What? Girls like babies? Kay Hymowitz makes the valid point that unless we address this small biological imperative, birth control pills ain’t gonna help, because girls won’t take them with the religious attention required for them to be effective. A girl who can find a homeless man to be the father of her child could certainly have found the Planned Parenthood clinic, no matter how far away.
Put another way, ubersocialized middle-class experts, journalists and policymakers aren’t addressing the fact that girls tend to like babies. In most cultures in human history, 15-or 16-year-olds were seen as viable mothers (only after being married off, of course), so biological urge coincided with social need. But in more complex societies like ours, in which a long period of education and wealth accumulation is necessary to prepare for an advanced labour market and marriage, adolescent baby lust poses a big problem.
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Tanya just clicked: That’s what’s been bothering me about this story form the outset, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Teaching a girl how to put on a condom or take a pill won’t do much if she’s bent on getting pregnant. It’s not just a ‘teenage girl’ thing.
Here’s where a good ole’ dose of abstinence education comes in handy. ‘How does that make any sort of sense?’ you say. Well, abstinence education is ideally coupled with ideas like self-worth, family values and the importance of one partner for life. Nothing wrong with having a baby, even as a teenager. Just get married to the best man in the world first.
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