Thoughts on the "Teenager Pregnancy Pact"
It is tempting to put on my quavering old man voice and say, "In my day, teenagers would never get pregnant on purpose. Heck, in my day teenagers didn't even have sex."
Laugh if you will, but it was generally true. Most of us necked and petted almost to the point of frenzy, but we didn't "go all the way," and the few that did would be either from among the "hood" element or would soon become the talk of the school. Indeed, since back then a girl who "got in trouble" either got married or left school, I can recall only two pregnancies out of my class of about 500, well three, since a friend of mine got a girl from another school pregnant and married her secretly. Yes, there may have been a few secret abortions but abortion was illegal then and was generally considered to be wrong.
A primary reason for less underage sexual intercourse in that era: We were expected to refrain--indeed, that message was pounded nonstop and unequivocally into our hormone-addled brains. And being members of the exceptional species, we had the capacity to--and usually succeeded--in resisting. Indeed, every authority figure we had--from school teachers, to parents, to popular culture--supported teenage chastity. The magazines for young women, for example, told the girls how to say no, not how to please a boy the first time in bed. And we boys were told that if we got a girl with child, we would be expected to marry or or at least, get a job and support our family.
That was then (circa 1963-67), this is now. Apparently 17 teenage girls in Massachusetts got pregnant on purpose in a pregnancy pact. From the story:The girls showed up repeatedly at the high school health clinic, asking for pregnancy tests. But their reactions to the test results were puzzling: high-fives if they were expecting, long faces if they weren't. School officials in this hard-luck New England fishing town say an alarming 17 girls--four times the usual number--became pregnant this year. And even more disturbing: Some of the girls may have made a pact to have babies and raise them together.
People are asking why. The reporter implies it was due to this:City and school officials in this town of about 30,000 people 30 miles north of Boston have been struggling for months to explain and deal with the pregnancies, where on average only four girls a year at the 1,200-student high school become pregnant. Just last month, two officials at the high school health center resigned to protest the local hospital's refusal to support a proposal to distribute contraceptives to youngsters at the school without parental consent. The hospital controls the clinic's funding.
As if it is bad to believe that medicating children without their parents' knowledge is wrong. Besides, if the story is true, they got pregnant on purpose, not because they didn't have knowedge about or access to birth control.
Teenagers are not adults but in some of the most important areas of their development, we treat them as if they are. And they are being hurt. Badly.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 7:13 AM
22 Comments
22 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Your post gives us a sense of the cohort you were in, but not much else. I think it's important to circumscribe the breadth of the group you're talking about here. Lots of people went to high school between 1963 and 1967. (Lots of them got pregnant, too.) Which ones do you claim were chaste — and which ones were chaste because of the nonstop, unequivocal conveyance of adults' high expectations? Surely not all members of our exceptional species, right? From what you wrote, it sounds like the poorer students ("the 'hood' element"?) weren't getting the message.
Anyway, I'm sure you noticed that the message was very different for girls and boys, in your narrative. So what unequivocal message are you recommending?
Ronni: Thanks for dropping by. You are the one making assumptions, e.g. that the "hood element" was primarily made up of the poorer classes. I grew up in a decidedly (at that time) white bread middle class area (Alhambra, CA) in which there was some diversity of economic makeup, but few dramatic differences. The "hoods" were generally not poor. I didn't know why they became "hoods," but even that term would hardly be applied to them today as their conduct was relatively benign by today's stamdards (they smoked, drank, shop lifted, got into fist fights, and had sex.) That's how dramatically things have changed.
What I said about my life and my time as a teenager was purely anecdotal to time and place. But for that time and in that place, teenage chastity was the overwhelming rule, not the rare exception, and it was supported at all levels, as I said. That induced most of us--at my school--to restrain ourselves, proving it can be done, not that it was always done (as I mentioned). But that is a huge difference between humans and animals. Even when we are young, we can resist our natural urges if we wish. We can remain chaste when we want to have sex. We can be vegeterian when a natural food for us is meat. And we can do it based on moral grounds. Animals don't have that capacity.
With regard to teenagers and sex today, that cat of uniform authority figure message is long out of that particular bag. I don't know what to do today, and is way beyond anything about which I have an informed opinion. But I do know that what we are doing is very damaging. All you have to do is look at the casualties.
My only positive assertion in the post was that parents should not be kept in the dark when their children are given strong medications (or other medical interventions)--at least with regard to the age group in this story--under 16.
Thanks for your answer, Wesley! I think you're right about parents being informed if their <16 kids use birth control pills. (Were those contraceptives being distributed really BCPs and not condoms? Would you say the same thing about condoms?)
