[quote]ironcross wrote:
Every modern society will eventually end up sterile, greying, and not producing as many children. You aren’t going to avoid that regardless of your political stance.[/quote]
Seems to me that your now knowingly favor a culture that dooms itself to history. Those sterile cultures will NEED young workers out the wazoo for economic growth, and to carry the elderly population as it consumes a gargantuan amount of social resources. If it isn’t having those children it’ll HAVE to accept them from abroad. Your culture will be replaced by a religious culture via the higher fertility/larger families of more religious immigrants. It’s a Darwinian dead-end, ironically.
Poverty or riches, nobody should make the decision for human life in the womb. With life, there is ALWAYS a chance.
[/quote]
Your opinion is that it will be replaced, but the fact is, we have yet to see them actually replaced.
Am i still allowed to tell my daughter
-“not with this stupid punk”
-“please, leave the dog alone”
-“i think 72 is a bit too old” ?
you know moral people (“conservatives”, if you want) are involved in their teenager’s sexual safety. They doesn’t tell their children “wait until you’re an adult and you can understand it better”.
They usually teach their children the various risks of sexuality. They just don’t think that unwanted pregnancy is the only risk there is. And they don’t think their job is done once they have said : “do as you will but be careful”
And they are right.
To put it simply : please, spare us the strawmen (and, ironically, the sermon).
Name one modern country that has gone extinct from their low-birth rates.[/quote]
Well, first, they’d eventually be the minority nationality in their nation. Their culture would be the minority culture. The country needn’t ‘go extinct.’ It’d only become unrecognizable. Now that might lead to the country going ‘extinct,’ indirectly. Breaking up, merging, whatever. Otherwise, it’s simply the extinction of a way and of a people.
[quote]ironcross wrote:
Every modern society will eventually end up sterile, greying, and not producing as many children. You aren’t going to avoid that regardless of your political stance.[/quote]
Seems to me that your now knowingly favor a culture that dooms itself to history. Those sterile cultures will NEED young workers out the wazoo for economic growth, and to carry the elderly population as it consumes a gargantuan amount of social resources. If it isn’t having those children it’ll HAVE to accept them from abroad. Your culture will be replaced by a religious culture via the higher fertility/larger families of more religious immigrants. It’s a Darwinian dead-end, ironically.
Poverty or riches, nobody should make the decision for human life in the womb. With life, there is ALWAYS a chance.
[/quote]
Your opinion is that it will be replaced, but the fact is, we have yet to see them actually replaced.[/quote]
It isn’t just my opinion. The western world is in no danger of overpopulation. Instead, it’s depopulation that is the concern of demographers and policy makers. Natalist policies that offer financial/tax/entitlment incentives testify to this. You have to pay secular folks to have children, I guess.
If the “medical communities” really had thought that legalizing abortion could reduce the numbers of cases, they would have been against it.
They knew perfectly well that the opposite was true. And that there was huge profit to be made.
[/quote]
ALWAYS “follow the money.”
[quote]kamui wrote:
Most “pro-choicers”, especially male ones, doesn’t give a fuck about poor unwanted children, poor raped women, or indonesians mothers dying due to home abortion methods.
they are for the legalization of abortion because they think it’s a key element of their sexual freedom. They want it because it make irresponsible sex possible.
[/quote]
I think it would be safe to say that IC would be included as part of “most pro-choicers.”
Thus the pseudo concern about “women’s health” tends to ring hollow.
[/quote]
You still didn’t answer my questions or even address the issue that your children are going to have sex.[/quote]
Your questions were based on invalid assumptions and conclusions. Why need I answer them?[/quote]
My question regarding the lowest abortion rates/teenage pregnancy was based off of facts presented from numerous sources. If you’d like to invalidate those in your head because they don’t match up with your religious beliefs, I suppose you have every right to do that. However, the trend remains that the countries with the lowest abortion rates/instances of teenage pregnancy in the world are located in progressive European countries. So once again, what’s your explanation for that?[/quote]
You’re dancing.
