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I think communities need to get the word out to teenagers, and older people, that unwanted babies and children can be left at hospitals, police stations etc. I've heard of toddlers being abandoned in libraries where I am. It may seem like a safe place, but its really not.
At least where I live this is supposed to be doable with no questions asked. If your community doesn't have such policies, maybe it should look into creating them.
It's a pretty soulless society that doesn't want to help remedy these situations and put the needs of the innocent first and foremost. A community should have more than prosecution on it's mind.
A kid that just had a kid is not going to be making the best decisions.
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"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ComeCloser
I think communities need to get the word out to teenagers, and older people, that unwanted babies and children can be left at hospitals, police stations etc. I've heard of toddlers being abandoned in libraries where I am. It may seem like a safe place, but its really not.
At least where I live this is supposed to be doable with no questions asked. If your community doesn't have such policies, maybe it should look into creating them.
It's a pretty soulless society that doesn't want to help remedy these situations and put the needs of the innocent first and foremost. A community should have more than prosecution on it's mind.
A kid that just had a kid is not going to be making the best decisions.
I've never heard of a case where the "Baby Moses Law" actually works, but obviously sometimes it must.
Every time I heard of a newborn where the mother tried to leave the baby in a designated "safe place", she does something not quite right under the law and there's a search for her. The last one I recall a mom took a healthy newborn inside a hospital and left the baby at the reception desk but she didn't state to the receptionist that she was abandoning the baby, so guess what, they were searching for her with the intent of charging her with a crime.
Word gets out. Teens know you often can't actually abandon a newborn in a safe place anonymously.
That never did work. There have been unwanted pregnancies, as long as humans have been around, and a lot of babies have been killed because of it. Birth control can solve the problem.
Young people are going to have sex....that's a given. No matter what YOU think.
So accept and teach them avenues for coping, provide support and yes...birth control should by now be an accepted practice in this country for teens.....instead of shrouding it in secret.
Procreation is NOT the goal of most people, the majority of the time. Despite what some religions ascribe to, sex is a normal part of life, not something to be ashamed of or deemed only to procreate. Sex is a positive experience for most of us, for the pure sake of enjoyment. It is unfortunate that as a society, we refuse to take the guilt out of sexuality and teach kids what their responsibilities are before they become active, so they can be prepared.
Gimme a break. What does this have to do with religion? What does shame have to do with anything?
I'm sorry to go off here, but this is a very American viewpoint. I was born here, but my family are of a different heritage. This attitude of yours is not only not a prevalent worldview in large parts of the world, it's not even a worldview in large parts of the Western world--including "progressive" countries in Northern Europe--which is why in terms of social issues involving sex, maternity, etc., the US consistently ranks at the bottom. That is to say, those countries may have a "liberal" attitude towards sex, but it's in a different vein than that of the US. Whereas those countries are legitimately progressive/liberal, the US is just libertine.
What's the difference between liberal and libertine? Being liberal is being honest and open about human sexuality without dancing around euphemisms, including letting children know all sides of it (that it's not just for fun, that it's this act that is how they were born). Being libertine is being graphic about sex itself (like talking about anal sex, BJs, cunnilingus, fellatio, etc.) and acting as if the act is no different than any other physical act like walking, eating or sleeping. It's a cheapening of and a perversion of sex, too, as in having women ride buck naked on a vibrator on national TV, wet T-shirt contests, cheap sex jokes about the human body, having porn in which women are face , forced, gagged and sprayed in the face. It's reducing sex to: bodily fluids, pounding, boob flashes, twerking, fake moans and getting your jollies off.
What I find bizarre about people who think like you do is this attitude of smug self-satisfaction. You always come off as thinking that you've got a superior, enlightened view on sex because your views align with that of the Sexual Revolution, and yet, in the face of it all, STD rates are soaring, especially among teens. Infanticide rates have put the US to near Third World status. Campus rape is a serious problem. Girls are being increasingly sexualized at younger and younger ages now and are sexually objectifying themselves on social media. Rape is being normalized as just being a normal facet of human sexuality.
What is there to be smug about? America has serious social problems with sex--has had them for a long time going back to the early 1970s with the explosion of teen pregnancies and unwed mothers, culminating in the AIDs crisis of the 1980s, and now resulting in soaring STD rates. So I don't understand where this smugness is coming from towards someone like myself second guessing the wisdom of the Sexual Revolution, unless part of that smugness comes from seeing yourself as an "enlightened atheists" facing off against a "die hard religious freak," in which case, you couldn't be more off base or unenlightened.
Last edited by EastFlatbush; 01-28-2018 at 09:42 AM..
I don't find it difficult to understand. Not everyone is fortunate enough to figure out how to get out of a bad situation. Not everyone has understanding, loving parents who will support you through good and bad.
I feel sad for her that she felt she had no other options.
