Comments on: Is Birth Control Difficult? (A Rant)

By: Britni TheVadgeWig

Britni TheVadgeWig — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:41:53 +0000

I just want to thank you for so casually mentioning your abortion unapologetically and factually. I do the same thing about mine, and people always look at me like I just told them the dude sitting next to me raped me last night. They can’t believe I talk about it like it’s this actual thing that I did, and that’s part of my past, and that’s okay.

<3
.-= Britni TheVadgeWig´s last blog ..Aftercare, Part I: The Basics =-.

By: The Beautiful Kind

The Beautiful Kind — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:38:10 +0000

Wow you said this out loud! Good for you! I call out stupidity too. A lot of ignorance going on.

When I got my abortion last year I was amazed at the group of women I waited with for my turn.

The people working at the clinic were rabidly pushing hormonal birth control at every woman there. YES it’s nice we have so many options but wow hormonal birth control can be insidious!

I wish more men had vasectomies!
.-= The Beautiful Kind´s last blog ..The TBK Saga: Hot Threesome Upgrade =-.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:36:14 +0000

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By: Britni TheVadgeWig

Britni TheVadgeWig — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:53:00 +0000

I agree whole heartedly with the sentiment here. However, having worked in a community agency, I was, for the first time, exposed to a large number of people living well below the poverty line. Many of them have babies. They had them young. They had them fast. I grew up in a middle/upper-middle class neighborhood not 20 miles from some of these people. Hardly anyone in my graduating class of 800 has done the same.

There is a definite correlation between SES and use of birth control. I don’t know if it has to do with the type of sex-ed available, the fact that they feel they can’t afford birth control (or the abortion when they get pregnant; though the other day, I had a pregnant client who said the $350 abortion was too much. So we calculated $350 vs a lifetime of paying for a child. She decided she could find the money), the family support that they have at home… or a combination of all of those factors.

I will say that I applauded a client of mine whose 17-year-old had a baby and then got pregnant with her second child when her kid was 2 months or so old (2 different dads, the first dad bounced on her, the second is incarcerated). My client marched her 19-year-old daughter into the doctor’s office after the second one was born and said, “Clearly she’s not responsible enough to do it herself, so what kind of birth control do you have that she doesn’t have to control herself?” They put an IUD in– good for 10 years. Granted, it won’t protect against STDs, but it was good to see someone trying to help combat their daughter’s careless behavior.
.-= Britni TheVadgeWig´s last blog ..Just The Way You Are =-.

By: Michele

Michele — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:44:52 +0000

Oh! I think it’s also worth mentioning that back in the “old days” you couldn’t buy condoms over the counter in my area unless you were of age (honestly, it was easier for a 16-year-old to buy cigarettes than condoms then), and you couldn’t get the pill without your mom taking you to the doctor and requesting it. Lots of girls just skipped bc then because they didn’t want to be ‘found out.’

By: Champagne and Benzedrine

Champagne and Benzedrine — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:44:51 +0000

Ha, if you want to look at 'baby factories' than look at my home country, the UK. We have astonishing rates of teen pregnancies because the welfare state gives young mothers a council house (project housing) and a decent income simply for having kids. We've got a whole generation that turn to young motherhood as a career. The problem is, it's actually easier to make a living doing that than trying to earn your own way on an overtaxed low-income or lower-middle-class job in the UK. It's a self-perpetuating nightmare. .-= Champagne and Benzedrine´s last blog ..Pants of Controversy =-.

By: Michele

Michele — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:40:29 +0000

ROFL! That’s exactly how I feel about it, and I was so pissed off by the time I got back from that clinic I just had to say something about it.

By: Michele

Michele — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:34:52 +0000

Holy shit that’s scary… people actually encouraging their daughters to believe that having babies is a career. Gads!

By: Michele

Michele — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:32:51 +0000

Hi Sarahbear, and thanks for the comment.
You make a valid point, but I think sex education in modern times is MUCH better than it was when I had my own son. The teens and 20-somethings these days are more educated than ever, because people aren’t afraid to talk about birth control any more. Hell, you’d rarely even see a tampon commercial on tv back then, but now they advertise all forms of birth control openly. “Sex education” in the my school was very vague— basically they told you what made you pregnant (complete with cute little drawings of the ovaries and such) and told you not to have sex if you didn’t want it to happen to you. Then they mentioned condoms as a way to keep from getting AIDS. That’s it.
Most of us learned about the pill either from older friends who were on it, and I personally had never even heard of an IUD until my late 20′s.

You mentioned that you wished parents wouldn’t “opt to keep their kids from participating” in the sex ed programs now, and that proves what I’m saying. When I was in school, no parent ever opted their kids out of it because the schools weren’t allowed to tell us jack anyway. Now it has evolved from the “here is why you have a period and how you get pregnant” talk into “here is how you can protect yourself during sex.”

By: Sarahbear

Sarahbear — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:07:23 +0000

Yes, some of it is due to ignorance. If you’re in an area with abstinence only or abstinence mostly sex education, then you’re also likely in an area where people’s parents are a bit prudish or shy when it comes to educating their kids about sex. If a collective group of youth is not getting educated by school or their parents then they are going to have some pretty wild ideas about sex. There is an alarming number of teens that believe pulling out or having sex during your period will prevent pregnancy.

I’m not trying to be PC here. I’m being realistic. You can’t always fault people for their ignorance.
.-= Sarahbear´s last blog ..Bad Body Image Day =-.