Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Contraceptives - Abortion Rate
I see today that there is a poll in the Sunday Star Times online asking the following question:
"Will providing better access to contraception reduce the number of abortions among young girls?"
Now I would have thought that the question is rather like asking: If one team scores more points than the other team in a game of rugby league, will they win?
But not to almost half of the respondents.
At the moment 1,291 have said "yes" while 1,245 have said "no".
It's obvious that merely making something available doesn't necessarily mean that people will use or do it (the sink is usually about a metre from the toilet but can you honestly say you've washed you hands 100% of the time?). However surely a few more condoms in a few more wallets or a few more young girls taking pill contraceptives will have SOME god damn influence on the abortion rate. Decreasing it even!!!, dare I say it.
The associated (albeit rather light) piece is filled with comments and questions from those supposedly in the know but once again there are few (no) answers from the very people who surely should have them.
The general thrust of the story is that alcohol is playing a part. Kids as young as 11 are getting on the turps, and doing things they might not normally. Basically the same as the rest of us grown adults do every other weekend. Of course we are talking about extremely young chidren here who shouldn't be anywhere near booze for several more years.
It's a bit of a tenuous link between the story and the question in the poll but then that seems to be their specialty. Surely a better question would have been: "Would raising the drinking age have any effect on reducing the abortion rate?" or something along those lines. And then perhaps a discussion of what can be done to keep booze out of youngsters hands (...and into mine).
Thinking back to my experience of sex education at school I can vaguely recall a few classes in primary school back in about 1988 and I'm still traumatised by the childbirth I had to watch in class on video in 4th (or was it 3rd) form back in '89' or '90'. I guess the classes weren't really for the likes of me though as it would be years before I touched my first beer in anger and ... ah... yeah.
I think it would be far better to actually survey young people on all the related issues. And perhaps even to collect information from the young girls who are having abortions. Of course I don't mean giving them the third degree and a 6 page questionnaire to fill out, I just mean a few simply questions about contraceptives and what they know about them. Now that could really go a long way to answering some of those questions that nobody seems to know the bloody answer to.
Meanwhile in Korea...
Wouldn't mind getting that for my car stereo.
Check the article out, about what they are up to.
and also I thought Chris Rattue's article in the herald about having longer test series against teams was good so if you haven't read it then have a gork.
"Will providing better access to contraception reduce the number of abortions among young girls?"
Now I would have thought that the question is rather like asking: If one team scores more points than the other team in a game of rugby league, will they win?
But not to almost half of the respondents.
At the moment 1,291 have said "yes" while 1,245 have said "no".
It's obvious that merely making something available doesn't necessarily mean that people will use or do it (the sink is usually about a metre from the toilet but can you honestly say you've washed you hands 100% of the time?). However surely a few more condoms in a few more wallets or a few more young girls taking pill contraceptives will have SOME god damn influence on the abortion rate. Decreasing it even!!!, dare I say it.
The associated (albeit rather light) piece is filled with comments and questions from those supposedly in the know but once again there are few (no) answers from the very people who surely should have them.
The general thrust of the story is that alcohol is playing a part. Kids as young as 11 are getting on the turps, and doing things they might not normally. Basically the same as the rest of us grown adults do every other weekend. Of course we are talking about extremely young chidren here who shouldn't be anywhere near booze for several more years.
It's a bit of a tenuous link between the story and the question in the poll but then that seems to be their specialty. Surely a better question would have been: "Would raising the drinking age have any effect on reducing the abortion rate?" or something along those lines. And then perhaps a discussion of what can be done to keep booze out of youngsters hands (...and into mine).
Thinking back to my experience of sex education at school I can vaguely recall a few classes in primary school back in about 1988 and I'm still traumatised by the childbirth I had to watch in class on video in 4th (or was it 3rd) form back in '89' or '90'. I guess the classes weren't really for the likes of me though as it would be years before I touched my first beer in anger and ... ah... yeah.
I think it would be far better to actually survey young people on all the related issues. And perhaps even to collect information from the young girls who are having abortions. Of course I don't mean giving them the third degree and a 6 page questionnaire to fill out, I just mean a few simply questions about contraceptives and what they know about them. Now that could really go a long way to answering some of those questions that nobody seems to know the bloody answer to.
Meanwhile in Korea...
Wouldn't mind getting that for my car stereo.
Check the article out, about what they are up to.
and also I thought Chris Rattue's article in the herald about having longer test series against teams was good so if you haven't read it then have a gork.
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