Hello, it’s good to be back. I have a break in the action on the farm, and so I will continue with this manifesto on teens, adults, sex, pregnancy, society, and how it all fits.

By the way- President Obama- I hope to never get tired of hearing those words. President Barack Obama. Barack My World Mr. President. And let’s all shake the dust of that crummy little boy who went before him  off our feet once and for all.

We are talking about the Reality of why young girls choose pregnancy over a different future. It’s a social problem, not a teen behavioral problem. It’s a problem created by and carried out by Straight Adult Males, who then scapegoat teens into accepting blame for a problem they had no part in creating. The teens become a perfect villan, a patsy, someone to throw social rocks at, while the men behind the screen get a free pass.

We have covered 6 of the Dynamics. Let’s go on to #7.

 7. Lack of Reproductive Health Care- It’s no secret that the USA has no Universal Health Care. Everyone knows this. But how many countries actually have some sort of universal health care?

Afghanistan*( paid with war $), Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq*(paid with war $), Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. That’s who.

Now, everyone of those countries has a lower rate of teen births than the USA. Every one.

So who’s left with no universal health care besides the USA? Think all of Africa (South Africa trying), poorer Asian Countries, add poor countries like India, Pakistan, breakaway old Soviet Countries, a scattering of others, Burma, Indonesia.

All these countries who are politically stable enough to get information from have Teen Birth Rates that rival the USA, or are higher. Especially Africa, which has rates 4 times higher than the USA.

The lack of access to free and universal reproductive health care for women and teens is unforgivable, especially for a country who brags about itself as stridently as we do. Other countries see it as  basic human right. We don’t seem to see it that way.  Our words and actions don’t meet at all.

When a teen girl gets access to health care, she opens a dialogue with a trusted professional. He or she may become a role model. Her health is placed first, not the mom’s, not the younger sisters. Hers. We are starting on the path to PREVENTION of pregnancy. We are ACTING, not REACTING. PROACTIVE.

Look at all the things discussed- eating right, exercise, drugs, vaccines, stress, sleep, disease, viruses, contraception, all this can be discussed BEFORE she becomes sexually active. She should have free and unfettered access to any and all contraceptives whenever she and her doctor decide. It’s NOT the parents decision, nor is it the teachers, the politicians, or the City Council. It’s a decision between her and her doctor.

Here is a recent statement put out by Aboutkidshealth, an on-line site devoted to keeping kids and adults healthy and smart

Recent and alarming American statistics about the rates of pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in teenage girls have re-ignited the highly charged debate about access to health care and sex education in the United States. A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report showed that about 25% of all girls between the ages of 14 and 19 in the US were infected with at least one of the most common STIs. These included human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis. The spread of all these diseases, some of which cannot be cured with antibiotics, can be reduced with safer sex practices. 

“The problem isn’t promiscuity,” says Kim Martyn, a Toronto-based sex educator. “It comes down to poverty and access to health care and education.” The report also showed black teen girls had much higher rates of infection than white girls, which Martyn says proves her point. “In the US, there is a huge gap in terms of health care access between the white and black population.”

Martyn says opportunity, or lack thereof, also has an influence on behaviour. “If you have a vision of yourself going to university, you are more motivated to not get pregnant. You are more likely to be responsible,” adding that these attitudes are reflected in statistics about the age at which teens first have sex. 

 I’m not the only one who sees the dynamics behind the TBR as Adult-influenced. Ms. Martyn cleary shows the link between social causes, including poverty, lack of clear, non-biased sexual information, freedom to reproductive based health care, a vision of a better future, and who will and won’t get pregnant as a teen.

Now, George Bush has left us, thankfully, but cleaning up his debris and hubris will take years. Read what Martin Donohoe, Professor of Medicine and and Ethics Scholar writes about some of the crap Bush has forced us to deal with.

Recently ( written in 2003), the Bush administration drafted a policy that would let states define unborn children as persons eligible for medical coverage. The current Administration has also introduced bills to increase the $3 million per year already spent on so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” in which pregnant women are given non-factual information regarding abortion, refused information about contraception, shown an ultrasound of their fetus, and watch a slide show depicting bloody aborted fetuses in which it is claimed that abortion is a leading cause of sterility, deformed children and death. In fact, it is 30 times more dangerous to carry a fetus to term than to undergo a legal abortion. The availability of mifepristone (RU-486) for medical pregnancy termination has the potential to improve women’s access to safe abortion. 

 

Abortions cost approximately $350; most patients pay out of pocket. Only one out of three patients has insurance coverage, and only one out of three insurance companies cover the procedure after the deductible is met. Thirty- four states provide no Medicaid funding for abortion; of the 16 that provide coverage, most make it available only in cases of fetal abnormality, rape, or when the pregnant woman’s life is endangered or health at risk because of the pregnancy (see “Georgia’s Abortion Bill,” Z Magazine, January 2003). Often patients are reluctant to file claims due to confidentiality concerns. 

 

Other obstacles to abortion include bans on specific methods, mandated waiting periods, parental and spousal notification laws, regulation of abortion facility locations, zoning ordinances designed to keep abortion clinics from being built in certain areas, and TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws. Bills already approved by the House of Representatives, and headed for the Republican-majority Senate, include: the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which gives legal status to a fetus hurt or killed during the commission of a federal crime; the Child Custody Protection Act, which makes it a crime in some cases to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion; and the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, forbidding state and local government actions against hospitals or health care to workers who refuse to participate in abortions. Three recent appointments to the Food and Drug Administration’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, Drs. David Hager, Susan Crockett and Joseph Stanford, are avowed foes of abortion rights. Obstetrician-gynecologist Hager, who has advocated Scripture reading and prayer for premenstrual syndrome, reportedly refuses to provide contraceptives to unmarried woman.

 

More from Dr. Martin-

 

Lack of access to contraception facilitates teen pregnancy. Only 8 percent of U.S. high schools provide condoms, despite the fact that promotion and distribution of condoms does not increase teen sexual activity. Access to contraception of all types is particularly burdensome for rural teens. Recently, legislation that would prohibit prescribed contraceptives for adolescents without parental involvement was introduced in ten states and the U.S. Congress. A survey of girls younger than 18 seeking services at Planned Parenthood found that mandatory notification for prescribed contraceptives would impede girls’ use of sexual health care services, potentially increasing teen pregnancies and the spread of STDs. 

Across the U.S., many health plans fail to cover all contraceptive methods, even though all methods are more effective and less costly than no method. Many fewer plans cover abortion than cover sterilization, leaving poor women in the unenviable position of having to choose sterilization if they lack the resources for adequate contraception or for an abortion (which may become necessary even when accepted contraceptive methods are used as directed). On a positive note, the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to reinstate the contraceptive coverage for federal employees that President Bush omitted in his 2002 budget proposal. 

 

It can’t be any clearer- Having little or no reproductive health care is a shameless, hypocritical way to treat our young women, and without it, we cannot cut down on the number of teen pregnancies. Where the hell are the condoms that every school in America should be distributing freely? Where the hell is the Universal Heath Care? Where the hell is our money? Why do we tell adults they are happy, healthy, normal and right for wanting and having sex, but we tell our teens they are wrong, dirty, immoral, unethical for wanting the same?

 

We’ll talk about this strange phenomena at the end when we discuss the abstinence crockery. But now, let’s move on to the next dynamic.

Grade- Adult

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 7th, 2009 at 3:32 pm and is filed under The Teen Pregnancy Fallacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.