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Your point is well taken and has alot of merits. On the otherhand, how many children have been born because of a "drunken trist?" How many children have been born to a lapse of judgement, et al? It is NOT my fault, and/or anyone else's fault, therefore not our tax responsibility, because you got drunk and had unprotected sex.
Every year, my friends and I get together for a Christmas party. It will be next weekend. I've been married for 26 yrs to the same woman; the greatest woman in the world (no idea why she is with me). I will hear, over and over again, from about 10 couples, about how they wish they would have never had children. How their children were an "accident."And, like it or not, I hear the samething at work everyday.
I have one couple, who are close friends, who didn't have children. They spend about 3 months of the year, traveling the world. They just came back from South America and Antartica. Every year its the same: "I should not have had children. You guys are lucky."
Now, is this everyone? No, of course not. However, based upon my personal experience, I'd say its more then half. More then half of the people in my "circle" wish they would have never had children. They felt they were pressured into it by society. You grow up, marry, and have kids. Everyone does it, so why not you? You are abnormal if you do not.
If society changed its unwritten "rules," I'd gurantee far more less people would have children.
For, lets face it, ALOT of children in this world are not wanted, were not planned for and, for most people, are a difficulty.
I totally agree with this, but I also think this is universal, and would not necessarily account for why the poor have more children than the middle or upper classes. Something that I was hesitant to bring up, but I will, is that if we are talking about mistakes, the middle and upper classes are also more likely to have abortions (because they're expensive, and even if you do have federal insurance, they won't be paid for). I'm not saying that everyone doesn't make mistakes, more that other demographics have better opportunities provided to them if they are going to engage in risky behavior. The difference between having two unwanted kids and having five.
I have a hard time believing this thread is as long as it is without any discussion of access to birth control, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, contributing factors to this problem.
What is the big difference here between the poor and everyone else? Access to female contraceptives. Sure a middle class person can go down to the drug store and get some birth control pills, but they aren't cheap. If you don't have insurance, birth control pills are expensive. In addition, you usually can't get a birth control prescription without having an annual exam on a regular basis. Another expense.
In the United States, we have a big issues with health care access, especially for the poor and more especially for poor minorities. (Please note that the phrase "health care access" does not simply mean that a resource exists, "health care access" means that the resource exists and that people know about it and will use it.) Problems with our health care system in general aside, improved access to female contraceptives is something that is known to be a solution for this problem. It is talked about all the time in context with poor countries, but somehow the subject applied to Americans is taboo, in large part because for some reason providing birth control to poor adult women is equated with people's teenage daughters being more likely to have sex. It is ridiculous that we find a "moral" problem with proving access to female contraception to poor women, but complain about paying for poor children when subsidizing women's' health would be cheaper than subsidizing the children of women who would have benefited from better women's health programs to begin with.
People go off on poor people about being irresponsible, but when it comes to sex, which everyone has, it is a lot easier to be responsible when you have more money. I ask, really, if you couldn't have afforded better birth control, would you have stopped having sex? I doubt it. Do some poor people have poor priorities? Sure. But people of all income brackets can have poor priorities, and just because you can personally subsidize your own doesn't give you the high ground to knock others for theirs. People of any demographic are going to have sex, regardless of the fact that it could produce children. If you want people to produce fewer children, provide them with a better means of doing so.
Poor people have inferior access to contraceptives and to contraceptive education. It would cost less tax payer money to improve this than it would to pay for the children improving this would prevent.
What?
Don't most counties, perhaps all, have a health department offering free exams and contraceptives to the poor?
I have a hard time believing this thread is as long as it is without any discussion of access to birth control, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, contributing factors to this problem.
What is the big difference here between the poor and everyone else? Access to female contraceptives. Sure a middle class person can go down to the drug store and get some birth control pills, but they aren't cheap. If you don't have insurance, birth control pills are expensive. In addition, you usually can't get a birth control prescription without having an annual exam on a regular basis. Another expense.
What the heck are you talking about? The women on welfare are on Medicaid. They get all of that free of charge.
Overview Medicaid Eligibility (http://www.cms.gov/medicaideligibility/ - broken link)
Don't most counties, perhaps all, have a health department offering free exams and contraceptives to the poor?
Yes. And those on welfare are also on Medicaid.
Do people really not realize that all of these women on welfare, with their birth rate 3 times that of everyone else, get everything they need, including health care, for free? Taxpayers pay through the nose for all those services, entitlements, and freebies.
I have a hard time believing this thread is as long as it is without any discussion of access to birth control, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, contributing factors to this problem.
What is the big difference here between the poor and everyone else? Access to female contraceptives. Sure a middle class person can go down to the drug store and get some birth control pills, but they aren't cheap. If you don't have insurance, birth control pills are expensive. In addition, you usually can't get a birth control prescription without having an annual exam on a regular basis. Another expense.