Like you said, no contraceptive distribution is going to be effective for kids bent on getting pregnant. But then, what's really the problem? is it that teenagers are having sex, period? Is it that they're getting pregnant? That they're evidently very misinformed about about parenting? (& that the sex they're having is therefore extra-irresponsible?)
Unlike animals, teenage humans can restrain themselves from having sex, on moral grounds. On the other hand, it seems to me that the social mores you described in your post vastly overstated the moral grounds for that sort of restraint.
Ronni: I didn't state that there were any particular grounds for moral grounds for the restraint. As I recall, most generally accepted the premise that premarital sex was morally wrong. I even recall one of the big "hoods" and the head cheerleader having an argument in drama class about whether a woman should be a virgin on her wedding night. She said yes, he said no. I was open-mouthed because those two generally didn't talk, and she never talked to me and I was afraid to talk to him!'
All this changed within a few years of these events, of course, with my "virginal" cohort leading the way.
But there were also the issues of consequences, for boys, we were urged to be gentlemen and not take advantage of a girl's virtue (sounds quaint now, doesn't it?) and of maintaining self control.
And those who are inclined to dispense
oral contraceptives like candy to underage
girls might spend some time researching
the actual side effects for women using
those steroidal agents.
One of OB/GYN's dirty little secrets I learned in medical school was that OCPs don't work that great in teenagers because teenagers are notoriously non-compliant. There's a reason you can't vote until 18 or buy alcohol until 21. OB/GYNs would prefer to give them depot shots, but then the teenagers feel like crap and don't continue with them.
Unfortunately, parents aren't, or can't be involved in these decisions. Another thing I didn't know until I was a medical student (and I would bet the general population doesn't know) is that by law, children are able to go to a physician for birth control, treatment of an STD, or mental health treatment and are entitled to the same confidentiality as an adult. If they requested a tylenol, the physician would have to get permission to treat from the parents first.
This of course creates a whole host of other issues for physicians (mostly pediatricians and Family physicians) who chose to do this (the other option is to just have a policy that you will not counsel or distribute contraception to minors). The physician usually has to not document what actually was discussed with the patient as the parents could at some time review the chart (they still have the right to that). And then they can't bill the insurance company because the parents will get the Explanation of Benefits. This creates real ethical dilemma (although most physicians don't perceive it as such) as it it unethical to knowingly omit vital portions of the history, assessment and plan for the patient's note.
It don't even make good nonsense for people to be talking about birth control dispensing as some kind of response to this situation. These kids wanted to get pregnant. Why are people even bringing up birth control?
I guess because it's supposed to be a cure-all. Maybe they think rays will come out of the condoms or BCP packs and make them change their minds!
I like your take on this Wesley, though in the comments you backed off from saying what needs to be said: Why not say that people should not have sex until they are married?
Mike Bradley, wouldn't that stuff about being "entitled to confidentiality" for STD's, contraception, and such vary from state to state? Did they just say that this was the law or did they actually show you the texts of the laws in question?
How about mandatory reporter laws? If a minor is having intercourse below the statutory rape law, many state laws (though notoriously flouted) would require a doctor to report this.
Here's an informative link on the subject Mike Bradley was talking about. The authors clearly have a bias, but in any even they do give some info. that shows this not to be quite as Mike was told by his medical superiors:
http://tinyurl.com/4zd7gz
Evidently while some states expressly permit minors to get the services in question without parental consent, most are silent on the question of whether this means that the medical records must remain confidential from the parents. Moreover, plenty of states are also silent on whether teens can consent to these services without parental consent, leaving in place the usual presumption that these services are no different from others. Under the Clinton administration, some sort of interpretation was in the air that if a state expressly permits minors to get some sort of treatment without parental consent, their records must remain confidential as well from parents. But the Bush administration expressly introduced language into a subsequent bill that clarified that this is not the case and that in such cases it is up to the doctor whether to give the parents access to the records. From there on out it has actually been a matter of medical practice that if a kid can consent to a treatment without parental permission you must hide the records from the parents, but not a matter of law.
John Howard wrote: "Why not say that people should not have sex until they are married?"
...cause it's... ahem.. humm.... fraking retarded??? Do you really want people to waste years of their own sexual lives on such a silly religious notion of marriage??? ...what a party pooper you are!!! Shame on you! =P
...Sweet Jeebus.... ô.O.
Ricardo, many of us waited. You should have tried it. No doubt it wasn't easy, there were tough times, and years of longing, but for us who waited, it was worth it. Don't knock it.
