Plan B Contraception Makers Ask for US to Change Its Policy.

[Juniperberry]

And while I am not a parent, I too would rather have a daughter who took Plan B without telling me, as opposed to a pregnant daughter.

Why?

[victoreia]

Why?

 
If she were underage, I wouldn't want her to a) go through all the censure of getting pregnant at a young age, and b) have to raise a child while still a child herself. (I will say that I would hope I make a good-enough mother that she'd be able to tell me if something happened.

However, this is a hypothetical situation for me.

[Juniperberry]

If she were underage, I wouldn't want her to a) go through all the censure of getting pregnant at a young age, and b) have to raise a child while still a child herself. (I will say that I would hope I make a good-enough mother that she'd be able to tell me if something happened.

However, this is a hypothetical situation for me.

 
My bad. This thread got so intense I lost track that this was a prevention issue and not an abortion one. :p

I'd definitely be ok with my (older!) daughter taking preventive steps w/o telling me.

(If she got an abortion and didn't turn to me for help and support it would break my heart, though.)

Anyway. Carry on.

[Erinnightwalker]

 (I have read the whole thread, but I hang my reply on first post. Seems safer, anyway.)

I am a relatively young woman. I recently turned 21. In my school district (in relatively progressive California), they didn't even explain pads and sanitary napkins until the 4th grade. No sex ed until freshman year in high school, which was a laughable joke. We got the abstinence cards, the "I pledge to save my vagina for my husband" pledge, some disgusting slides on STD's and a movie on the miracle of life. The infamous banana+condom demonstration? They didn't do it. We watched a video on it. The textbooks then were older than I am now. I learned all I know about preventative sex stuff from my own interwebbing.

I also have a friend, who's grandmother (the woman who raised her) was a nurse. The grandmother made sure she had protection from the moment she was able to conceive because of a case of a 12 year old girl who was raped and became pregnant. Her parents decided for her that she would carry the baby to term. In the third trimester, she hemorrhaged, lost the baby, and lost her uterus. So, thanks to the wisdom and wonderful parenting she had, she could no longer have the chance for babies born of love or even chance. Its cases like that that make me wish that the law hadn't been shot down. You can't assume that age = common sense, or that someone's morals are the best choice. Sometimes a 12 year old is smarter and better equipped to make a decision than their parents.

As a side note, I kinda wonder why Plan B is so expensive, but stuff like Viagra is tossed out like candy. Hmmm, no get pregnant or possibly get a stiffy that requires an operation to get rid of? Decision, decisions....

[stephyjh]

(I have read the whole thread, but I hang my reply on first post. Seems safer, anyway.)

I am a relatively young woman. I recently turned 21. In my school district (in relatively progressive California), they didn't even explain pads and sanitary napkins until the 4th grade.

OT, but this was me. By the time my conservative Christian private school (I was their token scholarship kid) got around to discussing it in "health" class in sixth grade, half the girls in the class were already menstruating.

[mandrina]

I've considered it, but they seem to have a high rate for being refused by the body (based on reports from one of my sisters and several other women I've spoken to that had that happen to them, anyway). Last time I tried a low dose medication, and I was completely bed-ridden. I end up feeling very weak, sick, and tired, and I'm unable to do my (very physical) job. Now that I have several clients that are relying on me, I don't feel like I can keep experimenting.

 
If you can't take the pill, you can't take the pill. If you are using other methods, then you are being responsible. Ignore the others.

[Jubes]

Well said, and might I add to this that it is  far  more probable that a 12 year  old could in fact  go into  a pharmacy  buy  a bottle  of Tylenol etc  take the whole thing thinking they  could overdose on it in a suicide  attempt and do  more harm to their liver,  taking  ONE  Plan B  pill to prevent them from becoming  pregnant will do less harm to them in the long  run. I'm sorry but  from  personal  experience  having  3 out of 4 kids  age 12 or older I can say they are not as  naive as  people  think they are these days.

 
Or worse yet they  can  buy all kinds  of OTC  drugs and  this happens..

12 South Carleton High School students sickened by over-the-counter drug
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/12-south-carleton-high-school-students-sickened-over-130420560.html

[Catherine]

Oh gods that literally made me nauseous. I'm so sorry you all had such horrific experiences.

Yeah, Mom's got issues.

Also along the lines of not being able to talk about sex, I wasn't even living with my mom at the time. I was living with my grandmother. She could not talk about sex at all except to say that she hated it, and only did it when she had to. I think she may have had some medical issues that caused her a lot of pain, but I don't know for sure.

Anyway, there's no way I could have told her about being raped. She wouldn't have been able to handle that. Don't get me wrong, she wouldn't have blamed me. She would have been very supportive and tried to help me deal with it. I just... couldn't.