In the United States, we have a big issues with health care access, especially for the poor and more especially for poor minorities. (Please note that the phrase "health care access" does not simply mean that a resource exists, "health care access" means that the resource exists and that people know about it and will use it.) Problems with our health care system in general aside, improved access to female contraceptives is something that is known to be a solution for this problem. It is talked about all the time in context with poor countries, but somehow the subject applied to Americans is taboo, in large part because for some reason providing birth control to poor adult women is equated with people's teenage daughters being more likely to have sex. It is ridiculous that we find a "moral" problem with proving access to female contraception to poor women, but complain about paying for poor children when subsidizing women's' health would be cheaper than subsidizing the children of women who would have benefited from better women's health programs to begin with.
People go off on poor people about being irresponsible, but when it comes to sex, which everyone has, it is a lot easier to be responsible when you have more money. I ask, really, if you couldn't have afforded better birth control, would you have stopped having sex? I doubt it. Do some poor people have poor priorities? Sure. But people of all income brackets can have poor priorities, and just because you can personally subsidize your own doesn't give you the high ground to knock others for theirs. People of any demographic are going to have sex, regardless of the fact that it could produce children. If you want people to produce fewer children, provide them with a better means of doing so.
Poor people have inferior access to contraceptives and to contraceptive education. It would cost less tax payer money to improve this than it would to pay for the children improving this would prevent.
Oh that is not true at all.
When I was a teenager, I was hardly rolling in the dough. That was the age where kids still procured jobs for their spending money. None the less, I managed to scrape together enough to have a good supply of condoms.
I find it hard to believe anyone could not procure condoms as needed. Don't they give them away in schools?
I suspect the same people you claim cannot afford birth control somehow afford booze, drugs, iPods, and other trappings of Western pop culture.
And I will throw the question back- If they cannot afford birth control, what in the name of hell makes them think they can afford a child?
Poor people have inferior access to contraceptives and to contraceptive education. It would cost less tax payer money to improve this than it would to pay for the children improving this would prevent.
Silly post. Condoms are not expensive and even the poor can afford them.
Two rich people having sex without a condom and have a baby is their problem.
Two poor people having sex without a condom and having a baby is the taxpayers problem.
I don't care how irresponsible you are if you cover your own expenses.
The solution is to take all babies (and welfare payments) away from people who cannot afford to care for them.
What is the big difference here between the poor and everyone else? Access to female contraceptives. Sure a middle class person can go down to the drug store and get some birth control pills, but they aren't cheap. If you don't have insurance, birth control pills are expensive. In addition, you usually can't get a birth control prescription without having an annual exam on a regular basis. Another expense.
Poor females can get to planned parenthood and get a bunch of male contraceptives to hand their partner. Or refuse to have sex until their poor partner saves up for a jumbo box of condoms and uses them.
What do these poor people use for birth control? The "to hell with it" method?
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......It is talked about all the time in context with poor countries, but somehow the subject applied to Americans is taboo, in large part because for some reason providing birth control to poor adult women is equated with people's teenage daughters being more likely to have sex. It is ridiculous that we find a "moral" problem with proving access to female contraception to poor women, but complain about paying for poor children when subsidizing women's' health would be cheaper than subsidizing the children of women who would have benefited from better women's health programs to begin with.
What kind of birth control? You can't make sure anyone takes a pill every day or uses a condom or shows up for their shot or their implant or anything else. It all comes down to that person being responsible for their sex life and finding a way to prevent getting pregnant.
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People go off on poor people about being irresponsible, but when it comes to sex, which everyone has, it is a lot easier to be responsible when you have more money.
When you can't afford to have a kid or more kids, It's more of a reason to NOT be irresponsible when having sex.
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I ask, really, if you couldn't have afforded better birth control, would you have stopped having sex? I doubt it.
Better birth control or flat out birth control? What is "better" birth control?
Quote:
People of any demographic are going to have sex, regardless of the fact that it could produce children. If you want people to produce fewer children, provide them with a better means of doing so.
There is no pill that provides common sense.
Quote:
Poor people have inferior access to contraceptives and to contraceptive education. It would cost less tax payer money to improve this than it would to pay for the children improving this would prevent.
Poor people have never seen a condom? They don't know where to buy them? There are directions in tampon boxes, no directions for condoms?
For the most part, no. Not until they have said child.
Ok then...
Let me expand the question: How can said teenagers not know if they have witnessed their peers going through the same thing? Have they not seen that after the initial moment of joy, that the baby needs 24/7 care? Don't they see that the days of leisure are done and this is their life for the next 18 years at least?
I mean, when does the learning curve kick in?
And how is it that I knew perfectly well the ramifications and managed 20 years, more or less, of sowing my wild oats without one pregnancy?
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