Bush appoints anti-birth control fundamentalist to run family planning program

[Front-Ranger]

To add to the complications, girls are growing up faster than ever. Today, girls sometimes as young as 9 years old are capable of having children. Why this is happening is not known and is not even being studied. Pre-teen and teenaged children should not be required to have babies if they become pregnant. Of course, having a child and giving it up for adoption is very honorable, but it should always be the choice of the mother whether to do this.

[nakymaton]

he is not an anti abortionist...he is abstinence only!

and to me that is very close to the hard core religious people who feel it is wrong to attempt to stop getting pregnant at all. There are groups who feel it is the DUTY of married people to reproduce and take the stand that married couples should engage in sexual relations and leave it up to God how many children they are 'blessed' with.

This is my biggest problem with the abstinence-only people. They assume that anyone who is married will be having children. And having children. And having children.

This bothers me for two reasons. A) I am not a baby factory. I am a human being with a brain and with talents and abilities that, frankly, do not suit me for a lifetime of pregnancy and child-rearing. And B) The world is already a damn crowded place. Every child born in the US consumes some ridiculous amount of energy, and generates a ridiculous amount of garbage. We pollute our air and our water. We are changing the atmosphere. And the damage that we and our children do will make this planet a less pleasant place for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. (And the contributions of a few brilliant individuals don't balance the damage done by the sheer numbers of humans on this planet.)

I don't believe in preventing people from having children that they want, and I'm not going to promote abortion for population control. But in societies where women have education and the right to choose whether or not to bear children, population growth rates tend to be lower.

Abstinence may be a great idea for teenagers (though it may not be realistic). But the people who promote it act as if there is no reason why married people would ever want to prevent pregnancies. And that scares me.

[injest]

another scary thing...

here in Texas there are some religious radio stations...here since the election they have started focusing almost exclusively on the idea that Americans are not producing enough children to maintain our current level of living.

and these are seperate channels! (not that there are conspiracies!! LOL)

They keep calling up these statistics that there are not enough children being born and that we are in danger of extinction because the average number of children have dropped under 2 per couple...

seriously, a few less people wouldn't bother me...

they say we will not have enough people to run the country or to pay taxes and that we will be vulnerable to takeover...

[injest]

Just a quick statistics about fathers (not) paying child support. This statistics is from Germany, I'd be interested if any of you have one for the US.
Please have in mind that Germany has relatively strict laws concerning child support. Theoretically there's no way around it, but reality shows different:

1/3 pays no child support at all
1/3 pays too less and/or irregulary
1/3 pays regulary child support amounting to what the court decision says

Even fathers of born children lack of willingness to pay for their children. Many of them have lived together with their children for years. One should think it's self-evident to take financially care for their offspring - but it isn't.

Do you think fathers-to-be would be any more willing/responsible to contribute their share?


So there are cases in which you think abortion is/should be/might be justified. But who has the right to decide in what cases an abortion is justified and in which not?
Roland has put it to the point:

The key to avoid abortions are not threats and punishments, but is sex education, access to contraceptive and providing advice and financial help for women who have an unwanted pregnancy.

this was the only website I could find..(sorry I am Googlechallenged)
The Federal Office of Child Support Preliminary Statistics for 2004 reports over $107 Billion in accumulated unpaid support (up from $100 billion in 2002) is due to 17 million children in the United States. The government child support agency collection rate, the percentage of cases receiving one or more payments was 50%, which is down from 68% in 2002.


please note...cases recieving ONE payment count toward that 50%

[injest]

according to the office of Child Support Enforcement...out of 1,524,569 cases filed for child support only 662,526 have a known father. Whether the mother refuses to say or if the men refuse to acknowledge...we pay for them....

so which do you want? to pay a couple of hundred for an abortion or tens of thousands for a life time for these children....

an interesting quote from the director:

 But we collected an average of $600 per arrearage case, while the average amount of arrears per arrearage case is $9,000.

[delalluvia]

What Mel and injest said.  The guy is particularly bad to be in the position because he is anti-contraception.

I know the type and they are almost always Born Agains and fundamentalists and the Born Agains are usually the most hypocritical.  They believe that STDs and unwanted pregnancies could be prevented if only unmarried people would stop having sex!

Therefore if people come down with STDs or unwanted pregnancies, it is their own fault for not following the mandates of God who is only trying to care for us and those sinners should pay for it, both spiritually, physically and economically.  To try to solve the problem is to try to avoid punishment from god for their sinful ways.

    Yeah, I know.

