More Gloucester Crazy
By L. Russell Allen - Jun 24th, 2008 at 5:50 pmThe Gloucester Baby Pact continues to make news despite the revelation that the pact may never have even existed.
The latest bunch of crazy comes to us courtesy of City Journal. Yesterday it published an article about young, unwed women and their desire to have babies without a father figure. What good can birth control do if girls are getting pregnant on purpose?
First, many young women who become pregnant these days either want to have a baby (as in Gloucester) or are, at the very least, open to the idea. In order for birth control to work, you have to use it religiously, and the only way you use it religiously is if you really, really don’t want to get pregnant.
I really can’t stress this enough–there is almost no evidence of a pact! And even if there were, the writer, Kay S. Hymowitz, is trying to use this one (at this point, anecdotal at best) example to argue that providing birth control in schools isn’t worth it because girls just want to get pregnant anyways. And yet studies show that providing at least condoms to high school students leads to increased rates of contraceptive usage (and does not lead to an increase in sexual activity). Those people who used condoms when they were provided did not want to get pregnant. So, yes, high school students can be reached.
Hymowitz claims the “dominant narrative” of teenagers not having access to birth control is besides the point. No. It is very much the point. When high schoolers have access to birth control, they use it. And when they have to sneak 20 miles out of town to get a birth control prescription, they don’t.
But the pact, real or otherwise, gives the media an excuse to continue an honestly patronizing attitude towards these young women, who are neither being given the tools to handle their sexuality nor the power to exercise control over their sexuality, yet lambasted for their expression of it. You can’t be nearly as condescending towards the girls if it turns out that, oops, not giving access to contraception can actually lead to pregnancy.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:49 am