First of all - FUCK YES to this. Few of you know my childhood, so here’s a brief moment:
My mother thought telling me that if I “had sex, I was grounded”, was going to dissuade me from having sex. On the contrary, it held no favor whether or not I had sex. It just meant that I didn’t talk to her about it, and hid it as best I could. This is a problem. A BIG problem.
I was lucky. I was smart and educated about sex, both due to school and independent research. Therefore, I always used condoms. I had a condom break once, and I freaked out for 2 weeks, waiting to see if I got pregnant because of it. I didn’t have the option of Plan B. It had only recently been approved, and it wasn’t approved for 16 year olds without parental consent. Considering that wasn’t an option, I had to wait that 2 weeks agonizing over what could potentially change my entire fucking life.
Fast forward to today, and you can imagine how happy I am to see that other teens aren’t going to have to wait that agony. That horrible feeling of no matter how careful you were, you might still be totally fucked and not in a good way.
That being said: Man, there are too many ignorant people on the internet. I just spent the last hour ‘debating’ (if you call throwing facts at a brick wall debating, that is) about this whole thing.
The main arguments I saw:
1.) It’s abortion. (No it’s not)
2.) Kids should live with the actions of unprotected sex. (Yep, because it only works if you have unprotected sex. Not if a condom breaks.)
3.) The government is taking away the right to raise my kids. (Apparently an option now means an ultimatum)
4.) It’s totally unsafe. (Actually, it’s been available for 14 years now, and has about the same amount of potential side effects that every other pill you take OTC does. Also, 16 year olds can get birth control in many states without parental consent, and that has MORE side effects than Plan B.)
5.) If it kills a sperm or egg to prevent pregnancy, then it’s killing life. (So… masturbation & ovulation without implantation is murder?)
6.) Where are the Christan values this country was founded on? (Treaty of Tripoli. ‘Nuff said)
7.) Won’t SOMEBODY think of the children?! (I think we ARE thinking of the children. In fact, we’re thinking of not only your children that decide to have sex and have a condom break, but also the children who are stuck in foster care and the system their entire lives because their parents were teenagers who couldn’t handle being parents at their age.)
8.) We need to teach kids to be more responsible about this stuff and NOT have sex. (Yea, because that whole abstinence thing is what is keeping teen pregnancy rates floored as compared to when I, or you, were teens. That’s exactly it. Couldn’t possibly be that birth control is more easily available. Nope.)
My brain has pretty much shut down at this point, because the stupid is ripe.
The most annoying part is the repetitious “PLAN B IS ABORTION! WHY ARE WE LETTING KIDS GET AN ABORTION PILL WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT” argument. It literally takes 2 seconds of googling “How does Plan B work” to get the fact that it does no good if you are already pregnant. And unless you’re with the lady who pretty much claimed that sperm or egg not meeting and therefore being killed = murder, it can’t possibly be abortion.
Nevermind the fact that the whole ‘they should get a prescription for it’ thing pretty much negates the purpose of the drug and the time it’s usable for. For instance, the Planned Parenthoods by me have a 6 week waiting list for any appointments. I don’t know many OBs that can get you in the day you call to be seen. It’s just a ridiculous notion at all.