This is the compassion of these people who - by the by - think nothing of avoiding god's punishment to them by feeding their kids antibiotics and having corrective surgery when they become ill.  One of my Born Again friends is a hypocrite of the worst sort.  He believes all single people should not have sex if they are not married.

This is after he had a nice normal young adulthood of having sexual threesomes in college, 'dating' topless dancers by the half dozen and pretty much trying to score with any woman who would have him.  He was faaaaaaar from being a virgin when he got married, but now sees no problem in passing judgment on others who lead the same life he did.

Dubya's man is probably very similar in attitude and not the kind of person who should be in charge of this program.  Funding has already been cut to Planned Parenthood, though thankfully, only a 3rd of their funding came from the government.  The rest is from private donations and organizations.

The countries with the smallest percentage of pregnant teenagers and STDs are those Scandinavian countries that emphasize birth control and safe sexual practices to their children from almost grade school.

A man who preaches abstinence in charge of such an important family planning program is a step backward, not forward.

[jpwagoneer1964]

What Mel and injest said.  The guy is particularly bad to be in the position because he is anti-contraception.

I know the type and they are almost always Born Agains and fundamentalists and the Born Agains are usually the most hypocritical.  They believe that STDs and unwanted pregnancies could be prevented if only unmarried people would stop having sex!

 
This is the compassion of these people who - by the by - think nothing of avoiding god's punishment to them by feeding their kids antibiotics and having corrective surgery when they become ill.  One of my Born Again friends is a hypocrite of the worst sort.  He believes all single people should not have sex if they are not married.

This is after he had a nice normal young adulthood of having sexual threesomes in college, 'dating' topless dancers by the half dozen and pretty much trying to score with any woman who would have him.  He was faaaaaaar from being a virgin when he got married, but now sees no problem in passing judgment on others who lead the same life he did.

Dubya's man is probably very similar in attitude and not the kind of person who should be in charge of this program.  Funding has already been cut to Planned Parenthood, though thankfully, only a 3rd of their funding came from the government.  The rest is from private donations and organizations.

The countries with the smallest percentage of pregnant teenagers and STDs are those Scandinavian countries that emphasize birth control and safe sexual practices to their children from almost grade school.

A man who preaches abstinence in charge of such an important family planning program is a step backward, not forward.

So you are judging, read that prejudging all Christians from a few. How fair is that?

[delalluvia]

So you are judging, read that preejudging all Christians from a few. How fair is that?

I am not judging him.  He has already admitted as such and he is already in support of such actions.  I don't have to judge him, I"m merely stating the obvious and clearly written.

[jpwagoneer1964]

I am not judging him.  He has already admitted as such and he is already in support of such actions.  I don't have to judge him, I"m merely stating the obvious and clearly written.

Yet you are judging all Christians.

[injest]

What Mel and injest said.  The guy is particularly bad to be in the position because he is anti-contraception.

I know the type and they are almost always Born Agains and fundamentalists and the Born Agains are usually the most hypocritical.  They believe that STDs and unwanted pregnancies could be prevented if only unmarried people would stop having sex!

Therefore if people come down with STDs or unwanted pregnancies, it is their own fault for not following the mandates of God who is only trying to care for us and those sinners should pay for it, both spiritually, physically and economically.  To try to solve the problem is to try to avoid punishment from god for their sinful ways.

    Yeah, I know.

This is the compassion of these people who - by the by - think nothing of avoiding god's punishment to them by feeding their kids antibiotics and having corrective surgery when they become ill.  One of my Born Again friends is a hypocrite of the worst sort.  He believes all single people should not have sex if they are not married.

This is after he had a nice normal young adulthood of having sexual threesomes in college, 'dating' topless dancers by the half dozen and pretty much trying to score with any woman who would have him.  He was faaaaaaar from being a virgin when he got married, but now sees no problem in passing judgment on others who lead the same life he did.

Dubya's man is probably very similar in attitude and not the kind of person who should be in charge of this program.  Funding has already been cut to Planned Parenthood, though thankfully, only a 3rd of their funding came from the government.  The rest is from private donations and organizations.

The countries with the smallest percentage of pregnant teenagers and STDs are those Scandinavian countries that emphasize birth control and safe sexual practices to their children from almost grade school.

A man who preaches abstinence in charge of such an important family planning program is a step backward, not forward.

you know I think you are way smart...and I agree with most everything in your post but i just am uncomfortable with saying you know a 'type'...to me that is being prejudiced and no different than them making blanket generalizations about gays or women...