October 22, 2007
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Do you think middle schoolers should have free access to birth control? Part 2
I wanted to answer the comments I got in response to my first response
to FQ75, but my response got a little long so I thought I’d just make
it another post. And I feel my last post wasn’t entirely clear so I
thought I’d use this opportunity to try and clarify what it is that I
am saying.I agree with everyone that is saying that parenting and education
is the real long term solution to problems of underage pregnancy. Birth
Control access is a stopgap measure that doesn’t directly address the
real problems. That’s true. I just think we have to do it anyway.I also agree that part of the problem is that society is afraid that it lacks parental skills. That’s a big part of what makes this issue so touchy for people.
But this is a delusion. Parents have not gotten inherently worse at
parenting. Sure you always hear about the worst examples in the news,
but these are just sensationalist B.S.. A few examples does not show a trend. It just isn’t the reality. The
reality is quite the opposite. The task of parenting has just become
exponentially harder. The challenges we face as a species are much
harder and in order for children to be prepared to meet those
challenges their education in matters both social and academic has to
be supercharged. And it’s not just that. Here in
the US we’ve eroded communal connections and separated extended
families, meaning that parents now, more than ever are taking on this
all important task of raising children all alone.It is extraordinary that parents are managing to meet these challenges
without going postal and yet they are and IMO doing a pretty damn good
job of it. Parents aren’t worse at parenting. They’re probably in many
ways much better at it. It’s just that the perceived increase in
difficulty has far outpaced the perceived increase in skill. So it is
perfectly understandable why people are afraid and why they are
clinging to issues like these as the symbol for their feelings of
helplessness.We need to relax and have more faith in ourselves. We can teach our
children to make good decisions. We can help our children learn how to
be happy in this chaotic world in which we live in. As they say, we
have nothing to fear but fear itself.But none of that has much to do with birth control. My argument for
allowing access to birth control is pretty simple really. It is
unconscionable under any circumstances to deny anyone the mechanisms to
protect themselves if we have the means to give it. Certainly we have
no right to refuse them that means on the basis of some twisted
principled moral position that they have no say in. Don’t you dare tell
me I can’t have a means to better myself because it doesn’t fit into
your vision of how society should be and how people ought to behave.
Don’t do that to me when I’m fifty and don’t do that to me when I’m
ten. It is just plain wrong.Think
about it this way. If you see people out there right now who are
suffering and you have the means to prevent others from having to go
through the same thing and all you have to do is accept that the world
isn’t the way you’d like it to be, wouldn’t you still have to do that?
And that’s the way it is right now. Today. There are people out there
right now, children, who will
very soon be terrified and afraid and alone and knowing full well that
they may have just made a mistake that could ruin the rest of your
lives. We don’t know why they will get into that situation. We don’t
know how they will end up that way. But we know as sure as the sun
rises that they will. The statistics don’t lie.But we can
give some of them a way out. We can keep many of them from getting
there. And its cheap and easy to do so. All we have to do, is give up
our preconceptions about what childhood should and ought to be like and
give them the means to make a wiser choice. It doesn’t cost us anything
except a moments emotional discomfort at the thought of the very young
having sex. Isn’t that worth it? How could we possibly have a right to
choose otherwise?Or will we say instead, screw those children! Their parents should have taught them better! Will we say: “Well my
children would never end up in such a situation. I taught them too
well. So what do I care bout all those other children who will?” Are
we that callous? Are we that cruel? How will we live with ourselves in
the face of the condemning eyes of all those children whose childhood
will be blasted away in an instantaneous revelation? Will we have the
good grace to say to them that we’re sorry? “We are so sorry. We didn’t
create your hardship, but we could have prevented it, but we didn’t do
it because it made us too uncomfortable.” Can we say to them with a
straight face? Can you? I know I couldn’t.And that’s just all there is to it. Nobody wants the world to be the way it is. But it is the way it is. And we have before us the ability to make a choice that will actually
help people. It will make real people’s lives better in easily
quantifiable ways. It isn’t some hypothetical. The choices before us
are to help or not to help; to do or not to do.It isn’t that I think it is a great thing that middle schoolers
should have access to birth control. I just can’t imagine in good
conscience making another choice. This is one of those rare cases where
utilitarianism rules the moral day. Doing good for some is better than
doing good for none. If we take out our emotional attachment to the
problem, it’s as cut and dry as it gets.And as for parental
notification, I think it’s trickier. It always is. I see both sides.
That’s why I chickened out of talking about it in my first post.Children
can do greater harm to themselves if they are allowed to sneak about
behind their parents back. Their parents might be able to help them and
teach them but how can they if they don’t know what is happening in
their lives? That isn’t exactly fair to the parents. On the other hand,
if children know that their parents will have to be told, isn’t there a
chance that they would avoid seeking out help that they actually need?
Without the possibility of anonymous requests, making available birth
control might be nothing but an empty gesture that changes nothing
since so few children would ever bother to exercise it.So I
generally think the children should have a default option of privacy,
but in exchange they should have to go through counseling and the
counselors should have the ability to override that privacy option in
extreme situations where they feel the parents really do need to be
notified. But in a vast majority of cases the counselors should not
exercise that option. Instead they should try and help the children
make the choice to confide in their parents themselves and if the child
should choose to do so be willing to be there when they do and help
their parents understand whatever it is that the child is going through. I think that’s probably the best balance you can come up with.Anyway,
I feel I should apologize to any potential readers for ranting so much
about this. I’m sure that I have written has offended some of you and I
am sorry about that. I didn’t realize how much this subject mattered to
me until I started writing about it. But this is one case where the
prevailing opinions run so counter to my moral intuitions that I just
couldn’t help but rant about it. I hope I wasn’t too harsh or
incoherent. And if anyone out there can convince me that I am wrong in the way that I am thinking about this, I will be eternally grateful to you for enlightening me.