@Wesley: oh, quaint puts it too mildly! I'm very grateful to your cohort for the damage it did to that particular trope.
By the way, sorry for assuming that "hood" was a socioeconomic designator. I was envisioning your "'hood' element" as equivalent to my high school's "city kids" — students who were brought in from the Big City through a desegregation bussing program. (Doesn't that sound quaint? And yet, this is now!)
@Don: I'm kind of amused at the suggestion of "trying" abstinence-until-marriage. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can dabble in, to see-how-you-like-it.
hehehehe nice one Ronni ;)
"applauds" :D
Don... no thanks, too late! :D
Glad it was a nice experience for you though... :)
Lydia, here's the link to the code of Virginia, which is where I went to med school and completed residency:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+54.1-2969
Scroll down to section E.
Yes, it would vary from state to state, but generally speaking, in those three areas (birth control, STDs, an mental health) a minor can consent to treatment without parental consent. This is the standard that review material for the USMLE use and would be accepted as correct for the test itself. How various physicians "cover it up" is just anecdotal. I'm an Internist and don't treat pediatric patients.
Mike is right. And that is wrong.
sheesh, it's one thing to wait, it's another to say that people should wait. Two different things, and adults ought to know how to carry the weight of their sins on their own shoulders instead of sloughing it off on 15 year old girls for them to carry.
Ronni, I think your profile indicates you are capable of figuring out what I meant. There's nothing amusing about abstinence.
Ricardo, it wasn't an experience. I was saving it as a gift to my future wife, and Mrs. Nelson says she's very happy about that, and is happy that I will never give her herpes, AIDS, HPV, VD, Gonorhea, Syphillis, Hepatitis and etc from a previous relationship, or that a previous relationship of mine will kill her, and that I've given her a part of me that no one knows and that I won't be comparing her to anyone else. Might not mean anything to you, but it does to us.
Marriage and relationships are tough, but when you bring other people into your relationship/marriage through your sexual history, it has to be harder for most people. I suspect we have less hangups than people who are experienced at hook ups. Hard as it was, Mrs. Nelson, who is an exceptional lady, was way, way, way worth the wait.
So I agree with John Howard, and hope there are more people like him challenging people to wait until marriage for their own good.
Thanks for the link, Mike. You're absolutely right. It looks like in Virginia you have to keep the medical records from the parents unless you have the permission of the minor to disclose them. That's how I interpret the last sentence of section E. The Guttmacher report mentioned that there are some states that do say that. And that's really bad.
When I hear the Gardasil ads (shots to partly reduce therisk of girls, young women getting cervical cancer) I want to choke.
So maybe the girl's chance of getting certain cancers is reduce (tho there's still about a one in three or one in four risk of getting certain cancers).
A few less DEADLY BULLETS in the gun (until cervical cancer maybe mutates a bit into a vaccine resistant form).
BUT STILL - SEX CAN KILL OR MAIM our youth.
Yet we preach NONRESTRAINT and hooking up as if it were a "virtue".
How incredibly self destructive and directly destructive to young girls!
Even though this is older I had to comment on it. First off, here here to Viking Mom who is gagging on the gardasil adds. They are so incredibly irresponsible! Telling woman we can 'protect' them so that they can safely sleep around is as responsible as, as she mentions, saying the gun is safe because it has 5 bullets instead of 6 in it! "Comprehensive Sex Ed" does 2 things, underminds parental teachings and gives children a false sense of security. A big problem among teenagers is their attempt to prove themselves indestructable, and the last things they need is another reason to feel 'bullet proof'. Even according to the UN (an incredibly pro-condom organization) condoms are about 80% effective against pregnancy and 70% effective against HIV/AIDS. Independant studies show only a 40-60% (depending upon the specifics of use) effectiveness against HIV/AIDS, yet in sex ed students are told that condoms will 'keep them safe' and, if any % of failure/effectiveness is mentioned at all, its the (completely false) 95% effectiveness towards pregnancy! In direct response to the article itself (instead of the side issue of 'birth control'), in a way these girls (in their own very immature way) were taking back their natural womanhood from the sex-crazed, abortion-hungry, population-control, feminist movement that tells them 1) sex is without consequence and should be for 'fun' not procreation, 2) any 'consequences' that do happen should be destroyed, and 3) they should ignore their natural biological urge to have children so they can be 4) 'liberated' women. Ironically in doing something incredibly stupid (intentionally having sex before marriage) they are showing themselves (although I expect it was entirely inadvertent) to be far more womanly than the vast majority of 'mature' woman.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home