Stupidity in Wisconsin
http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/07/27/64850
What it boils down to is, condoms or nothing. Since that'roughlyly where we were in 1955, though with better access to condoms, this development is a b-i-g step back. And college students may crank back on behavior a little in the face of no hormonal birth-control, but not a lot. The price for reducing promiscuity a little is a bigger increase in unintended pregnancies. And abortions, for those that track these things.
Why abortions? They do cost quite a bit, and if a student can't afford The Pill, how can she go for an abortion? Because pregnancy is one of those provable events. "You are pregnant" can liberate resources far easier than, "you could get pregnant," can. So a student who can't plonk down the $50/mo for prescriptionon from a private doctor will somehow scrape together the $450 for an abortion, even if it means only eating every other day for a week. And since she's almost definitely over 18, parental notification doesn't need to happen so she can do it on the sly.
The problem of pregnancy before you are ready for it is a much bigger problem than boinking out of wedlock. As a friend of mine who has a parent who does weddings said, she has yet to marry a couple who waited for the wedding night for 'marital relations'. Preventing pregnancy is a treatable thing. Preventing boinking goes against strongly ingrained drives that Nature has pounded into us.
It is no coincidence that the most lusty years of the average life is from puberty to about the mid twenties. Biologically speaking, those are prime child-bearing years. As I've noted before, society has a different view of how things should work. You must Be Strong and Resist Temptation before you actually go out and be merry. The dictates of our society strongly urge the use of birth control methods, yet the morality of the times is swinging against it somewhat. Such contradictions do not lend to a stable state.
Preventing pregnancies is actually a cost-saver, too. The true cost of the process of bringing a pregnancy to term is a lot higher than even three years worth of hormonal birth-control pills. Add in the costs of STD tests (remember, college) and you bring it down to two years. So banning the dispensing of contraceptives on campus will cost more in the end.
Stupidity.
College campuses have emerged as the latest battlefield in the nation's war on women's reproductive rights. Wisconsin has passed a bill entitled UW Birth Control Ban-AB 343. This bill prohibits University of Wisconsin campuses from prescribing, dispensing and advertising all forms of birth control and emergency contraceptives.This is right up there as one of the most stupid things to come out of the recent moraquaveringgs over The Pill. As I work at a .eduanecdotalal evidence says that the number two reason people go to the on-campus clinic is for contraceptives. The number one reason are STD tests. Banning the dispensing of contraceptives on campus will have the effect of forcing poor college-students to try and get them elsewhere. And since poor college-students are not very likely to have health insurance, not every plan covers kids in college and that's assuming Mom and Dad have insurance at all, the on-campus clinic is the only source for many.
What it boils down to is, condoms or nothing. Since that'roughlyly where we were in 1955, though with better access to condoms, this development is a b-i-g step back. And college students may crank back on behavior a little in the face of no hormonal birth-control, but not a lot. The price for reducing promiscuity a little is a bigger increase in unintended pregnancies. And abortions, for those that track these things.
Why abortions? They do cost quite a bit, and if a student can't afford The Pill, how can she go for an abortion? Because pregnancy is one of those provable events. "You are pregnant" can liberate resources far easier than, "you could get pregnant," can. So a student who can't plonk down the $50/mo for prescriptionon from a private doctor will somehow scrape together the $450 for an abortion, even if it means only eating every other day for a week. And since she's almost definitely over 18, parental notification doesn't need to happen so she can do it on the sly.
The problem of pregnancy before you are ready for it is a much bigger problem than boinking out of wedlock. As a friend of mine who has a parent who does weddings said, she has yet to marry a couple who waited for the wedding night for 'marital relations'. Preventing pregnancy is a treatable thing. Preventing boinking goes against strongly ingrained drives that Nature has pounded into us.
It is no coincidence that the most lusty years of the average life is from puberty to about the mid twenties. Biologically speaking, those are prime child-bearing years. As I've noted before, society has a different view of how things should work. You must Be Strong and Resist Temptation before you actually go out and be merry. The dictates of our society strongly urge the use of birth control methods, yet the morality of the times is swinging against it somewhat. Such contradictions do not lend to a stable state.
Preventing pregnancies is actually a cost-saver, too. The true cost of the process of bringing a pregnancy to term is a lot higher than even three years worth of hormonal birth-control pills. Add in the costs of STD tests (remember, college) and you bring it down to two years. So banning the dispensing of contraceptives on campus will cost more in the end.
Stupidity.
posted by Corwin at 8:13 AM
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