[Catherine]

I am a relatively young woman. I recently turned 21. In my school district (in relatively progressive California), they didn't even explain pads and sanitary napkins until the 4th grade. No sex ed until freshman year in high school, which was a laughable joke. We got the abstinence cards, the "I pledge to save my vagina for my husband" pledge, some disgusting slides on STD's and a movie on the miracle of life. The infamous banana+condom demonstration? They didn't do it. We watched a video on it. The textbooks then were older than I am now. I learned all I know about preventative sex stuff from my own interwebbing.

Yes, this is a huge problem. Most of the time, sex education is woefully inadequate. You end up with teens who want to be responsible about birth control, but they just don't know how to properly use a condom.

Not every parent is going to do what I did. Which was talk to my son about sex, teach him how to use one (banana demo) and take him to get them as soon as he was ready.

In fact, when my dad found out that I'd already covered it all and that my son and I had a very open dialog about sex, he was horrified! He thought that a man should be talking to a boy about these things, and women should to talk to girls.

It's ridiculous.

[SatSekhem]

I am a relatively young woman. I recently turned 21. In my school district (in relatively progressive California), they didn't even explain pads and sanitary napkins until the 4th grade. No sex ed until freshman year in high school, which was a laughable joke. We got the abstinence cards, the "I pledge to save my vagina for my husband" pledge, some disgusting slides on STD's and a movie on the miracle of life. The infamous banana+condom demonstration? They didn't do it. We watched a video on it. The textbooks then were older than I am now. I learned all I know about preventative sex stuff from my own interwebbing.

Ugh. You make me feel so old!

There was no sex education when I went to school. I'm not that far older than you (I'm 28) but in my school system, there was no sexual education. We had a health class that talked about sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and the risk of becoming pregnant if you had sex. There was absolutely no stress on condoms versus the pill versus the pull-out method or anything like that. There was absolutely no stress on the abstinence method, either. In fact, it really felt like my school system was ill-prepared/equipped (probable since the school was three years old by the time I entered as a freshman) or just didn't give a shit. I hate to say it, but I'm sure it's the latter as opposed to the former.

The only reason I learned anything about anything to do with sex was because of my best friend, who became sexually active before me. I was incredibly ignorant about a lot of stuff and I think I still am.

I also have a friend, who's grandmother (the woman who raised her) was a nurse. The grandmother made sure she had protection from the moment she was able to conceive because of a case of a 12 year old girl who was raped and became pregnant. Her parents decided for her that she would carry the baby to term. In the third trimester, she hemorrhaged, lost the baby, and lost her uterus. So, thanks to the wisdom and wonderful parenting she had, she could no longer have the chance for babies born of love or even chance. Its cases like that that make me wish that the law hadn't been shot down. You can't assume that age = common sense, or that someone's morals are the best choice. Sometimes a 12 year old is smarter and better equipped to make a decision than their parents.

 
This horrified me.

[Marilyn/Absentminded]

Ugh. You make me feel so old!

There was no sex education when I went to school. I'm not that far older than you (I'm 28) but in my school system, there was no sexual education.

 
I'm really starting to think the world is going backwards.  I had sex education in grade six (1974) and it was very thorough.  I don't think there were as many options for birth control as there are now, but we learned about the pill and condoms, the math for the rhythm method (along with a warning about how unreliable it was) and a few self-defense type moves so we wouldn't have it if we didn't want it.  Mind you, it was the kind of stuff that would work on an over-eager boyfriend, not something that would deter a serious attack, but at least we learned it.

I knew a lot of it from home - my red-faced mom was even more thorough than the class - and all of my menstruation info came from home.  I was an early bloomer and needed the info way before the school would have covered it.  My mom didn't trust the school to do it properly anyway.  She had had absolutely no warning and thought a snake had bitten her (she was peeing in the woods the first time her period came, so the snake part was understandable, I guess)  She didn't want us to be as 'innocent' as her parents thought she should be.

Absent

[Owl]

I'm really starting to think the world is going backwards.  I had sex education in grade six (1974) and it was very thorough.  I don't think there were as many options for birth control as there are now, but we learned about the pill and condoms, the math for the rhythm method (along with a warning about how unreliable it was) and a few self-defense type moves so we wouldn't have it if we didn't want it.  Mind you, it was the kind of stuff that would work on an over-eager boyfriend, not something that would deter a serious attack, but at least we learned it.

I knew a lot of it from home - my red-faced mom was even more thorough than the class - and all of my menstruation info came from home.  I was an early bloomer and needed the info way before the school would have covered it.  My mom didn't trust the school to do it properly anyway.  She had had absolutely no warning and thought a snake had bitten her (she was peeing in the woods the first time her period came, so the snake part was understandable, I guess)  She didn't want us to be as 'innocent' as her parents thought she should be.

