FDA to allow 'morning-after' pill for 17-year-olds

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Originally Posted by JoeChalupa

The first time I experienced "hook-up" sex was back in 1980 when I was in the service and I really didn't want to deal with relationship BS because I just wanted to screw around and enjoy my youth. During college I also had a hook-up for sex and it was no big deal. From what I hear today regarding kids in their early teens hooking up and that oral sex is no big deal shocks me.

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Your experience is not what I was talking about. Yes, there was plenty of hook-up sex in the mid-'90s. What I'm referring to is an alleged culture where people who don't routinely have hook-up sex are treated like they have a third arm growing out of their forehead, and people who have personal moral qualms against it make about as much sense as people who morally object to using the letter 'Q.'

Meanwhile, I hope you understand that the difference between the sexual mores of your youth and those of young teens today is qualitative and slight.

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Originally Posted by ElNono

But the state does leave it up to the family to deal with matters of sex. They're merely allowing a certain demographic to have access to a certain contraceptive if they choose to use it. The state isn't forcing anybody to make decisions.

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Sure. I was questioning the notion that saying teens engaging in sex is a bad thing was a bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant

Sure. I was questioning the notion that saying teens engaging in sex is a bad thing was a bad thing.

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We don't have anything to discuss then. I agree everyone is entitled to their opinions. :toast

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Originally Posted by ElNono

The state isn't *replacing* one service with another. It's merely providing an additional service for those that do not wish to carry on with the pregnancy.
In the long run, it's in the state's best interest that this service is provided, economically speaking.

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Sure, we must serve the state.

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Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant

Sure, we must serve the state.

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How are we serving the state?

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Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant

Sure, we must serve the state.

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The state has to have a compelling reason to restrict access to a product. Under the laissez-faire model, vendors could peddle whatever wares they wanted, caveat emptor. The existence of the FDA represents a statist departure from that model.

The idea behind the FDA is that the state can regulate products that have medical impacts upon the consumer. The science says that Plan B apparently has insufficient adverse medical impacts upon 17-year-olds (and ostensibly those even younger) to restrict its access.

The latter-day "conservative" notion is that the state can regulate products based upon their moral impacts on the consumer. This is ironic, since in the pre-New Deal days, this would have been a Pietist "progressive" position.

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Originally Posted by Extra Stout

The state has to have a compelling reason to restrict access to a product. Under the laissez-faire model, vendors could peddle whatever wares they wanted, caveat emptor. The existence of the FDA represents a statist departure from that model.

The idea behind the FDA is that the state can regulate products that have medical impacts upon the consumer. The science says that Plan B apparently has insufficient adverse medical impacts upon 17-year-olds (and ostensibly those even younger) to restrict its access.

The latter-day "conservative" notion is that the state can regulate products based upon their moral impacts on the consumer. This is ironic, since in the pre-New Deal days, this would have been a Pietist "progressive" position.

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I agree. We're supposed to open up the champagne since the feds broke us off a crumb of personal liberty after deciding that we wouldn't hurt ourselves with it.

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Originally Posted by Extra Stout

I hear that there is this college culture wherein people who don't view having sex with other people as something akin to playing Yahtzee with them or watching Star Wars are considered strange and are pressured to put out no-holds-barred. Where does this exist? It didn't exist when I went to college 15 years ago, and it doesn't exist today in the Texas colleges or those in surrounding states as far as Illinois where the children of my friends and loved ones go.

I mean, yes, there were copious opportunities to have sex, of which many people took ample advantage, but having an attitude of "gee, I really don't want to deal with the relational, emotional, and possibly physical consequences of having sex with this person" was considered entirely normal and acceptable. It was not a four-year orgyfest. Most people spent most of their time, um, studying.

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:lol

I wasn't suggesting that there aren't a significant number of college students who don't view their freshman year as a series of 24-hour Girls Gone Wild videos. I wasn't talking about those kids. I'm talking about the sexually curious kids who go from having no freedom at home to having all kinds of freedom at college. If they want to have sex when they're 16, maybe it's better to go ahead and figure out the physical and psychological effects at that point in their lives. Hell, maybe you could say the same about kids and beer...

And I've also known people who practiced chastity through high school AND college, gotten married, had kids and lived happily ever after. Even while outside influences seem to have the end goal of homogenizing us all, we are still very unique.

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Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant

In general, is it a good thing for teens to be having sex? It's not like many parents are that responsible themselves. (Yes, I know, they'll do it no matter, etc...) I'm just wondering why the thought that teens having sex isn't a good thing is a bad thing.

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What's wrong with teens having protected sex? I guess you could bring up things like self-esteem issues, but that's more on the our cultural obsession with sex as sin in labeling sexually active women as sluts and whores.

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Originally Posted by baseline bum

I guess you could bring up things like self-esteem issues, but that's more on the our cultural obsession with sex as sin in labeling sexually active women as sluts

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thats cause they are, whores get paid though

Anyway :td to this decision, there's nothing more awesome then the look on a teen's face when you tell them you can't sell plan b to them cause they are too young to buy it.

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Originally Posted by baseline bum

What's wrong with teens having protected sex? I guess you could bring up things like self-esteem issues, but that's more on the our cultural obsession with sex as sin in labeling sexually active women as sluts and whores.

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How many are ready for the responsibility that comes with raising a child? That's kind of the part of the story that's left out for those who think sex is just about fucking without any repercussions. And that does matter for society ultimately as either more charity is needed to raise those unwanted children or, of course, greater state involvement to take care of the unwanted byproduct of a quick fuck. Not to mention that those individuals who start out life unwanted may not end up to be great adults themselves.