You asked me a question about my children then tried to innocuously switch to something else. Bait and switch is easy for a PWI old timer like me to see. Who do you think you’re dealing with here?[/quote]
“Accepting their children’s sexuality” was directly exemplified by the article posted by ephram. Push has referenced it multiple times…
[/quote]
WTF are you talking about? Push has NEVER referenced “accepting their children’s sexuality”.
Don’t stray into lying sack of shit territory.
[/quote]
Yes you did when you explained that your philosophy in dealing with your own children’s sexuality wasn’t the same as I was imagining. I’m still not sure why you’re so upset.
…I hope that everyone on here who argues for the right of the human in the womb is as excited about the rights of the persons raised by young mothers in impoverished conditions often on welfare that they’re voting against…
[/quote]
The ol’ “If there’s a good chance they might grow up poor we might as well kill 'em off early” mentality rears its ugly head. Again.
And again and again and again.[/quote]
When did I even imply that? I am not interested in killing off kids early. I’m very interested in taking care of all children and I retain this interest even after they’re born. My post was simply pointing out that I don’t lose my concern for a child’s life after they’re born and I hope that everyone who is in support of cutting off help to those who are low-income is making it up in some other way, or they are showing that while they fight hard for the kid to be born, they don’t give a shit if he dies right after that.
Am i still allowed to tell my daughter
-“not with this stupid punk”
-“please, leave the dog alone”
-“i think 72 is a bit too old” ?
you know moral people (“conservatives”, if you want) are involved in their teenager’s sexual safety. They doesn’t tell their children “wait until you’re an adult and you can understand it better”.
They usually teach their children the various risks of sexuality. They just don’t think that unwanted pregnancy is the only risk there is. And they don’t think their job is done once they have said : “do as you will but be careful”
And they are right.
To put it simply : please, spare us the strawmen (and, ironically, the sermon).
[/quote]
This is where we’re running into communication issues; American’s actually DON’T tell their kids about sex in the way you’re thinking. Did you even read the link posted by Ephram? I can assure you that many parents here DO tell their kids “Wait until marriage” and “You wont understand it properly until you’re an adult, therefore don’t do it.” I can tell you this with 100% assurance because I have both EXPERIENCED it from adults in my own life here and watched many, many parents tell their kids these things. We’re not making this up; this is really how American’s DON’T accept that their kids are going to have sex as a teen.
I think you must not have read the article Emphram posted, and therefore, I’m going to post it here just to finalize us being on the same page regarding the issue:
When 16-year-old Natalie first started dating her boyfriend, her mother did something that would mortify most American parents: She took her to the doctorâ??s office to get her contraceptives. Her mother wasnâ??t weirded out by the fact that her teen daughter was about to have sex â?? in fact, she fully supported it. She merely wanted to make sure that she was doing it safely, and responsibly. A couple of months later, when it finally happened, her parents were totally accepting. As her father put it, â??sixteen is a beautiful ageâ?? to lose your virginity.
If that seems like an unfamiliar attitude toward sex and parenting, it might have something to do with the fact that Natalieâ??s parents arenâ??t American â?? theyâ??re Dutch. They are one of dozens of Dutch families interviewed by Amy T. Schalet, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, in her new book, â??Not Under My Roof.â?? Schaletâ??s book compares the sexual attitudes of American and Dutch parents and her findings are nothing short of staggering: Whereas most American parents panic about the idea of allowing their kids to have sex with other kids under their roof, for many Dutch parents, itâ??s not only fine â?? itâ??s responsible parenting.
As Schaletâ??s extensively researched, fascinating work shows, the Netherlandsâ?? radically different approach to sex and child-rearing has managed to radically decrease levels of teen pregnancy, abortion and sexual infections. It has fostered closer relationships between teenagers and their parents, and helped make teenagersâ?? first times far more pleasurable. â??Not Under My Roofâ?? is a startling wake-up call about Americaâ??s largely misguided attitudes toward sex and growing up.
Salon spoke to Schalet over the phone about the sexual revolution, Americaâ??s â??slutâ?? problem and how the new generation is changing our attitudes toward sex.
As you point out in the book, the statistical differences between American and Dutch teens when it comes to sex is pretty staggering.