Kudos, GiGi.....
many others on this thread are so hypocritical....and rigid minded...in addition to what GiGi commented, there might be an element of mental difficulties or illness at play in these situations.
Being judgemental and shaming only exacerbates an already difficult situation.
Do you seriously believe that parental infanticide is a new problem?
As someone who actually studied psychology and sociology in school and later, cultural anthropology, I am telling you point blank that you don't have nearly as much an understanding of this problem as you think you do.
Infanticide is not only not a universal problem, it happens in disproportionate rates across different cultures based on faulty cultural values. In parts of the world (particularly Asia), there are disproportionate rates of female infanticide, because culturally, males are either seen as more valued than females or females are considered too "expensive" to raise. (Because fathers have to provide a dowry for them when they get married.)
The issue of infanticide has never boiled down to, well, people everywhere since the beginning of time have always killed unwanted babies. It's, I repeat, an expression of a specific flaw in a culture's belief system that says it's okay to kill a child for "X reason" (getting a girl instead of a boy, a child of rape, etc.).
In the case of the US, the infanticide is happening in disproportionate rates to other countries for a different reason, but based--I emphasize--on flawed cultural beliefs. In the case of the US, it's robbing children and young people of the understanding that sex is about creating new life--not just for the hell of it-- and that getting pregnant isn't like getting a really bad Christmas present that you later junk in the trash. It's not coal in your stocking; it's not getting a Chia Pet for your birthday present. It's birthing new life, and it's an important rite of passage of adulthood.
So you are completely off track when you make this sentiment of, "No, there isn't a uniquely American cultural problem contributing to this issue; it's just people being people."
No, here's what I suggest: stop getting your information from poor sources of information (like Wikipedia) and actually pick up a high school or even college level textbook on cultural anthropology and sociology. Or, hell, if you have the money, actually take a class at a local community college on either topic. If you are even remotely as passionate and sincere as solving this current crisis right now with teenagers, you will do that. But something tells me that you won't.
Last edited by EastFlatbush; 01-28-2018 at 09:39 AM..
Young people are going to have sex....that's a given. No matter what YOU think.
So accept and teach them avenues for coping, provide support and yes...birth control should by now be an accepted practice in this country for teens.....instead of shrouding it in secret.
Maybe we can just make sex for anyone under 25 illegal and hand them stiff prison sentences for it. Because we have proven so well with The War on Drugs, how well that type of Government interference in people's personal lives works. LOL.
Well, and those discarded infants are somebody childless couples would love to have, too. Whatever happened to anonymously dropping a basket off on the orphanage steps? What happened to orphanages? What about a basket on the hospital steps?
Sure, as long as they are good looking, healthy white babies, or some type of 'exotic' look. Much harder to place other children, unfortunately.
As someone who actually studied psychology and sociology in school and later, cultural anthropology, I am telling you point blank that you don't have nearly as much an understanding of this problem as you think you do.
Infanticide is not only not a universal problem, it happens in disproportionate rates across different cultures based on faulty cultural values. In parts of the world (particularly Asia), there are disproportionate rates of female infanticide, because culturally, males are either seen as more valued than females or females are considered too "expensive" to raise. (Because fathers have to provide a dowry for them when they get married.)
The issue of infanticide has never boiled down to, well, people everywhere since the beginning of time have always killed unwanted babies. It's, I repeat, an expression of a specific flaw in a culture's belief system that says it's okay to kill a child for "X reason" (getting a girl instead of a boy, a child of rape, etc.).
In the case of the US, the infanticide is happening in disproportionate rates to other countries for a different reason, but based--I emphasize--on flawed cultural beliefs. In the case of the US, it's robbing children and young people of the understanding that sex is about creating new life--not just for the hell of it-- and that getting pregnant isn't like getting a really bad Christmas present that you later junk in the trash. It's not coal in your stocking; it's not getting a Chia Pet for your birthday present. It's birthing new life, and it's an important rite of passage of adulthood.
So you are completely off track when you make this sentiment of, "No, there isn't a uniquely American cultural problem contributing to this issue; it's just people being people."
No, here's what I suggest: stop getting your information from poor sources of information (like Wikipedia) and actually pick up a high school or even college level textbook on cultural anthropology and sociology. Or, hell, if you have the money, actually take a class at a local community college on either topic. If you are even remotely as passionate and sincere as solving this current crisis right now with teenagers, you will do that. But something tells me that you won't.
LOL, I took anthropology and sociology in high school. I don't need to pick up a textbook for that. I used Wikipedia as a source for your benefit, because it seemed appropriate for your level of understanding of the subject. If you had bothered to read to the bottom of the Wikipedia page you would have seen that they reference 177 different research publications from all over the world. You should consider educating yourself with some of those publications.
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, forced, gagged and sprayed in the face. It's reducing sex to: bodily fluids, pounding, boob flashes, twerking, fake moans and getting your jollies off. 
