Pro-Obvious

Abortion is one of those nagging little issues that tends to be looked at with a myopic lens of either 'acceptable' or 'unacceptable', black or white.  For some, there are variables in determining the justification, for others, including Mrs. Palin, there is no grey area.  This post isn't entirely about that, because I know we aren't going to come to an agreement on anything today - what we can agree on, is however, curtailing unwanted pregnancies.  This requires an open-mind, and an avoidance of unrealistic expectations of our children.  It's about getting to the root of the issue.

Mrs. Palin believes there isn't ever a scenario where abortion is acceptable--even in a cases of rape, as she asserts in this video. Well, what about when a father rapes and impregnates their own child?  Not even then.  Palin believes the woman should have to give birth to her sibling.  This post isn't entirely about Palin either, but about the closed-minded, insular way of thinking that actually has a counter-productive effect for the desired outcome of these hardliners.

Abortion has always been a grey area for me, and I've never taken a hardline stance on the issue myself.  I will say this - I think abortions should be rare, and a very last resort.  It shouldn't be as easy to get an abortion as it is to get a minor surgery.

But it isn't a 'one-size-fits-all' problem.  There are many reasons, some ethical (as mentioned above), why a woman wouldn't be able to give birth to a child.  On the surface, when people think of abortion, they think of young teens popping in and out of the abortion clinic as casually as if they'd gotten a haircut.  Obviously this isn't the only scenario.  In order to arrive at a way to mitigate the problem, it's important to get to the root of it. 

In the case of young, unprepared mothers -- what led them to becoming impregnated?  (Yes, I'm being serious.  I might have some youngins' reading this blog.)
But seriously - remember when you were in Pre-K and you thought merely kissing someone would get you pregnant?  (No?  Okay, maybe that was just me.)  Flash forward to that child's pubescent awakening and you realize that without some sort of education on the subject, we'd all still be walking around wondering this, and I'm certain many of our primitive ancestors did.  When most kids finally do come around to learning about risks and diseases on their own (not to mention new found responsibilities), it might not be in time since, "according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI, 2001), a small number of early teens are sexually active: two out of ten females, and three out of ten males. However, by the age of 18, 65-70% of teens report being sexually active." (source)

Education is the most important route, and if a lot of these parents wouldn't be so afraid of the "evils of pre-marital sex" and would keep the dialogue open with their children to be a source of trust and information, they'd realize these open exchanges are not tantamount to pimping out their child to the highest bidder. 

What parents tend to do instead is either avoid the topic altogether, or simply tell their children to abstain from it, end of story.  The paradox here, of course, is that this may lead to abortions behind their parents backs in an effort to circumvent punishment.  (So, yeah - pretty counter-productive there, mom.)

As I recall all too clearly, churches even have campaigns where they tell these teens to sign cards pledging to Jesus that they will remain virgins until they are married.  "Abstinence ONLY", they resoundingly declare.  These Abstinence Only programs not only fail to work, but do a disservice to the children they are seeking to shelter from the bondages of their lustful ways.  Of course many parents live under the veil of fantasy when they believe that their child may, for the most part, 'voluntarily'--I stress voluntarily--wait until they are married to tap that ass, but, as the numbers above from 2001 show, this is way out of touch with reality.  I know we would all like to believe that our little angel wears a matching chastity belt everywhere she goes, but not so much.

The leading studies show that Abstinence Only programs do not curtail pre-marital sex and have "no beneficial impact on young people's sexual behavior and had no effect whatsoever in the outcome of sexual experimentation", whereas a study of comprehensive sexual education shows results. 

This seems like it would be a no brainer.  If a teenager is AWARE of the risk of disease and fully informed on how their body's work, then it should go without saying that their awareness will increasingly lead to an application of preventative measures.  It's pretty logical, dontcha think?  If they are just told to not do it, and not much else, then chances are that when they eventually do (not if), they'll dive in without as much foresight as would be provided by a level of awareness that either a good talk, or an education on the subject would provide.  Why is this so hard to understand?

On a personal note, I did have a child out of wedlock with my then girlfriend of several years (though 'out of wedlock' sounds silly to me now), and I was one of those that signed one of those "True Love Waits"/"Abstinence Only" cards as a teen.  Obviously that didn't work.  In my case, I was informed though apparently BC isn't always enough.  However, thankfully I've always had a supportive family behind me, and I never had a doubt that I would.  I was freshly out of the house though, so maybe it was just that much easier for them to swallow, even if not entirely.  This acceptance isn't always the case with many kids these days though, especially when they're still in school, and living at home.

Surely, 'abstinence only' is the ideal route that many parents want for their children, but considering the statistics, it's not the practical one.  It's shown to be comparatively ineffective to a proper sexual education. It's almost obvious that there will never be a predominant consensus reached on abortion -- and we're not going to settle that here today.  However, can we agree that being 'pro-obvious' by properly educating our nation's youth is the very least we can do?