Yes. The pregnancy rate is about four times higher in the U.S. than in the Netherlands and abortion rates are about twice as high. HIV rates are about three times higher. Growing up in the Netherlands, I didnâ??t actually know of any teenagers who became pregnant as teens. Whenever I say that to Americans theyâ??re always very surprised.
But as you point out in the book, itâ??s not because American adolescents are having way more sex â?? itâ??s because the culture around sex is so different, and itâ??s especially ironic because people think America was so utterly transformed by the sexual revolution. Why didnâ??t those cultural changes filter down to the way we think about teens and sex?
Thatâ??s the million-dollar question. When the sexual revolution did happen [in the Netherlands], contraception was made very widely and easily available, including to teenagers so the teenage pregnancy rate really dropped. In the Netherlands, thereâ??s the belief that young people are capable of recognizing when theyâ??re ready and self-regulating as opposed to the notion that they have raging hormones that are out of control. Thereâ??s the belief that young people can fall in love and that their sexuality is anchored in relationships so it becomes easier to accept and normalize relationships from about 16 to 17 onwards. And finally thereâ??s been an attempt on the part of Dutch parents and the authorities to say, â??This is happening, and we need to keep it from being secretive. We need to be able to keep control and be able to recommend that young people use contraception and see who theyâ??re becoming involved with.â??
That seems counterintuitive to many Americans because they associate â??sexual freedomâ?? with things going totally awry. In the U.S., there was a strong counterreaction to the changes of the 1960s and â??70s. The religious right organized, and sexuality, especially teen sexuality, became a political issue. But regular people also feel the same way and think that teen sexuality is out of control. In the U.S. thereâ??s a belief that, when it comes to sex, girls and boys are engaged in a battle instead of a relationship and thereâ??s resistance to the idea that boys and girls can both feel both love and lust. Itâ??s partly the result of the American emphasis on individualism that suggests that to become an adult, you have to first separate from your family and become completely self-reliant before youâ??ve earned the right to engage in sex. That makes it harder for parents to then integrate it into the family in the way Dutch parents have.
As you mention in the book, in America we tend to separate sex and love â?? and donâ??t believe that teenagers are able to associate the two. Why do you think that is?
To me thatâ??s always very fascinating. When I did interviews in the U.S., I was really struck when parents would say, â??Well, teenagers think theyâ??re in loveâ?? and they would hold up their hands with quotation marks. The U.S. is very strongly tied to the model of marriage. We donâ??t want 15- or 16- or 17-year-olds to marry but we donâ??t think a relationship is love unless itâ??s the one and only, the person youâ??re going to marry forever. Itâ??s also tied to individualism, because if you believe that intimate relationships are threatening to young peopleâ??s developments, and that you have to do things on your own first and then settle down, then everything you do before settling down is not going to be about love. And yet, young people do form relationships that are very important to them. They look different from adult relationships but theyâ??re real relationships a lot of the time.
As you point out in the book, thereâ??s an emphasis in the Netherlands on making sure that a teenagerâ??s first time isnâ??t just safe â?? but actually fun and pleasurable. That seems too alien to the way we learn about losing your virginity.
I think thatâ??s right. It is so difficult in the American context to say that a first sexual experience should be positive and pleasurable and one that one feels ready for personally, physically and emotionally. In the chapter about the Dutch parents, a father tells his daughter that she should never do it unless she has the desire for it. He acknowledges that his daughter might actually want it, and that is a very difficult thing in the U.S. context for a lot of parents to do, especially for girls.
Itâ??s fascinating that the â??slutâ?? label, as you point out in the book, doesnâ??t exist in the same way in the Netherlands as it does here. Here a lot of girls get called a slut simply for having a desire for sex.
It exists, but even in the way it exists itâ??s much milder, and itâ??s really not about sex per se, itâ??s about the number of partners and especially the frequency or speed with which one would go from one to another. So if a young woman is in a relationship and she wants it and she enjoys it, thatâ??s fine. I find this to be one of the most fascinating aspects of American culture that that remains so unspeakable.
In pop culture, being a slut is considered either despicable or something to aggressively celebrate (i.e., the recent SlutWalks). But there isnâ??t much in between, especially for adolescent women, that just treats female sexuality as normal and healthy.
