Choices, choices...

[pne]

On the topic of abortions I recently read a comment by cairnsy in a journal entry by isabeau, with a line of thinking I hadn't seen before but which I found interesting.

I think it's commonly accepted that part of growing up and becoming an adult is learning to accept that choices come with consequences (e.g. "you broke it, you fix it or pay for it"), and this comment seemed, to me, to be based on this, though it wasn't explicitly stated:

I've never [bought] into the whole 'a woman should be able to do what she wants with her body' line of thinking, mainly because in most cases, she was doing exactly what she wanted with her body when she chose to have unprotected sex. The male partner is naturally just as responsible, but to me, arguing that a woman should have a control over her body and yet not have to deal with the consequences of how she uses that body, is just not my cup of tea.

(Ignoring for the time being that some conceptions occur despite precautions; I've heard them called "Tropi-Kinder" in German, a play on words with the Tropi- root meaning "tropical" and an abbreviation of trotz Pille "despite the pill".)

Comments

education = good

[pne.livejournal.com]

Buh? Both ladybirdsleeps and you seem to infer from my entry that I'm against educating (young) people about sex in general and contraception in particular, when I didn't touch on that subject at all.

In fact, I kind of assumed education, since otherwise, a choice to have unprotected sex isn't the same thing as when you know what happens when you have sex (= babies, potentially, even if the woman is on top, or you took one BCP that morning, or you jump up and down after sex, or whatever other uninformed rumour people occasionally believe) and that it is possible to prevent conception fairly reliably (as you said, not 100%, but pretty close).

My person morals object to sex outside marriage, but I'd say that if you do not intend to have children, then if you do have sex, take proper precautions. And if you don't, it should be because of a conscious choice "I will not use contraception tonight and will take into account that this could result in my becoming pregnant", not out of laziness or convenience or ignorance.

Re: education = good

[asciident]

I think, without actually knowing what was meant, that they both are ranting more about the US's (Bush Administration's -- but not just his, really) policy of teaching "abstinence only", on the idea that "if you teach them about how to have protected sex, and provide supplies with which they can practice it, it'll just lead to more sex!"

I don't think it was about whether or not you think there should be better sex education. :)