My new pet peeve! Public Transport.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Thats OK Pack, nobody is perfect, something I prove everyday much to my chagrin

[packsaddle 753]

Gee thanks. It is almost as if I don't hear about my imperfections already, maybe a couple hundred times a day from my wife.

[Ohio_Scouter 10]

packsaddle, OGE,

 

Looks like Merlyn_LeRoy posted the story elsewhere on these forums at the same time. He and Ed are already arguing about it. Let me know if I need to repost.

 

Thanks

[scoutldr 732]

I, too am now unable to edit. I used to be able to. Moderators???

[Joni4TA 10]

Hey, YEAH! Let's just punish people who have morals, and seek revenge on anyone who tries to raise a new generation to have morals too! What evil people those Boy Scouts are.... we should extort money from them!

 

UGH!

**sarcastic eyeroll**

 

[OldGreyEagle 5]

So Joni, what about the middle school in Maine that will provide birth control to its students. That will be paid for by public money

[packsaddle 753]

Hey! I thought this was about public transport or regional envy or something. BTW, they have been distributing condoms for a long time. I wish they did it here as well.

[Joni4TA 10]

Well, at the risk of further hi-jacking Eamonn's thread... (sorry Eamonn)

 

OGE - I have to say I disagree with the decision to allow the dispersing of any birth control in a public school. There are legal places where the young can obtain these items, privately funded or otherwise. I don't believe the public should fund contraceptives for public schools.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Pack, in Middle Schools?

[packsaddle 753]

OGE, pull down your security blanket and get out of your cozy little hole and look at the real world. I say this with great affection, BTW.

Why did we all HATE middle school? Why is middle school the dread and bane of so many parents? HORMONES! Take a look at what is really happening, regardless of what we would like to happen. Now, ask youself...do you want those kids to have a little protection if they ask for it, or do you want them to just throw caution to the wind.

You might get through to a few of them with the lecture about abstaining from sex. What response do you think you'll get from many others, a polite shrug? A one-finger salute?

 

Yes, I'd hand them the condoms, especially if they were willing to go to a counselor or nurse and ask for them. I wouldn't care if all they did was use them for really great water balloons.

We looked hard at the children and the community, took our daughter to the doctor, got her a prescription for the pill and notified her that as of that day, if she got herself in trouble she would not be able to claim she didn't know or didn't have an alternative. She would not be able to lie her way out of her predicament. THAT made a very strong impression. I still don't have grandchildren eight years later. I have lots of second thoughts about many decisions. That is not one of them.

[scoutldr 732]

As a young public health professional, my first job was running an inner city VD clinic. This was when AIDS was still an unknown syndrome that seemed to be just affecting the gay bath houses in San Francisco. I will never forget the 11 year old who came in to be treated for Gonorrhea. Her pregnancy test was also positive. The father was her older cousin. To her, it was no big deal. That job taught me more about human nature than I could ever have learned in school. In some cultures, sex is something you do to whoever will hold still long enough, related or not, minor or not, same sex or not. Even then, treatment of minors was mandated by law and was confidential. Not even parents got notified. Otherwise, they wouldn't come in and disease outbreaks would be impossible to control.

 

Fast forward from the 70s to the 00s. Sex is no longer a big deal for anyone. Oral sex is not really "sex", and is common among middle schoolers. Even the President can do it and get away with it. The reality is that kids ARE having sex. They ARE having unprotected sex. The ARE getting pregnant. YOUR kid is probably having sex. If you think they are not, your are terribly naive.

[Joni4TA 10]

I might feel differently if a student was able to go to the school nurse and ASK for a condom (male or female) and receive one. And then the school can do condom fundraisers, just like they do for theater arts, football, cheerleading and every other thing under the sun! I still don't believe there should be public/government funding of contraceptives in public school though.

 

However, my initial thought about the phrase "handing out of contraceptives" was that students were being given them at random, whether they were asked for or not - sort of like a "free sample pack" from a manufacturer. I do not feel that a public school is the appropriate place for that.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

So, if we are saying that middle schoolers are having sex, and we as a society are ok with that (and I have to accept it, even if I dont like it) and we feel that the adolescents should have access to birth control, then we are saying that they are old enough to engage in sex. Being old enough to engage in sex means that they willing to consensually participate in intimacy. I guess inevitably the question boils down to have sex with whom? 12 year old girls with 27 year old teachers? 13 year old boys with 45 year old males? We just said accept they are having sex, so now that they can have sex implicitly given permission by the school by providing the birth control, we now expect them to honor the age dividing line between consent and rape?

 

How is that done? Nambla says the kids enjoy sex and are able to consent to it, isnt this the same thing?

[DanKroh 11]

OGE, I think there is a difference between accepting that sex is happening between middle schoolers and accepting that it's "a good thing". However, I think if one is going to accept reality, then many parents also need to accept that they are not going to be able to stop their middle schooler from having sex (short of never letting them out of sight and/or installing a chastity device).

 

And before we start criticizing the moral of the parents whose children are having sex, I know plenty of church-going folks who have become grandparents via their teenager.

 

So given our acceptance of the reality that it is happening, and we can't stop it from happening, it is more or less moral to give them access to birth control? Well, I guess that probably depends a lot on what your religious beliefs are about birth control in general. But assuming for a moment that you belong to a religion that says birth control as a concept is ok. Which is the more moral stance? Giving your kid birth contol, or risking the chance of our teenagers having kids?

 

As far as the age of sexual consent, well that's society's conundrum right now. How do we deal with teenagers whose emotional and psychosocial maturity lag so far behind their sexual maturity? That's a problem we've really only had to deal with in the last, what, maybe 100 years?

[scoutldr 732]

Nambla has nothing to do with this...we're not talking sick, twisted pedophiles here.

 

The immorality is allowing children to have children. Stopping it is imperative. Yes, abstinence is the preferred choice. But they're not choosing that, so now what?