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> Note that many of the working poor got themselves into that position because of their choices, generally they had a kid at 16 and dropped out of school as a r

> Note that many of the working poor got themselves into that position because of their choices, generally they had a kid at 16 and dropped out of school as a result The vast majority of teenage mothers in the United States do not choose to get pregnant and do not have the choice of terminating their pregnancy. They either do not have access to abortion providers - the majority of women in the United States do not have access to abortion clinics because of fundamentalist Christian activists and politicians: https://www.guttmacher.org/united-states/abortion/state-policies-abortion https://www.guttmacher.org/united-states/abortion/state-poli... - or they are coerced by their fundamentalist Christian parents into not having an abortion.

exclusiv 9y ago
Everyone has access to birth control though. It's common knowledge how reproduction works. You have condoms, birth control pills and copper rings among other options. If you miss that you got plan b. Let's set aside your personal vendetta against the pro lifer Christians. How can you claim that the vast majority of pregnant teenagers don't choose to get pregnant?
- mahyarm 9y ago
  Americans don't have universal healthcare, can't just go walk in some clinic / pharmacy and get a doctor / pharmacist to Rx you some birth control. You also have minimal->zero private money and come from a poor background so it's too expensive. Your parents are religious and it's difficult to privately have & use birth control. Copper IUDs create pretty bad periods and are more painful to insert if you never given birth. Giving yourself a megadose of hormones with other implants is pretty freaky. But your 16 years old and have a lot of hormones... That is part of the reason why the entire obamacare free birth control fight was pretty emotional in the USA.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure that you can buy condoms in America. They're not that expensive and work reasonably well.
    - bluGill 9y ago
      Last I checked condoms were the only birth control that prevents STDs. All the other birth control named is not appropriate for teens who are unlikely to have settled on a lifetime monogamous partner.
- candu 9y ago
  Easy: a lot of states teach abstinence-only sex education, and there's a prevailing set of social norms (often imposed by "pro lifer Christians") that makes frank discussions of birth control, sex, reproductive biology, etc. all but impossible. It sounds crazy - and, IMHO, it is - but large parts of the US operate as de facto theocracies, especially where it comes to education. Under those circumstances, it's not surprising that teenagers have sex, don't know how to do so safely, and end up pregnant without meaning to. That is: a teenager absolutely can choose to have sex without choosing to get pregnant, simply because the society around them has conspired to make sure they don't understand how one leads to the other.
  - nostromo123 9y ago
    If you don't understand that sex can lead to getting pregnant, I think you're not old enough to be left outside unaccompanied.
    - omegaworks 9y ago
      That's exactly the line of thinking that leads to societies where women must be accompanied by men in public. It's strategic: prevent women from accessing the tools and knowledge to keep themselves safe, then justify denying them rights "to keep them safe."
      - shanusmagnus 9y ago
        You had the kernel of a sensible point a while ago, but now you're just digging in. Acting as if most teenage pregnancies occur because the woman involved doesn't understand how babies are made is asinine unless you've unearthed some population I don't know about; and claiming that frictions standing in the way of perfectly convenient birth control absolves a person from all consequences is both asinine and actively insulting to the agency of human beings everywhere. Things could be better, of course, and that's worth talking about, but your argument has turned into a caricature.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Respectfully, I'm not sure you fully understand these issues that you seem to have a very strong opinion about. Teenagers around the US do not as a rule have convenient access to contraceptive pills. That's because the FDA refuses to approve them for OTC sale, despite their safety relative to many other OTC meds. The stated reason for refusing OTC sales is that allowing them would prevent women from seeing their doctors for other medical issues (this is also the reason you can't buy extremely useful and safe meds like Ondansetron OTC). I feel like I'm on firm ground when I add that this is unlikely to be the only reason you can't buy OTC contraceptive pills. Meanwhile, about half of US states require parental consent for most minors before doctors can issue prescriptions for birth control. As a fun additional wrinkle, churches, and in particular the Catholic church, run some of the largest hospital and health chains in US metro areas. Church-run hospitals routinely refuse to provide access to contraceptive services. In Chicago, the Loyola health system --- an otherwise well-regarded health services chain! --- won't prescribe contraceptive pills to adults even for non-contraceptive reproductive health purposes! I don't think we need to spend too much time talking about Planned Parenthood clinics; the issues there are obvious to anyone familiar with the state of reproductive health in the US. So, no, I don't think it's reasonable to argue that any teenaged girl in the US should be expected to be fully armed with all the tools of modern contraception.
  - justinjlynn 9y ago
    The lack of access to chemical birth control is a major issue, I agree. However, to the best of my knowledge, condoms are still fairly universally available to members of both sexes - which, while not ideal for a number of reasons, are certainly more effective in preventing the transmission of STIs as well as being effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy. Perhaps that might be a more charitable interpretation of the grandparent post, even if it's clearly not correct on the whole.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      Beyond pointing out the obvious fact that teenaged girls in the US are living in a society that goes to some lengths to actively obstruct them from using the most reliable forms of contraception, I'm not really interested in digging further into the details here.

