During the Republican Tea Party Debate Bachmann brought up the issue of Perry's Executive decision to force 12 year old girls to receive a shot that prevents cervical cancer.
WHAT?
I first watched this in my political communication course and decided it was crazy. The government should not be able to force children to take a shot for a non-contagious disease, but moreso than that ONE MAN should not have the ability to make that happen.
When I had more time to think about it, I still don't think it's appropriate for one man to require that to happen, however, we do have shots for diseases that we are forced to take. There is a lot of government regulation on healthcare already and I don't expect that to decrease any time soon.
However, this conversation led to another with Ashley the other day.
For those who don't know, there is talks of whether the government should provide birth control to young people.
And no, I'm not talking about the bowl of expired condoms sitting outside of the nurse's office in high school.
I'm talking about providing pills, or shots, or surgery to girls to prevent pregnancy.
I think it's a great idea.
1. When we look at poverty stricken families what common correlation do we see? Unmarried mothers, teenage mothers, children that need support. Here's the deal, in this country they are going to get support. We as citizen are going to pay taxes to support those teenage families, and worst of all, those kids are STILL going to grow up in crappy atmospheres. We may as well pay for the birth control and save potentially multiple "lives", than have those lives reach into our pockets later (in the figurative and unfortunately literal sense). Now do I think we should require girls to take birth control. Absolutely not, and I don't condone sexual activity at that age either, but if we are going to live in a country where we are required to pay taxes for the impoverished anyway (and we do), may as well support something before peoples lives get ruined.
2. When it comes to condoms versus birth control for women. Let's take a moment and be honest with ourselves/ Or I'm more than willing to enlighten those who don't know. Most men don't like condoms. You know who is not going to wear a condom, an uneducated teenager who doesn't care about the repercussions. Even if he does wear a condom, it's less effective than birth control. When I was in Environmental Science my professor discussed how the argument behind hunting as a means of population control was flawed because if that were true, we should be hunting the Females and not the big Bucks. She said if there are 20 deer and one is female, there can only be one litter, if there is only one male, there can be 19 litters. We need to be attacking the problem where it really exists. With the pregnant girl.
3. But Matt, don't know that birth control doesn't prevent std's? Ya, ya I do. If a teenager decides they are grown enough to be sexually active, they can risk the consequences. They are "grown up" enough to have sex, they are "grown up" to buy some condoms. Or they can live with the consequences for the rest of their life. Those little bumps, those are forever. But you know who should NEVER be considered a "consequence" that someone has to live with for the rest of their lives? A child. A child is a blessing, and once they are in this world, they deserve to be treated as such.
Something to think about.
