The Conseil du statut de la femme has raised the question of choice. No kidding:

The question is to know if girls really make a clear and educated choice to experience a precocious sexuality, or if this is purely a direct impact of the media.

Are we, in Quebec, calling sexually active teens ‘girls?’ Are we raising the issue of ill-informed choice as a potential problem regarding sexuality (and therefore reproduction)?

The article goes on to say:

Among adolescents in a couple relationship, one in five girls (20%) affirms having had a sexual encounter without actually desiring it. These are “extremely worrisome statistics,” figures the CSF.

The CSF confirms that the younger a girl starts being sexually active, the more sexual partners she will have and the higher the likelihood of her contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Hmm…That sounds a bit like a dose of abstinence education to me.

There was no mention of unintended pregnancy and subsequent (ill-informed, undesired) abortion risks.

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Rebecca adds: “… purely a direct impact of the media.” That’s a handy bit of slicing and dicing of reality, isn’t it? Are those really the only two possibilities: a) “girls” are making informed and rational choices to be sexually active or b) it’s the media’s fault? Parents, teachers, clergy, and all the other adults who are more directly connected to individual children have a responsibility to provide young people with not only facts, but also moral guidance and support. I can gripe about the media with the best of them, but there are some rather more specific culprits in the discussion of why teenage girls might be making regretable choices.