January 19th, 2010 by cat
Finally, we should remember that a Norplant subsidizing policy is not bad in itself. Determining the morality of this program rests particularly on observing its implementation. If the contraceptive method is administered by a coercive family planning clinic, then women’s rights for contraceptive alternatives and to informed consent are likely to be violated. However, this is not a fault of the Norplant for Consenting Teens policy. How counseling occurs and the impartial behavior of family planning clinics is a procedural issue that faces family planning policies.
The Policy’s Fatal Flaw
While the Norplant for Consenting Teens policy may work, there is deep problem with the policy. The policy is a overly drastic solution to the problem. Teenagers need more information about reproduction and contraception. They currently do not know where to go for more information. Unfortunately the society is not open to discuss important reproductive and contraceptive topics with teenagers. As a result, one in three female teenagers will not use a form of contraception the first time they have intercourse and, one in five teenagers do not use any form of contraception.
Over half the teens polled incorrectly thought that they needed parental permission to buy over the counter contraceptive devices. Teenagers have cornered the market in contraception failure, e.g., their average failure rate for an oral contraceptive is 11% compared to the average for women over 20 is about 5%. Likewise, sexually active teenagers wait between thirteen to fourteen months after they started having intercourse to come to a family planning clinic. Sadly, in 1981 the most common reason for teenagers making their first clinic visit was their fear of being pregnant.
Sexual education offers hard-to-get information to teenagers. As a consequence, teenagers participating in sexual education programs are more likely to use a contraceptive when having intercourse and will use contraceptives more effectively. They will also abstain from sexual intercourse for longer periods of time. Since 80% of sexually active teenage males indicated that they believe they first had intercourse at too young an age, this phenomenon seems to be in the interests of teenagers.
Unfortunately the sexual education in the United States is inadequate. Over half of all teens do not take a sexual education course until after they have become sexually active. On average secondary schools only offer six and a half hours a year on all sexual education topics, and less than two of those hours covers contraception and STD prevention.
January 19th, 2010 by cat
The eugenics objection to the Norplant for Consenting Teens program argues that the program has some hidden eugenic agenda. For example, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke proposed a Norplant incentive bill that referred to young black women by employing code words, such as ‘welfare recipients in need of birth control education’. Because black women have a higher pregnancy rate and are more likely to be poor, they are particularly subject to most all the proposed Norplant policies. This fact, however, allows others to use the guise of impartiality to cloak an agenda to stop ‘undesirables’, e.g., low income families or particular minority groups, from breeding. This discriminatory behavior has a history of abuse with sterilizations, so we should not consider opening another avenue for this behavior to flourish.
Deterring teenage pregnancies generally improves the socioeconomic situation of the teens, regardless of race, religion, or economic situation. Several discriminatory policies that employ Norplant may exist. However, the Norplant for Consenting Teens policy is not such a policy. The Norplant for Consenting Teens policy affects all teenagers, unlike policies such as the one proposed in Kansas, that only affects women on welfare. Since the pregnancy rate among black teenagers is much higher than other ethnic groups, the policy helps the black community more. By improving education and the economic situation of black teenagers, the policy will offer them better socio-economic opportunities by helping reduce the rate of unwanted or unexpected pregnancies, just like giving out free birth control helps everyone. Why would this supposed discriminatory agenda specify bettering the education and the over all standard of living of those whom it intends to ‘victimize’? This policy hardly fulfills a true eugenicist program because it is more likely for the targeted group to prosper under these conditions.
Second, having more children does not entail having a healthier community or ensures the survival of that community. To presume that women of a community should breed, regardless of the adverse consequences these women and their children must face, does not seriously demonstrate concern for members of that community. Having a healthy society, or a fit population, requires that the offspring have enough resources available to thrive. Coincidentally, by allowing young members of a community to avoid situations that will inhibit their ability to acquire resources and to avoid perpetuating this disadvantage, the Norplant for Consenting Teens program promotes healthier communities. This is true for any community, regardless of race.
January 19th, 2010 by cat
For the Norplant for Consenting Teens policy to succeed, it needs to develop the sexual education programs in the United States. There are two faults with this.
First, the need for sexual education programs hides many of the costs of the Norplant birth control for Consenting Teens policy by shifting them to the education programs. Thus the savings the Norplant birth control for Consenting Teens program would generate would not necessarily be as great as it first appears.
The second fault with the Norplant birth control for Consenting Teens policy requiring better sexual education is more insidious. Since parents place a prodigious amount of pressure on schools to avoid or limit sexual education, sex has become a taboo topic among public schools. If the general attitudes in the United States changed, schools would be more likely to implement a sexual education curriculum. Consequently, since teenage pregnancy rates go down proportionately with a country’s openness to talk about sex related issues, the teenage pregnancy rate will already be on the decline as the sexual education courses increase. The increase of sexual education programs will also decrease the number of teenage pregnancies. Norplant Birth Control is no longer available in the United States, as of 2002. Therefore, once Norplant birth control for Consenting Teens is established, the sexual education and the greater openness in society may have already dropped the teenage pregnancy rate to an acceptable level. Ironically, one of the key successes to Sweden’s low teenage pregnancy rate is not necessarily their sexual education programs, but that the society does not try to deter teenagers from sexual behavior and that the citizens are relatively open to discuss sexual topics.
Since we do not live in a perfect world, the likelihood of increasing the access, frequency, and quality of sexual education in the United States in the immediate future is very low. A Norplant birth control for Consenting Teens program could do some good in family planning clinics that counsel teenagers. The program would be more effective than current programs to reduce teenage pregnancy. However, in order for the program to succeed, it needs to increase its accessibility for teenagers. This requires comprehensive sexual education programs in public schools, for offering Norplant birth control as an option without providing sex education would limit teenagers’ knowledge of the contraception and of its availability. This has deterred the usage of the contraceptive in the past. Ironically, once the environment in this country allows for the education required for the Norplant for Consenting Teens program to succeed, teenage pregnancies will probably not be the dire issue that it is today.