy as the barriers between men and women eroded.

I personally truly believe that people should be (reversibly) sterilised at birth, and then given parenting classes in school. When they want a child they can submit an application, take a basic test for knowledge and ability, and upon approval have the process reversed.

Lordhat wrote:I personally truly believe that people should be (reversibly) sterilised at birth, and then given parenting classes in school. When they want a child they can submit an application, take a basic test for knowledge and ability, and upon approval have the process reversed.

Do you really want to give government the authority to tell you you can have a child? Or do you just assume you'll pass because you're middle class?

o man black and white has never looked more gray...

what is it with people these days. morals have been shot to to make way for what people like and want to do.... after all if it feals good, it MUST be good right??

Just because it feels good. Doesn't make it right.

Skunk Anansie was straight on the money with that one.

P.S. Actually properly on subject I was given a full sexual education at the age of 10 when I lived in Scotland, and again in England when I was 13. Hence no STI's no STD's and certainly no bloody kids eating into my wages!

Education is key. Hobble it, and the world is in a bad place.

So would we be better served with sex ed or contraceptives? Does this bill provide for just contraceptives? It seems the consensus here has moved to education being the main deterrent in unplanned pregnancies. If this is so, then does this bill simply deal with the symptoms rather than treat the source?

Railguns wrote:So would we be better served with sex ed or contraceptives?

Again you don't sacrifice one for the other; you use both to get the best results. People learn the realities of sexuality and the importance of being responsible for their reproductive habits. Most people would pay for their birth control if they could afford it and those who can't for various reasons have access. It is a balancing act obliviously but just tossing the idea out all together doesn't really work either.

Indeed. You need both.

IT's all fine and well telling the kids about safe sex and the pitfalls of not practicing it, but it's utterly pointless if you then don't make said contraceptives freely available.

Just tell everyone to have gay sex. Problem solved.

malfred wrote:Just tell everyone to have gay sex. Problem solved.

Speaking of which, here's your socks Frazzled.

Frazzled speechless!!!

I mean does the bill provide for both? It seems like all it provides for is subsidized contraceptives. We've obviously concluded that sex ed is also important. Does the bill provide for education at all?

Railguns wrote:I mean does the bill provide for both? It seems like all it provides for is subsidized contraceptives. We've obviously concluded that sex ed is also important. Does the bill provide for education at all?

Update but from Drudge so take with heavy salt:

Democrats may have eliminated provisions on birth control and sod for the National Mall in the "job stimulus" -- but buried on page 147 of the bill is stimulation for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases!

The House Democrats' bill includes $335 million for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

In the past, the CDC has used STD education funding for programs that many Members of Congress find objectionable and arguably unrelated to a mission of economic stimulus [such as funding events called 'Booty Call' and 'Great Sex' put on by an organization that received $698,000 in government funds.]

"Whether this funding has merit is not the question; the point is it has no business in an economic plan supposedly focused on job creation," says a stimulated Hill source.