Teenagers in Gloucester, Ma. made a “pregnancy pact” with each other: they would all get pregnant and help each other to raise the babies together. (Story here.) Advocates for comprehensive sex education claim that this is a result of abstinence-only education or of the inability of the girls to receive good birth control:
The question of what to do next has divided this fiercely Catholic enclave. Even with national data showing a 3% rise in teen pregnancies in 2006—the first increase in 15 years—Gloucester isn’t sure it wants to provide easier access to birth control.
This blogger’s take: giving contraception to people who want to get pregnant is like giving a fire extinguisher to an arsonist. Catholicism is certainly beside the point: is anyone really claiming that a bunch of Jews and Methodists would never have this problem?
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“This blogger’s take: giving contraception to people who want to get pregnant is like giving a fire extinguisher to an arsonist.”
Great illustration! I’m always amazed that the Planned Parenthood types blame everything on abstinence. They seem to have cashed hundreds of millions of $$ of checks from the government. Have they no accountability for what happens? If so, then we should stop giving them money (actually, we should stop giving them money either way).
Neil’s last blog post..The audacity of being an abortion survivor
Thank you, Neil.
Agree - we ought to stop giving them money, either way. I’m not quite sure why the federal government feels the need to tax us and redistribute the money for such projects (it seems as if concerned citizens can donate, in proportion to their numbers and their concern) anyway….
“Catholicism is certainly beside the point: is anyone really claiming that a bunch of Jews and Methodists would never have this problem?”
Depends on the church and the priest. There are more than a few out there who get a little heavy-handed, and can give the impression that the ultimate function of a woman is to bear children and be a mother…infusing the whole subject with a romance and mysticism that reality is hard-pressed to compete with.
Perhaps these young girls have absorbed the promises of the motherhood at the end of the abstinance without being convinced to wait until adulthood for such a blessed experience.
After all, the holy mother was a teenager…
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Thanks for setting things straight Teresa, I’ll let my wife know what a terrible thing she is doing (carrying our sixth child.)
Sam Pierce’s last blog post..WaPo Laments Racism… Then Gleefully Banks On It!
Teresa,
Absent evidence that these girls were coerced or pushed into becoming mothers, I think we can take this story at face value. The young women said they felt unloved - not that they weren’t fulfilling a godly function. I also find it a bit strange to infer that the Church pushed them into being unwed mothers, given that the Church is so stridently opposed to premarital sex. I’ve met my share of Catholic women, but none who wanted to fulfill her duty as a mother before getting married.
Sam - congratulations.
Thank you.
Sam Pierce’s last blog post..WaPo Laments Racism… Then Gleefully Banks On It!
Sam,
Please point out to me the words that say having children is terrible?
Since I’ve done it myslef a couple of times, I hardly think that it’s terrible.
Just that some people overly romanticize it and fill little girls heads with stupid and unrealistic ideas of what it’s like…like for instance giving them the impression that babies are a guarantee of feeling a non-stop flow of unconditional love.
You know, some days they do nothing but scream at you for no reason you can figure out, and they don’t stop until they vomit on you and fall asleep.
It’s not terrible…but it isn’t all ice-cream and puppies either.
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