SIlver Ring Thing in the UK - doomed to failure

by Abaddon 17 Replies latest jw friends

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  Fe2O3Girl

  I think this article on teenage pregnancy and abortion is also pertinant to this discussion. It makes a point which I think is extremely important in the issue of teenage pregnancy - girls who have a goal of education and career in their future are much less likely to become teenage mothers.

  Preventing children from becoming parents is a more complex social issue than just implementing good sex education and availability of contraception, important as those things are.

  From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1250200,00.html

  Class pressures are decisive
  
  Sarah Boseley
  Wednesday June 30, 2004
  The Guardian Abortion rates among 15- to 17-year-olds vary dramatically around the country, with young women from socially disadvantaged areas far more likely than those in affluent parts to keep the baby, a study reveals today.

  More than 40% of pregnancies in this age group end in termination, but the figure disguises a gulf in social class. In the Derwentside area of County Durham, less than 20% of unintended pregnancies end in abortion, compared with 75% in the Eden district of Cumbria.

  The report, prepared for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by the centre for sexual health research at Southampton University, found that the decision to abort was based on personal circumstances. Those who did not see long-term university or career prospects were more likely to become pregnant and less likely to seek abortion.

  "Teenagers who saw their lives as insecure were more likely to accept motherhood as a positive change in their lives. Those who saw their lives developing through education and employment were more likely to opt for an abortion," said the report.

  Ellie Lee, co-author, said: "The evidence shows that their views are shaped by factors that include social deprivation, the attitudes of family and friends and the accepted 'norms' of behaviour in the communities where they live."

  
  
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  wednesday

  There is nothing wrong with offering abstinance as a choice or even strongly encourging it. Actually it is a really good thing, and Bush did not invent it. A lot of other approaches have been tired, why not give it a try? My hubby and i were both virgins when we married, and yes we were jws, but that part did us no harm. It has been a good thing. Teens should know they always have the option of not having sex before marriage.
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  Odrade

  silly buggers with pins to make a point (har har).

  I wish! More about cheap condoms... I worked in a restaurant for a couple of years that hosted a lot of bachelorette parties. A lot of these women though it was really funny to bring in cheap condoms to blow up as balloons. It was priceless to the the looks on everyone's faces when 1 in three had a hole.

  I know these things have to pass inspections, but we all know how well THAT works here the USA. Japanese condoms baby. It's the only way to go... LOL!

  O
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  SheilaM

  I think that if it works for them great...worked for Thunder and I (no sex before marriage) and is working for my son. My daughter tried it the other way and we have a lovely grandbaby and a daughter that is toiling down her path instead of flying down it ...........
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  rocky220

  Just give teenaged girls jobs babysitting a pack of crazy, diaper wearing toddlers about 3-4 times a week, sure they'll make a little extra money, but will think twice before having sex!!!! [IMHO]....rocky220
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  Abaddon

  wednesday...

  There is nothing wrong with offering abstinance as a choice or even strongly encourging it. Actually it is a really good thing, and Bush did not invent it. A lot of other approaches have been tired, why not give it a try?

  In Holland the rate of teen pregnancy is 1/7th of the USA's. The average age of sexual intercourse is about six months higher.

  IF the goal in sex education is to reduce unwanted pregnancies and STD's, then it seems comprehensive sex education, such as offered in Holland, is the way to go. It is a method that has been tried and works.

  Yes, lots of methods have been tried in the USA. But they are all compromised by people whose goal is stopping sex before marriage. They don't like useful information being given to kids as there is a fallacious belief sex education encourages kids to have sex. The facts show the opposite. But such poor sex education means that when people DO have sex, they will often do so because of peer pressure, and in a state of contraceptive ignorance.

  Stopping unwanted pregnancy and STD's and stopping sex before marriage are two different things.

  In the USA, despite this, the argument is treated by many as being indivisable.

  Even in this thread pregnancy is seen by some American posters as a concequence of sex before marriage, rather than one of contraceptive failure or of not even using contraceptives.

