Why We Should Sterilise Teen Girls (Daily Mail)

zimovain

Agree? Disagree?

Last week, an intriguing proposition was mooted by Government minister Dawn Primarolo.
Teenage girls, she said, could be steered towards what is described as "long-term contraception".
This is now possible thanks to the development of contraceptive jabs and implants which can last up to five years.


In other words, there is a way of effectively sterilising girls for a lengthy period of time.
At what age? Well, doesn't 12 until 17 sound rather sensible?
This would have the advantage of bringing down the teenage pregnancy rate, so high in this country it makes us a disgrace among the nations - the worst offenders in Europe.


The abortion rate would fall sharply. And silly young girls could get on with the education that is meant to produce serious, responsible taxpayers, not benefit recipients.


Now, many people will see this modest proposal as little short of horrific - nothing less than state interference in our reproductive lives.
But think about it: it might not be such a bad idea.
We are moving into a science fiction age in which life itself can be created in a test tube, and it seems that, before long, perfect babies could be bred at will, largely free of hereditary disease and illness.


So, in my view, there is little point any more in feeling shock-horror at the idea of mass sterilisation.
Neither do I believe it will encourage "promiscuity" because girls will feel they have nothing to fear in sleeping around. In truth, they seem to be doing that already. I'm afraid we are now in a time when sex is mere recreational pleasure to thousands of young women.


The trouble is that pregnancy no longer holds the fear for teenagers it once did. The social stigma has gone.
Indeed, for many, it seems, a child has actually become a kind of perverse badge of honour.


Obviously, there are millions of sensible young girls, but for many, having a baby seems to be the logical, and even desirable, result of their teenage flings.


It it wasn't, they'd stir themselves to do something to prevent themselves getting pregnant, like taking the morning-after pill.
But they don't. Because the benefits of doing nothing to stop it are obvious.


Suddenly, they can give birth to someone who will offer unconditional love in a bleak, busy, money-grubbing world.
The council will offer a free home away from nagging parents. They will have independence, sexual freedom and no more humiliating exams to try to pass - because, more than likely, their education will fall by the wayside.


Nowadays, ask some girls why they want a baby so badly and they will say vaguely: "Oh, I want to fulfil myself."
Once, they would have confidently said of the father: "I love him. And I want a bit of me, a bit of him, to go on for all eternity."
It's not like that any more. Love is seen as little more than a neurotic dependency to the young.


The fear of pregnancy used to stop girls having sex. To be pregnant and unmarried was a major life disaster (as it is still in some of our ethnic communities.)


You were disgraced, soiled goods: the child was removed, no one would marry you.
I had a great aunt locked up for life in an asylum from the age of 20 until she died. She had been declared a "moral imbecile" because she had a baby out of wedlock.


My mother tried to rescue her - but to no avail. The rest of the family was against it. After 30 years, she was so institutionalised, anyway, that she didn't want to leave.


This condemnation of the sexually imprudent was not meant to be unkind. People were poor, babies without fathers suffered and there was no way women could earn money if they had a child.


It was a moral issue but the stigma was born out of necessity: a desperate attempt to stop girls from doing what came naturally until a father and a home could be provided.
But for all that, unwelcome babies went on being born - the human impulse to procreate being what it is.


How to have sex without getting pregnant was in those days a real mystery. Now we know everything there is to know about preventing babies, yet still girls take risks.
Understanding how the body works and what happens next seem to make no difference.


Currently, our teenage pregnancy rate is twice as high as in Germany, three times as high as in France and six times as high as in the Netherlands.
Is this because, in this country, getting pregnant while still at school has become a status symbol for the girls, as ASBOs have for the boys?


In spite of all the efforts of the Government's Teenage Pregnancy Unit, and millions of pounds spent on initiatives to persuade girls that having babies young is a bad, bad thing, the rates stay sky-high.
In 2005, there were 39,804 conceptions by under-18s in England - a rate of 41.3 per thousand.


The trouble for those who would tackle the pregnancy problem is that the very act of warning against pregnancy can be unproductive.
A certain proportion of teenagers like to defy fate - and the more you warn them not to smoke, drink, have sex, stay up late, join gangs, the more they will.


Defying authority, not doing what you're told, is, for many, part of growing up - the search for your own identity, a necessary preparation for leaving the nest. Persuasion doesn't work. The instinct to rebel goes too deep.
Boys have always wanted to have sex and notch up "scores" on the bedpost.


The trouble now is that the girls - who once wanted just to be loved by someone, anyone - are under intense peer pressure, don't want to be outdone or be seen to be 'square', and so behave like the boys.
So much for gender equality in the classroom!
It seems that many of today's girls just like being pregnant, and emotionally and physically - not just practically - have more to gain than lose if they are. Sex education hasn't helped, and may indeed have harmed.


Freud's view of the psychosexual development of the child has been ignored. His opinion was that you interfere with the "latency" phase of ages nine to 12 at your peril, for fear of stopping further development.
In Freud's theory, the latency phase is when a child unconsciously denies the facts of life until he or she is ready to face them. If unpalatable facts are forced down the child's throat it's traumatising, and progression to sexual maturity is halted.
In other words, if you start teaching the birds and the bees too early, all that the nine, ten or 11-year-olds will do is want to experiment with what they have been taught before they have the emotional capability to deal with the fallout.
The Government says it has tried everything to stop pregnancy rates rising - from school matrons to a blizzard of sex education, to free condoms and morning-after pills.
But it's not working. That's why I think sterilising girls for a few years isn't such a bad idea after all - and, when you think about it, it's a tempting solution for the State, too.


