Wednesday, July 16, 2008

I know I am probably preaching to the choir here but...

Of all the industrialized countries in the world, the U.S. has, by far, the highest instance of teenage pregnancies with a rate that more than doubles the nearest competitors.


Teen Pregnancy: Why the U.S. Lags Behind Europe

Imagine that. Complete and honest communication about sexuality and access to prevention methods helps reduce teen pregnancies and abortions. Who'da thunk it? Now granted, I know that all is not perfect and shiny in those other countries mentioned but the numbers show that they have managed to do a better job of controlling unplanned pregnancies in teenagers and THAT is definitely something. What I especially loved is the assertion that they do not allow religious agendas to make public health policy, an utterly stupid thing to do anyway. And yet, we as Americans tend so see any information coming from other countries as suspect and tend to scoff at it as being elitist and not applicable to us because we are all very special little snowflakes indeed.

*sighs*

Perhaps someday we will finally acknowledge that humans are-well-human and that fucking around is simply one of the things we do and needs to be treated as simply another, ordinary aspect of being human.

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