May 11, 2008

Sheila Harding, on The pill kills:

It is true that adolescents are, exposure for exposure, more likely to become infected than their adult counterparts. (Some stats suggest a 10-fold risk for Chlamydia, for example.)

It may be that the increased risk of infection for adolescents using hormonal contraception is due to one or both of two related factors:

Adolescents likely have increased susceptibility to infection because of the nature of their cervical tissue at the “transformation zone” between the endocervix and the exocervix. With maturation and with pregnancy, this tissue undergoes metaplasia from columnar epithelium (relatively susceptible) to squamous epithelium (relatively resistant).

It is unclear whether or not hormonal therapy further heightens this age-related susceptibility. It may. It is very clear, though, that those using hormonal contraception are far less likely to be using a concurrent barrier method of contraception, and thus don’t benefit from whatever protection against infection that a barrier method might offer. 

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Patrick Ross, on Muddy waters:

But does this really surprise you?

Let’s face it. This is always dismissed as a sensationalist argument — and as it’s usually forwarded, it usually is — but history shows us that if you can dismiss something or someone as less than human, you can justify almost anything you want to do to it.

The pro-abortion lobby insists that unborn children aren’t human, and thus should be subject to no consideration under the law. Thus, they believe that nothing they inflict upon their unborn child — such as the difficult life that lays ahead for a child with something like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome — should be outside the boundaries of law.

I think most of us with an understanding of what a fetus really is will immediately reject such attitudes.
I think we should have separate laws in place that allow for interventions in cases where mothers are knowingly and willingly continuing to use drugs and alcohol while pregnant.

 

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Frosti, on The wrong side of history:

As for William Wilberforce’s statement: No better (than slave traders) we are? Are we not being a little complacent, if that’s all we think? The traders had no respect for human life, but at least murder was not their primary goal or purpose.

“This culture will be embarrassed in not too long”… If only an embarrassment it were.

 

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Helen Osborn, on Unhelpful - why, exactly?:

I was at a conference recently where a civil servant was proudly setting out the plans for extended schools services (i.e. wraparound care) and found myself so upset by what was being proposed that I couldn’t concentrate on the presentation.

It seems to me that we live in a society where we are paranoid to the point of paralysis about children’s physical safety but utterly oblivious to their emotional safety and well-being. It doesn’t seem to be doing the parents much good either.