Absent

I had a health talk about menstruation in grade 6 (1970), and sex ed in Jr High in a health class.  My kids had a class in 7th grade that was 1/2 a semester long sex ed.  Very informative.  And you had to sign your kid OUT of the class, not in.  For them it would have been in maybe 1998 and 2000 if my math is correct.  But they got it from me too.

[Nyktipolos]

I'm really starting to think the world is going backwards.  I had sex education in grade six (1974) and it was very thorough.  I don't think there were as many options for birth control as there are now, but we learned about the pill and condoms, the math for the rhythm method (along with a warning about how unreliable it was) and a few self-defense type moves so we wouldn't have it if we didn't want it.  Mind you, it was the kind of stuff that would work on an over-eager boyfriend, not something that would deter a serious attack, but at least we learned it.

I knew a lot of it from home - my red-faced mom was even more thorough than the class - and all of my menstruation info came from home.  I was an early bloomer and needed the info way before the school would have covered it.  My mom didn't trust the school to do it properly anyway.  She had had absolutely no warning and thought a snake had bitten her (she was peeing in the woods the first time her period came, so the snake part was understandable, I guess)  She didn't want us to be as 'innocent' as her parents thought she should be.

Absent

My mother told me nothing. Everything I learned about sex or periods came from outside sources. I know we did have a small video thing in grade... 3 or 4? About sex I believe. It was too long ago to really remember anything from it. All I remember in grade 6 when I started bleeding was that I thought I had.. ahem, soiled myself. (All my then knowledge told me menstruation was red, not brown.) I was freaking out and even when I mentioned it to my mother finally she said she had no idea, but that it was "probably" my period.

There was never a sex talk, and I am so damn lucky I didn't end up pregnant with my first boyfriend (which I don't know when or if she ever knew we were sexually active) because we used the pull-out method. These days I want to smack myself for being so stupid and naive, but then I think about it... was it really my fault? Or his? We truely believed it was "good enough", but now we don't because we KNOW. But no one TOLD us back then, nor did we even think of trying to reach out or ask someone or look it up on the internet, because we didn't realize there was a problem.

I think I've probably mentioned it before on the board, but our sex ed. was screwed right from the beginning. My high school is one of the few that start at grade 9, as it's an overflow school (even though there is no room). Most junior highs END at 9. They told us in jr. high that we'd get a proper biology "how the body works, etc" talk in high school in grade 11. Get to grade 11: "We teach that in grade 9, so we don't have that in our curriculum."

I considered turning one of my art projects into a protest piece similar to this: http://damalia.deviantart.com/art/Viva-la-Pill-47537652 Completely with pill package and condoms. Ended up not having enough time to finish it, though.

And to put this in perspective, I turned 21 this year. It's a disturbing thought that this might be actually getting worse and not better when it comes to sex ed.

[Darkhawk]

I'm really starting to think the world is going backwards.  I had sex education in grade six (1974) and it was very thorough.  I don't think there were as many options for birth control as there are now, but we learned about the pill and condoms, the math for the rhythm method (along with a warning about how unreliable it was) and a few self-defense type moves so we wouldn't have it if we didn't want it.  Mind you, it was the kind of stuff that would work on an over-eager boyfriend, not something that would deter a serious attack, but at least we learned it.

 
"Overeager boyfriend" much more likely than "serious attack", in any case; that's something.

There was a health unit in seventh grade gym class in which there was a day or two dedicated to sex ed in my school - and the sex ed portions required parental permission.  All the dry "this is how the parts work", a sidebar of "BY THE WAY DISEASES", and not much else.

By the time I was actually sexually active, my peers were so well-informed about sex that one of them had a massive freakout about how I was going to get pregnant, catch AIDS, ruin my life, and die.  Ahh, high school in the early 90s.

Honestly, the sex-ed program offered by UU and UCC congregations is one of the significant reasons I looked into joining a UU church.  It's pretty awesome, and I have some hope that it will touch on the subjects where I feel a decently done sex-ed program would have prepared me for life in a way that would have prevented me from being sexually attacked, rather than teaching me that I had to say "yes" for anything to happen and that I should repress my desires until it was socially acceptable for me to have them.

[Nyktipolos]

I considered turning one of my art projects into a protest piece similar to this: http://damalia.deviantart.com/art/Viva-la-Pill-47537652 Completely with pill package and condoms. Ended up not having enough time to finish it, though.

 
Just realized I missed mentioning something. We did have a "health" class I believe in grade 10, which consisted of our regular gym teacher (an aging, 60+ male who had no business teaching that class anyways) handing out papers that some were good (I think they were put into the curriculum because they seemed to be relatively recent documents on things like male and female birth control (condoms, pills, etc.) and where to go if you need help), some were bad.

The bad was an article from '89 discussing how abstinence was the only way to avoid getting AIDS/HIV, and had a story of a young male who had gay sex who said condoms didn't work because he contracted it anyways.

THAT was one of the major reasons why I wanted to do my protest piece.