Yes, for sexually active people, getting STD screenings is very important. Planned Parenthood does just as much of that as it provides birth control. Hm, it's almost like they're aware of these facts, and act based on them!

People who support abstinence-only education have unrealistic ideas about both sex and their children. There's no getting around that. As I said, sex ed affects the future adult, not just the current teenager.



I have only said that their sexual mores are oppressive; you are the one who seems insistent on labeling them oppressors because of that. The terminology of sexual oppression is not new, and I certainly did not invent it myself. Just look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_norm, for starters.

Arguing from age of consent laws is silly. Those laws are a low-order approximation to the underlying morality. We consider sex to be wrong if one or both (or more) parties have an impaired or undeveloped ability to consent. There are many nuanced situations in which that could be the case; the law makes gross approximations by age because it can't accurately evaluate most of those situations on an individual basis. I am sure that some people under the age of consent are still mentally able to consent, and some people over it are not able. The legal age of consent was not handed down from on high, and its existence is not an argument against safety education (which is what sex ed actually is).

There's a difference between understanding why people hold the views they do, and accepting those views as legitimate or grounded.



Some 12 or 14 year olds can still get pregnant; if we're really trying to prevent unplanned pregnancies, that's where to start. I think you're overestimating the amount of risk assessment or weighing that teenagers do at any point. Availability of reliable birth control has not been shown to encourage sex.

We will never completely eliminate the chance of pregnancy without actually removing the reproductive system, but we can get the chance low enough that it isn't worth worrying about.



I think that we need to move toward social norms which would make getting a birth control implant (at whatever age) the accepted, usual, and responsible option. Spreading disinformation about birth control must be discouraged, as well as parents foisting oppressive sexual mores on their children. The operative question to be asked is, "do you want your daughter to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term if she gets raped?" (Assuming, in the ideal world of the (fictitious) reasonable pro-life movement, abortion is outlawed once such implants exist.)



You are speaking descriptively. My impression is that the "pro-life" movement view that fact prescriptively, i.e., pregnancy should be the consequence of sex.

I address your misunderstanding of the idea of oppressive sexual mores above.



As I explained to nossy: