Great Britain: Land of the Virgin Birth

Despite opening with a trite anecdote, a British MP gets of to a reasonable start on the issue of teen pregnancy:

Many (though not all) teenage girls do not become pregnant accidentally because of ignorance, because of a lack of understanding of how their bodies work. They become pregnant because they have absolutely no ambition for themselves. They have been indoctrinated with the lie that they'll never amount to anything, and have fulfilled that prophesy by making no effort to achieve any qualification. Very often they live with parents (or a parent) who have no jobs themselves, who are setting the example of benefit dependency for all their offspring.

Such young women see parenthood as one way of achieving a level of independence and self-worth. And they're right, because that's more or less what they get: a flat and therefore some privacy, an income for the first time in their lives. And in fact, many of them make a decent job of parenthood despite the awful circumstances. But even they are nevertheless rearing the next generation in an environment where the main adult isn't working, but claiming.

He then describes how despite his own relative poverty as a child, his parents served as role models for a strong work ethic. So it would seem that the solution to this problem would be to help girls in impoverished communities better understand and achieve their options, or perhaps to make teen parenthood a less easy path to independence. (The problem there, the other paths tend to be more expensive in the short-term than cutting a new welfare check.)

Apparently not.

People shouldn't be ashamed of their circumstances, but neither should we avoid making value judgments about others' choices, especially when those choices result in a greater burden on the state, and lead to the continuation of the underclass.

Teenage girls shouldn't be having underage sex. Why? Because it's wrong.

Teenage girls shouldn't choose to have babies as an alternative to getting an education and a career. Why? Because it's wrong.

Parents shouldn't teach their children that a lifetime on benefits is attractive or even acceptable. Why? Because it's wrong.

(Please assume all the usual caveats: some people have no choice but to claim benefits, lots of single parents do a great job, etc.)

I must have missed something - how do all of these teenage girls get pregnant? The author says teenage girls become "pregnant because they have absolutely no ambition for themselves", but I nonetheless suspect that somewhere along the line these pregnancies involve sex acts. With boys and men. Does the author's moral approbation truly extend only to girls?

Honestly, even if we could work up a sufficient amount of society outrage at teen mothers, or even teen parents, I don't think it will do anything to eliminate the problem. Teen pregnancy rates were pretty high in the early 20th century, the big difference being that more babies were adopted and more young parents-to-be ended up being pressed into marriage. If the issue is preventing teen pregnancy, as opposed to making it less visible, maybe the focus truly should be on the economics, and upon incurring the additional expense to provide teen mothers who wished to no longer live at home, but could not afford to live independently, with a structured environment where they could learn parenting skills and complete their educations.

Meanwhile, there actually is compelling evidence that with better sex education and better availability of birth control, teen pregnancies will drop significantly.

Oh, That'll Work

Since for some reason there's a lot of buzz going on about teen sex, I thought I would take a look at what conservative commenters have to say about the subject. I found this real winner from Rebecca Hagelin. Hagelin yammers about the evils of Planned Parenthood, and its president's advocacy of, you know, sex education that actually involves education:

Her so-called “solutions”? Birth-control pills. Condoms. Diaphragms. All of which send an unmistakable message to teens: “You have no self-control, and we don’t expect you to. We know you’re going to ‘do it,’ so just make sure you’re ‘safe’ when you do.”

Never mind helping teens learn the skills they need to say “no.” Forget the guys who may be willing to avoid sex - they’ll have no excuse when the “cool” kids tease them. And the girls who would like help saying “no” when their boyfriends pressure them? Sorry, they’re on their own. Some “solutions”

So... how exactly does Hagelin expect these kids to respond, thanks to the glory of "abstinence only education"? What "excuse" does she expect to be born (no pun intended) of their ignorance?

• "Seks? What is the seks? I've never heard of the seks."

• "I would say 'yes', but every time you have sex you get pregnant, and there's no way to stop it."

• "I would say 'yes', but every time you have sex you get a disease, and there's no way to stop it."

Why am I reminded of Monty Python?

Mr. Blackitt: Look at them, bloody Catholics. Filling the bloody world up with bloody people they can't afford to bloody feed.

Mrs. Hagelin Blackitt: What are we dear?

Mr. Blackitt: Protestant, and fiercely proud of it...

Mrs. Blackitt: Why do they have so many children...?

Mr. Blackitt: Because every time they have sexual intercourse they have to have a baby.

Mrs. Blackitt: But it's the same with us, Harry.

Mr Blackitt: What d'you mean...?

Mrs. Blackitt: Well I mean we've got two children and we've had sexual intercourse twice.

Mr. Blackitt: That's not the point... We *could* have it any time we wanted.

Mrs. Blackitt: Really?

Mr. Blackitt: Oh yes. And, what's more, because we don't believe in all that Papist claptrap we can take precautions.

Mrs. Blackitt: What, you mean lock the door...?

Mr. Blackitt: No no, I mean, because we are members of the Protestant Reformed Church which successfully challenged the autocratic power of the Papacy in the mid-sixteenth century, we can wear little rubber devices to prevent issue.

Mrs Blackitt: What do you mean?

David Brooks On Sex Education

(Yeah, I had that thought as well.)

In When Preaching Flops, a rambling editorial which suggests that Brooks recently read an essay on object relations theory, Brooks sneers,

A little while ago, a national study authorized by Congress found that abstinence education programs don’t work. That gave liberals a chance to feel superior because it turns out that preaching traditional morality to students doesn’t change behavior.

I'm not sure who supposedly felt superior, but it wasn't exactly a surprise that "abstinence only" education failed. To the extent that "preaching traditional morality" translates into "Do as I say, not as I did or do," or, "Virginity is really important... for the girl you marry," who could be surprised by that?

Deciding is conscious and individual, but perceiving is subconscious and communal. The teen sex programs that actually work don’t focus on the sex. They focus on the environment teens live in. They work on the substratum of perceptions students use to orient themselves in the world. They don’t try to lay down universal rules, but apply the particular codes that have power in distinct communities. They understand that changing behavior changes attitudes, not the other way around.

And let me guess... they were created by people Brooks would describe as liberals. As Brooks seems to agree with them, though, perhaps they're Hamiltonian liberals.

Baby, Think It Over....

The "Baby Think It Over" program is supposed to convince young teens that babies are hard work, fussy, and can be unpleasant to care for - as part of educational programs to discourage pregnancy. But why do I find myself reading a deposition where one of these dolls was a "hot property" among seventh grade girls, such as they actively petitioned their teacher for the privilege of taking it home? When I think that over, I wonder how effective this curriculum is....[1]

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[FN 1] A quick Google search shows that at least one recent study has shown no statistically significant differences in sexual behavior or in students' attitude toward parenting, following completion of the "Baby Think It Over" program. (Somers & Fahlman, 2001).

"If they don't learn it in school...."

They'll learn it in the school yard? Apparently, once some controls are added to ensure the communcation of accurate information, sex ed works better at a peer-to-peer level.

Sex Education

The London Guardian takes on efforts to export "abstinence education" and "virginity training" to England:

"Studies of the Dutch experience ... have concluded that the underlying reason for success has been the combination of a relatively inclusive society with more open attitudes towards sex and sex education, including contraception." Requests for contraceptives there "are not associated with shame or embarrassment", and "the media is willing to carry explicit messages" about them that are "designed for young people". This teeming cesspool has among the lowest abortion and teenage birth rates on earth.

America and the UK, by contrast, are "less inclusive societies" where "contraceptive advice and services may be formally available, but in a 'closed' atmosphere of embarrassment and secrecy". The UK has a higher teenage pregnancy rate not because there is more sex or abortion, but because of "lower rates of contraceptive use".

With regard to "abstinence education", the author notes that the most pronounced effect appears to be through the non-use of contraceptives by participants,

Abstinence campaigns such as the Silver Ring Thing do delay sexual activity, but when their victims are sucked into the cesspool (nearly all eventually are), they are, according to a study at Columbia University, around one-third less likely to use contraceptives, as they are not "prepared for an experience that they have promised to forgo". The result, a paper published in the British Medical Journal shows, is that abstinence programmes are "associated with an increase in the number of pregnancies among partners of young male participants". You read that right: abstinence training increases the rate of teenage pregnancy.

The author also notes the political agenda of the Bush Administration: "[Bush] also forced [the CDC] to drop their project identifying the sex education programmes that work, after they found that none of the successful ones were "abstinence only"."