I didnâ??t see the first episode of [the new TV show] â??Suburgatory,â?? but the premise is that the father finds condoms in the drawer of his daughter and so they move to the suburbs to avoid sex. The girl is 16 or 17, and so thereâ??s this idea that a father fulfills his parental duty by removing sex altogether. Of course he doesnâ??t succeed, and she ends up making out in the locker room or wherever. But I agree there are very few pop cultural models of young women having positive sexual experiences that are not in some way a cause of drama.
Many of the American parents in the book have a kind of hilarious double standard. They are fine with their kids having sex outside of their home, but as soon as it happens inside their house they freak out.
I donâ??t want to spoof it too much even though it does look silly. Thereâ??s really no narrative for American parents to draw on to understand a positive sexual development on the part of their children and how theyâ??re supposed to relate to it. So the not-under-my-roof idea is the dominant understanding of what you do when youâ??re a responsible adult. So you do get situations where the mother knows her 17-year-old daughterâ??s boyfriend and that sheâ??s on the pill but even though the mom knows she has sex with her boyfriend, the daughter is not allowed to be home with the door closed when the boyfriend is in her room.
What do you think can be done to American sexual education to change this?
I support comprehensive sex education. [laughs] Iâ??m laughing because thatâ??s the line everybody says, but I think that itâ??s important both in and of itself that young people learn about sexuality, contraception, relationships. I think thereâ??s an absence of language about relationships [in sex ed] and that it should be integrated more into schools. Sex education, when done well, can help parents open up the conversation at home. In the U.S. this narrative gets created of â??sex ed vs. the parentsâ?? as opposed to those two working in complementary fashion. Only half of American girls have had a conversation about contraception with their parents. In the Dutch case, one of the girls learns about the pill at school during what is called â??relationship lessonsâ?? â?? yes, thatâ??s really what itâ??s called â?? and she comes home and her mother explains that she also uses the pill.
In a lot of public health campaigns and even with clinicians thereâ??s such an emphasis on the risk, risk, risk, risk, without an emphasis on this is what you can do, this is how you can exert agency. Where exactly do you go to get contraception, and condoms? But I do see a lot of parents who want to be doing things differently. I speak mainly to professionals but they also respond as parents, and theyâ??re really looking for a better way of recognizing that young people have real emotions, and to stay connected to teenagers during their adolescent developmental phase.
Itâ??s really hard not to think that things are so much better in the Netherlands after reading the book. It almost seems utopian.
Itâ??s not utopian. There is such an emphasis on relationships that sometimes the differences in power between girls and boys do not get as much attention as they perhaps deserve. Part of what goes on in the Dutch families is a system of control. It can be cozy, but it also can be a little claustrophobic. I think some of the American models of being able to deal with cultural difference within a society are a good thing, and I like to think that cultures can learn from each other.
American culture does seem to be changing, though, in its attitudes toward marriage. Gay marriage is becoming more common and accepted, and straight people are staying single longer.
I definitely think that the acceptance of gay marriage is a very positive development. I also see a shift among youth, away from the kind of narrow definitions of what is intimacy or acceptable intimacy. I think thereâ??s a whole new generation of people thatâ??s not saddled with the old antagonisms that came out of the 1960s. When I teach classes at the University of Massachussetts, students say, â??We are the generation that will change things in the U.S. just like they changed in the Netherlands.â?? Thereâ??s a real interest among young parents in handling sexuality better than it was in their family. We need to figure out how to stop falling back on the marriage-only model and we need a model for a good relationship that isnâ??t necessarily for life but that still involves mutual respect, and honesty, and mutual obligation as well as enjoyment and pleasure.
“Accepting their children’s sexuality” was directly exemplified by the article posted by ephram. Push has referenced it multiple times…
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WTF are you talking about? Push has NEVER referenced “accepting their children’s sexuality”.
Don’t stray into lying sack of shit territory.