  Fe203girl

  I don't know if there's more to the article, but they don;t in it consider the fact that to mother in deprived areas, due to the welfare state, a pregnancy is a route to their own house and independance, even if it is on the breadline. Without such consideration it;'s incomplete.

  A kid from a well-off background doesn't want a council flat and a benefit book. To a kid from a deprived background, having such items might seem like a good option, especially if the person thinks they've no chance/point of getting an education.
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  Fe2O3Girl

  Abaddon -

  I don't know if there's more to the article, but they don;t in it consider the fact that to mother in deprived areas, due to the welfare state, a pregnancy is a route to their own house and independance, even if it is on the breadline. Without such consideration it;'s incomplete. A kid from a well-off background doesn't want a council flat and a benefit book. To a kid from a deprived background, having such items might seem like a good option, especially if the person thinks they've no chance/point of getting an education.

  I am not sure that it is still such a clear cut result that a pregnant teenager in the UK is going to get a council home - maybe a bedsit paid for by the DSS. Whether that is the case or not, I don't think that is why girls from less privileged backgrounds are more likely to become teenage mothers. I think it is more to do with filling the gap where prospects should be, than an economic decision. If all benefits to teenage mothers were cut today, I believe the rates of teenage pregnancy would be just as high in a years time, and the year after that.

  There also seems to be a view in this thread that premarital sex automatically results in unwanted pregnancy - there is no reason why unmarried people having sex are more likely than married people having sex to have an unwanted pregnancy. The reason none of my friends had a baby while we were at school wasn't because none of them were having sex. They did not get pregnant because they understood contraception and had real opportunities which they were going to realise.

  I had LOTS of sex before I got married to my current Mr Wonderful. Strangely enough, I never got pregnant or contracted an STD. I wasn't lucky, I was informed. Abstinence is a choice, but it is not the right choice for everyone, and it must be presented in the context of real sex education, not scare stories and half-truths.
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  Abaddon

  Hi Fe203Girl

  I am not sure that it is still such a clear cut result that a pregnant teenager in the UK is going to get a council home - maybe a bedsit paid for by the DSS.

  I should have said 'home' of their own. I know that for some it is a choice, as that what some have told me. And you're right, it's not just independence, but is often a case of the baby being seen as something that fills a need they have.

  I do think that teen pregnancy would reduce over time if benefits were cut; but it would need at least five-ten years.

  It's also not a 'solution' I'd back, as education works far better.

  There are (more-or-less) proportionatly just as many girls who failed academically (or were failed by the educational system) in the Netherlands as in the UK, or who came from deprived backgrounds. It's just the Dutch ones are far less likely to be pusing a baby buggy.

  There also seems to be a view in this thread that premarital sex automatically results in unwanted pregnancy -

  Yeah, it's a false linkage. It kinda shows how poor sex education is, and how strongly religous enculturation influences peoples opinions; people don't think of contraception as a solution to the reducation of teen pregnancy, but advocate abstinance in its place.

  Historically in sexually repressive societies (and if you're a teenager I can assure you modern Western Society in the UK and the USA is quite sexually repressive) abstinance has NEVER solved the problem of teenage pregnancy.

  But people keep clinging to it as an idea.

  One one had teens are being packaged as sexual beings, on the other hand unrealistic and restrictive modes of behaviour are being put on them.

  I mean - no sex before marriage - so, if you marry at 25, what, do you just French kiss a lot? Advocating no sex before marriage undoubtedly results in many people getting married who wouldn't have had they not 'had' to get married to have sex. Such marriages are doomed.

  I am also pretty sure almost as many non-JW people think, incorrectly, that their kids are virgins as JW people think their kids are virgins. Caught between a parental opinion opposing sex before marriage and natural desires and hormones many teens lie.

  I'd rather have an honest teenage daughter having safer sex in her bedroom with my knoweldge than lying about it to avoid offending my religious sensibilities, and end up having sex anyway in some ghastly situation with question marks over the use of contraception and me not being aware of what was going on.

  I can actually protect my daughters more in the former situation than the latter.