I recently got into a nice little heated discussion at work with a couple of my co-workers/friends. It was very interesting.
Here is some background: In October of this year, a Maine school board approved a plan to make a full range of birth control fully accessible to a certain middle school. This made contraceptives readily available to students in grades 6-8.
Some of my friends were beyond appalled. One of them said, "So they have to get parental consent to get an aspirin, but they can walk out with the pill in their pocket and not even have to tell a parent? That is ridiculous."
When I asked them what they thought should be done someone brought up the abstinence angle. Basically, no sex-ed. No birth control. Just tell them not to have sex.
All of this brought us straight to a Californian law that was enacted last year.
Under this law, minors do not need parental consent to receive abortion services. The same people that were against the middle school birth control were openly against the abortion rule.
What it all came down to was that they all believed that all of those types of decisions should be made aware to parents. Minors, teenagers, children, etc - none of them should not be allowed to make those decisions.
So I am bringing this question to you: is it ok to be in charge of your sexual decisions as a minor? As a teenager? As a middle schooler? As a child? Are you the only one who should be responsible for your actions and decisions?
Or is this really something that should only be discussed and decided with parents?
Perhaps minors are too young, immature, and just plain not ready to be making these kinds of decisions?
What do YOU think?
NOTE: Please DO NOT turn this into a pro-life vs pro-choice discussion.
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3 comments:
Funny you mention the sex-ed thing. My law teacher told me that, ever since it started, children have actually been having more sex. Nice work on the government's part eh?
Obviously, the parents have to know, and they can let their kid do whatever they want their kid to do, except forcing them to have sex. That's just wrong in so many ways.
It's your life, whether your a child or teenager or adult, so you can make the choices. Obviously if your 5-years-old you don't understand what sex even is, but what 5-year-old is gonna lose their virginity? As long as you know what sex is, I believe that you can do whatever you want with it.
Hm. I think that kids, teens, whatever ARE too immature to make the legal decision on their own. I mean, they can't drive legally because they are too immature to handle the decisions and to protect their and others' lives. So the same goes for sex. It's to protect them because they're blinded by infatuation, peer pressure, etc. So that they don't end up hurting themselves and others.
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