What happened when Colorado offered free birth control? Teen birthrate and abortions plummeted

Possibly. After the unpleasantness of the shot, I went a different way, not wanting to chance the implant.

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Great… Let’s all neuter our teenage daughters, just like our cats or our dogs, to stop them getting pregnant. Only for 10 years though (or whatever it is), so that’s somehow OK.

What’s wrong with teaching them to wait until marriage to have sex? Oh no, we couldn’t possibly do that. That would be taking away some kind of basic human right to sex, or something.

The teenager, as you know, has no self-control, and so their actions must be regulated to prevent the (natural) awful effects of sex - getting pregnant, ie, the normal effect of having sex and what it was designed for. In no other area of life is medicine given to a person when they aren’t actually sick, but given to prevent a natural function of the body, and purely for human selfishness.

Many tried. Few succeeded. Your suggestion is as idealist as impractical.

Despite that, many still keep trying…

And that’s a problem… why?

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In my experience, progesterone boosts libido, excess testosterone kills it. Emmv.

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Allergy medication? Daily asthma medication? Baby-sized aspirin?

You tip your hand there. In your mind, sexual desire is bad because it’s “selfish” to enjoy it. It’s only OK if the threat of punishment is ever-present (for women).

Do you feel that way about food? Do you only eat some mush made from exactly the right daily nutrition, no more?

Do you measure out the exact amount of water necessary for a 24 hour period, and drink no more when it’s done? No coffee, tea, beer, soda, juice, right? I mean, that would be pure selfishness.

Do you wear only plain shirts and pants, enough to protect from cold temperatures, with no patterns, colors, or accessories?

Do you watch TV? Listen to music? Play sports or games?

That’s pretty selfish of you.

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You assume that marriage is some kind of goal that all people share; it is plainly not.

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Oh I love it when adults think they have self-control. You so quickly forget what real craving feels like because for the most part, you get to satisfy yourself whenever you want or learned some forms of transference.

Tell you what. Spend the next two days fasting. Then, when you’re really really craving something, put it right in front of you and place the smallest taste possible in your mouth just so you start salivating and stop eating. See how long your self-control lasts.

That level of craving is maybe 10% the level I had for sex as a teenage boy.

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Hormones are weird. They typically work consistently one way, but sometimes have hugely paradoxical effects. As far as any literature I’ve ever read, testosterone boosts libido in everyone, male, female, trans, it just seems to be something it does. But you seem to have… enigmatic biochemistry to say the least.

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Who called it?

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Only about 2-5% of unprotected sexual encounters end up with a pregnancy. And 1/3rd of those spontaneously abort early in the first trimester.

So an accurate statement would have been that the “natural effect of sex” is primarily “fucking fun.”

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Is it considered wrong because it hasn’t worked? Isn’t that partly why it’s reported as news? Also, because liberty. “Consensual sexual relationships only” is a defensibly pluralist policy for societies that include citizens with diverse ethical beliefs. “Married sex only” uses state power to enforce the ethics of one group over other people’s children.

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You’re absolutely right. I mean sure, pregnancy carries a high degree of risk from anemia to deep vein thrombosis. In teenagers pregnancy it caries a significantly higher risk of toxemia and hypertension. Of course there is the constant pain, bloating and nausea for 9 months too. Then there are the women who just die outright from any number of complications.

But while we’re getting rid of medicines that are simply given to prevent the natural function of the body which have nothing to do with being sick, I feel we should also eliminate some others:

Asprin, Ibuprofen, Codeine, Morphine, Oxycodone and other pain relievers need to go. Pain after all is not a sickness or a disease. It is a natural warning function of the body and half the time it isn’t even caused by disease. Worse, sometimes we give them to people just so they won’t feel pain during things like dental surgery. The pain is natural. If you simply had some self-control, you could grin and bear it like women do during childbirth.

Hair loss pills would be the next to go. I don’t think anyone serious could ague that going bald is a disease.

Those kids who take human growth hormones because they’re going to be over a foot shorter than average? Clearly not a disease.

And of course vaccines since none of those people are actually sick.

Blood pressure medications since technically speaking, high blood pressure isn’t a disease, it just can cause plenty, but then if you have self-control and willpower, you can lower your blood pressure yourself without such artificial aids. The abstinence method works quite well here.

Weight loss drugs of course need to disappear. Being overweight isn’t a disease. It can certainly lead to some, but again, adults should have the self-control.

Caffeine needs to hit the bricks. You get tired for a reason. It is natural.

Oh I could go on and on and on.

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And when do we teach teens about consensual sex? Marriage is not consent for sex.

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Along the same lines, I’d be interested to see how Colorado’s numbers compare to the national trends for the same time period. (Not that interested, since I won’t look it up).

I agree with cleveremi–once we take control of our sexual and reproductive health, people are probably more likely to avoid preventable disease. I’d be interested to see if research bears that out.

Life is only sacred until birth, silly!

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You forgot about one medication given to non-sick people with a natural bodily condition that is covered by most (all?) companies which are religiously opposed to women’s bodily autonomy: Viagra.

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I left that one off because I wasn’t sure if there were any illnesses that it might treat directly, but after doing some research yeah, erectile dysfunction seems to always be just a symptom and not an illness.

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I wish more people realised how dangerous pregnancy can be. I wanted a baby, so much so that when I couldn’t fall pregnant naturally I went through IVF, and then a missed miscarriage. When I got pregnant a second time (still with IVF) I developed severe pre-eclampsia in my 30th week. I had my baby girl the same week by c section. I spent a week in hospital, sent home with blood pressure medication and blood thinning shots. 4 weeks later I was just starting to feel like maybe I was a human again. My daughter spent 6 weeks in the NICU, released with a heart condition that has now resolved itself. She gets check ups with a neonatalologist regularly because of how early she was.

I now have a high risk of hypertension later in life and any subsequent pregnancies I have will be considered high risk.

Yeah, sure, lets force teenagers to go through all that as a punishment for having sex.

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Male orgasm leads to procreation which God likes and approves of.

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In the Middle Ages in Christendom there was a general belief that the female orgasm was just like the male orgasm, in that it was necessary for procreation to happen, but it was never officially recognized as such by the Catholic church.

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