exclusiv 9y ago

Everyone has access to birth control though. It's common knowledge how reproduction works. You have condoms, birth control pills and copper rings among other options. If you miss that you got plan b. Let's set aside your personal vendetta against the pro lifer Christians. How can you claim that the vast majority of pregnant teenagers don't choose to get pregnant?

mahyarm 9y ago
Americans don't have universal healthcare, can't just go walk in some clinic / pharmacy and get a doctor / pharmacist to Rx you some birth control. You also have minimal->zero private money and come from a poor background so it's too expensive. Your parents are religious and it's difficult to privately have & use birth control. Copper IUDs create pretty bad periods and are more painful to insert if you never given birth. Giving yourself a megadose of hormones with other implants is pretty freaky. But your 16 years old and have a lot of hormones... That is part of the reason why the entire obamacare free birth control fight was pretty emotional in the USA.
- adrianN 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure that you can buy condoms in America. They're not that expensive and work reasonably well.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    Last I checked condoms were the only birth control that prevents STDs. All the other birth control named is not appropriate for teens who are unlikely to have settled on a lifetime monogamous partner.
candu 9y ago
Easy: a lot of states teach abstinence-only sex education, and there's a prevailing set of social norms (often imposed by "pro lifer Christians") that makes frank discussions of birth control, sex, reproductive biology, etc. all but impossible. It sounds crazy - and, IMHO, it is - but large parts of the US operate as de facto theocracies, especially where it comes to education. Under those circumstances, it's not surprising that teenagers have sex, don't know how to do so safely, and end up pregnant without meaning to. That is: a teenager absolutely can choose to have sex without choosing to get pregnant, simply because the society around them has conspired to make sure they don't understand how one leads to the other.
- nostromo123 9y ago
  If you don't understand that sex can lead to getting pregnant, I think you're not old enough to be left outside unaccompanied.
  - omegaworks 9y ago
    That's exactly the line of thinking that leads to societies where women must be accompanied by men in public. It's strategic: prevent women from accessing the tools and knowledge to keep themselves safe, then justify denying them rights "to keep them safe."
    - shanusmagnus 9y ago
      You had the kernel of a sensible point a while ago, but now you're just digging in. Acting as if most teenage pregnancies occur because the woman involved doesn't understand how babies are made is asinine unless you've unearthed some population I don't know about; and claiming that frictions standing in the way of perfectly convenient birth control absolves a person from all consequences is both asinine and actively insulting to the agency of human beings everywhere. Things could be better, of course, and that's worth talking about, but your argument has turned into a caricature.
tptacek 9y ago
Respectfully, I'm not sure you fully understand these issues that you seem to have a very strong opinion about. Teenagers around the US do not as a rule have convenient access to contraceptive pills. That's because the FDA refuses to approve them for OTC sale, despite their safety relative to many other OTC meds. The stated reason for refusing OTC sales is that allowing them would prevent women from seeing their doctors for other medical issues (this is also the reason you can't buy extremely useful and safe meds like Ondansetron OTC). I feel like I'm on firm ground when I add that this is unlikely to be the only reason you can't buy OTC contraceptive pills. Meanwhile, about half of US states require parental consent for most minors before doctors can issue prescriptions for birth control. As a fun additional wrinkle, churches, and in particular the Catholic church, run some of the largest hospital and health chains in US metro areas. Church-run hospitals routinely refuse to provide access to contraceptive services. In Chicago, the Loyola health system --- an otherwise well-regarded health services chain! --- won't prescribe contraceptive pills to adults even for non-contraceptive reproductive health purposes! I don't think we need to spend too much time talking about Planned Parenthood clinics; the issues there are obvious to anyone familiar with the state of reproductive health in the US. So, no, I don't think it's reasonable to argue that any teenaged girl in the US should be expected to be fully armed with all the tools of modern contraception.
- justinjlynn 9y ago
  The lack of access to chemical birth control is a major issue, I agree. However, to the best of my knowledge, condoms are still fairly universally available to members of both sexes - which, while not ideal for a number of reasons, are certainly more effective in preventing the transmission of STIs as well as being effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy. Perhaps that might be a more charitable interpretation of the grandparent post, even if it's clearly not correct on the whole.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Beyond pointing out the obvious fact that teenaged girls in the US are living in a society that goes to some lengths to actively obstruct them from using the most reliable forms of contraception, I'm not really interested in digging further into the details here.