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Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant

How many are ready for the responsibility that comes with raising a child? That's kind of the part of the story that's left out for those who think sex is just about fucking without any repercussions. And that does matter for society ultimately as either more charity is needed to raise those unwanted children or, of course, greater state involvement to take care of the unwanted byproduct of a quick fuck. Not to mention that those individuals who start out life unwanted may not end up to be great adults themselves.

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That is why I explicitly qualified my statement with protected sex. Of course unprotected sex is highly irresponsible for those with no ability to raise an unwanted child.

We're expecting 14 year olds to act with the sexual maturity of 34 year olds. I don't think that's reasonable or a great idea, jimmy covered or not.

I think some of the adults on this forum have selectively forgotten their own teenage years.

How many of you were virgins by the age of 20?

The fact is, whether or not we chose to admit it w/ regard to our own children, kids want to have sex. We wanted to have sex, we had sex, our parents wanted to have sex (and they did too--they just had shotgun weddings afterwords and spent the rest of their lives in miserable relationships).

Do you honestly think the morning after pill's availability (or lack thereof) will stop kids from having sex?

Some kids want to have sex, yes.

But you're at the other end of the spectrum... "All teens want to have sex and most of them do" vs. "teens shouldn't be having sex." I don't really agree with either.

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Originally Posted by Spurminator

Some kids want to have sex, yes.

But you're at the other end of the spectrum... "All teens want to have sex and most of them do" vs. "teens shouldn't be having sex." I don't really agree with either.

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I was a virgin until I was 18 but that was just because I acted like a kid and matured later than some of my other friends and was a nerd. But things WERE different and while I'm sure there were kids having sex in HS it was not the norm as much as some stud wannabe's had you believe. Girls weren't giving out BJ's left and right like they do today. Casual sex has become, well....more casual than it was even back in my day.

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Originally Posted by JoeChalupa

I was a virgin until I was 18 but that was just because I acted like a kid and matured later than some of my other friends and was a nerd. But things WERE different and while I'm sure there were kids having sex in HS it was not the norm as much as some stud wannabe's had you believe. Girls weren't giving out BJ's left and right like they do today. Casual sex has become, well....more casual than it was even back in my day.

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I think that really depends more on where you were and what you were doing. When I was in high school it was pretty damn common. By my freshman year in college, just about everyone had had sex.

I think people were a little less talkative about it back in the day, but I don't think that much has changed.

Think about it, how different were the big "teen movies" of the 70s and 80s than the previews you see for teen movies today?

I'm not an advocate for teen promiscuity, I'm just a realist. Kids in high school will want to have sex. Not all of them, but a lot of them, and not all of them will make the smartest decisions in the heat of the moment.

To me that means having contraceptives available to teenagers isn't necessarily a bad thing, because teens are just as likely to have sex w/ or w/o them.

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And just for the record, I was a virgin until my junior year in college--and that was a secret I would have taken w/ me to the grave. You know why? Because like every other horny teenager on the planet I realllllly wanted to have sex.

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Originally Posted by RobinsontoDuncan

I think that really depends more on where you were and what you were doing. When I was in high school it was pretty damn common. By my freshman year in college, just about everyone had had sex.

I think people were a little less talkative about it back in the day, but I don't think that much has changed.

Think about it, how different were the big "teen movies" of the 70s and 80s than the previews you see for teen movies today?

I'm not an advocate for teen promiscuity, I'm just a realist. Kids in high school will want to have sex. Not all of them, but a lot of them, and not all of them will make the smartest decisions in the heat of the moment.

To me that means having contraceptives available to teenagers isn't necessarily a bad thing, because teens are just as likely to have sex w/ or w/o them.

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And just for the record, I was a virgin until my junior year in college--and that was a secret I would have taken w/ me to the grave. You know why? Because like every other horny teenager on the planet I realllllly wanted to have sex.

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Having sex on the mind and actually having sex are not the same thing. Well, duh. But you know what I mean. I went to HS in Ohio in the 70's and casual sex was not a common thing. Did it happen? Yes, but not at the level it is today with "hooking up" being common and oral sex being done at a drop of a dime. But maybe things were different in the mid-west. But I also think there were many who talked about having sex but that's all it was..talk. That is what I believe.

Of course teens want to have sex. That doesn't make it a good idea.

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Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant

Of course teens want to have sex. That doesn't make it a good idea.

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I concur.

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Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant

We're expecting 14 year olds to act with the sexual maturity of 34 year olds. I don't think that's reasonable or a great idea, jimmy covered or not.

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Are we? I really don't have that expectation at all. As a matter of fact, you have 34 year olds acting with the sexual maturity of a 14 year old. And THAT I definitely have a problem with.

I think it all boils down to what is more reasonably achievable, to prevent teenagers from having sex at all, or to educate them about the perils of unprotected sex and make birth control readily available. I'm going with the latter.

The thing is, it's all about parenting, and parenting is shit right now. So we're stuck depending on the government to teach and promote sex through contraception, or to shun it with abstinence-only education.

How many minutes of real father-son/mother-daughter dialogue could make all of this so much less important?

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Originally Posted by Spurminator

The thing is, it's all about parenting, and parenting is shit right now. So we're stuck depending on the government to either promote sex through contraception and education, or to shun it by teaching abstinence.

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I really don't see how teaching about contraception = promoting sex... nobody is teaching these kids that they SHOULD be having sex, but rather that if they choose to, they should do it safely.

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Originally Posted by MaNuMaNiAc

I really don't see how teaching about contraception = promoting sex... nobody is teaching these kids that they SHOULD be having sex, but rather that if they choose to, they should do it safely.

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Depends on how it's done. It's one thing if it's handed out on an "ask for it" basis by the school councelor... It's another thing if they're being handed out in Science class to everyone, including the kids who hadn't been considering sexual activity.