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Yes you did when you explained that your philosophy in dealing with your own children’s sexuality wasn’t the same as I was imagining. I’m still not sure why you’re so upset.[/quote]
Well then, I guess I misunderstood you. I thought you were implying I somehow supported your contorted positions.[/quote]
No, I was only implying that you were aware of what I meant by the phrase “accepting their teenager’s sexuality” because you discussed it with me, although our opinions differed.
…I hope that everyone on here who argues for the right of the human in the womb is as excited about the rights of the persons raised by young mothers in impoverished conditions often on welfare that they’re voting against…
[/quote]
The ol’ “If there’s a good chance they might grow up poor we might as well kill 'em off early” mentality rears its ugly head. Again.
And again and again and again.[/quote]
When did I even imply that? I am not interested in killing off kids early. I’m very interested in taking care of all children and I retain this interest even after they’re born.
[/quote]
Not at all. You either have to embrace the “a fetus is nothing more than an unconscious, barely human zygote until PRESTO!!! the moment of birth” or you flat out don’t give a rat’s ass about “taking care of all children.” It’s that simple. Anything else is that contortionism I referred to earlier.
[quote]
My post was simply pointing out that I don’t lose my concern for a child’s life after they’re born and I hope that everyone who is in support of cutting off help to those who are low-income is making it up in some other way, or they are showing that while they fight hard for the kid to be born, they don’t give a shit if he dies right after that. [/quote]
However, your oft repeated pro abortion stance leaves little doubt about whether you have concern about a child’s life before they are born.
You can’t play the “I’m SUCH an humanitarian” card if you’re supportive of sucking dismembered babies out of vaginas.[/quote]
…I hope that everyone on here who argues for the right of the human in the womb is as excited about the rights of the persons raised by young mothers in impoverished conditions often on welfare that they’re voting against…
[/quote]
The ol’ “If there’s a good chance they might grow up poor we might as well kill 'em off early” mentality rears its ugly head. Again.
And again and again and again.[/quote]
When did I even imply that? I am not interested in killing off kids early. I’m very interested in taking care of all children and I retain this interest even after they’re born.
[/quote]
Not at all. You either have to embrace the “a fetus is nothing more than an unconscious, barely human zygote until PRESTO!!! the moment of birth” or you flat out don’t give a rat’s ass about “taking care of all children.” It’s that simple. Anything else is that contortionism I referred to earlier.
[quote]
My post was simply pointing out that I don’t lose my concern for a child’s life after they’re born and I hope that everyone who is in support of cutting off help to those who are low-income is making it up in some other way, or they are showing that while they fight hard for the kid to be born, they don’t give a shit if he dies right after that. [/quote]
However, your oft repeated pro abortion stance leaves little doubt about whether you have concern about a child’s life before they are born.
You can’t play the “I’m SUCH an humanitarian” card if you’re supportive of sucking dismembered babies out of vaginas.[/quote]
Where you see a black and white issue of a potential human being killed, I see a million circumstances which I can’t control where abortion might be more humane than life, and I am not willing to apply one solution to every case.
I will say this: I don’t think abortion is a good solution in most modern cases and I am in support of counseling and providing resources to young potential mothers. But I am not going to universally tell mothers, including the ones dying of aids in Africa who’s children are going to starve and none of us on this board today are going to help, that they will be punished for aborting their children. In the same way, I’m not going to tell a woman in the US who’s beaten and raped by male relatives and has no means with which to support offspring, that she is going to be punished for not bringing a child into her world of violence.
Universally saying that abortion should never happen is very idealistic and doesn’t acknowledge the depth of pain in our world. For that reason, I do what I can for those who are already born and don’t make decisions for people who’s situations are beyond the scope of my imagination in terms of pain.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
So, euthanize impoverished children. [/quote]
This is the same logic mis-step you accuse pro-lifers of. Just like I am not in support of punishing people for aborting when their situation is beyond the scope of what I will ever have to deal with, I’m not for saying that anyone who has a situation beyond the scope of what I can imagine should be forced to abort.
Also, I sincerely hope you are doing what you can to make a happy life more possible for the impoverish. I know that religious views generally promote charity, so I somewhat assume that those who are religious are being charitable, but that too is idealistic. Please don’t be one of the ones who fights for the child’s right to be born and then does nothing to improve their life once they are.