Once you stop your under-20s having babies, there's no end to the social improvements you could make.
If girls go on to college instead of minding babies, fewer children overall will be born. The more educated a girl, the fewer babies she is likely to have - education and fertility rates being in inverse proportion.


The maternity services, now so very over-stretched, would be better able to cope. Young mothers would not have the priority they now do when it comes to housing, and accommodation would be set free for those unfortunates clamouring on the waiting lists.


Education would benefit, too. Classrooms would be less plagued by fatherless lads whose ambition it is to cause nothing but trouble.
I suppose there are other ways we could try to tackle the problem. We could make it a lot less convenient for girls to get into trouble - and one obvious way is to overhaul the benefits system.


When it comes to receiving welfare, girls of 16 are treated as adults (though legally they can't vote or drink), and their parents have no legal obligation to house or support them.
If they won't or can't, then the State must. Putting that age up by a year or two might work wonders.


Then again, the recent law that allows a mother to claim benefits only until her child is six could be repealed because at present it can only encourage her to have another baby in order to keep on claiming benefits. And who wouldn't?
"Getting a job" sounds good - but what kind of local minimum wage job is the unfortunate mother likely to get anyway?


Theory and practice are so different. Another issue is that though many young girls "love babies", they dislike the children they grow up to be. Rearing a child is a lot more difficult than "having a baby".
Watch young mothers slap their troublesome offspring in the supermarket and see what I mean. Because you wanted a baby does not mean you wanted a child - with its separate, possibly difficult personality.
So the children of teenage mothers can suffer, too.


Not having babies takes intelligence, planning, prudence and boring appointments with doctors. The morning-after pill helps, but still means an inquisition from your friendly (or not-so-friendly) neighbourhood pharmacist.
So what do we do? Deprive potential children of life by sterilising a few hundred thousand girls society has decided are "too young" to breed, regardless of their biological capabilities?
Go for the quality of child they might produce in their 20s or 30s, rather than the quantity they could create if they start at 14? That, let's face it, is what's up for discussion.


There is, I admit, a dreadful gender unfairness in the suggestion that teenage girls should be sterilised. Shouldn't boys under 17 have their tubes tied, too? It takes two to make a baby.
What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. Perhaps the Government should start thinking about how that would work.


I wonder what birthday cards for 18-year-olds will look like in future? "I've got the key of the door, never been able to breed before!"
Since science has now devised a way of stopping girls getting pregnant without damaging their longterm reproductive health, the idea of enforcing sterility on girls under 17 seems to me a least worst option.
•Fay Weldon's novel The Spa Decameron is published by Quercus, and her non-fiction book What Makes Women Happy by Harper Perennial, both £7.99.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-514542/Why-sterilise-teenage-girls---temporarily-least.html#StartComments#ixzz0omMUFCU4

Biggins

O' for gaws sake, what are you doing just reading that rubbish article?
Did the title not give you a clue what to do with it?

Wolfe Tone

Tell us what you think op. You want us to decide for you?


Daily Mail. Nuff said really.

pat58

extreme to say the least:eek:

Biggins

Typical mindless tabloid article for the braindead.
As realistic as the return of Lord Lucan riding down O'Connell st on Shergar.

Silly-season filler.

bluto63

It's the Daily Mail, so no need to get wound up over it. Have they really developed this technology? Could be quite good, but I'd be worried of long term effects, for which I'd say there are numerous.

Liber8or

I think Daily Mail readers should be sterilised... Hypothetically that is! :cool:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

One of the worst, most ill-founded and poorly-researched articles I have EVER read. Even by Daily Mail stanards. Ok...

The fear of pregnancy used to stop girls having sex. To be pregnant and unmarried was a major life disaster (as it is still in some of our ethnic communities.)

Why the **** does fear have to be the answere? Fear doesn't work without ignorance, and people aren't ignorant any more (although most media/government instutions would like that to be the case; see the promotion of Jeremy Kyle)

Currently, our teenage pregnancy rate is twice as high as in Germany, three times as high as in France and six times as high as in the Netherlands.

Here's the bit you needto sit and think about: WHY IS THIS THE CASE?? Hint - these countries don't inject their kids full of contraceptives.

So again: What do these countries do that obviously works?

The abortion rate would fall sharply. And silly young girls could get on with the education that is meant to produce serious, responsible taxpayers, not benefit recipients.

Silly young girls would get an education. Riiight... "Ok, you're pumped with contracetion so obviously well educated and mature. NEXT!"

FFS, give me a break.

landsleaving

Yay! These threads are coming with a 'daily mail warning'.

About bloody time.

DonkeyStyle \o/

or be seen to be 'square'

What is this 'square'? Some kind of groovey new word all the hip cats are using?
The author clearly has insight to the minds of young people these days.

entropi

I stopped reading at "Daily Mail"......

pat58

daily mail must be stuck for something to wright:D:D

omahaid

A 5 yr contraceptive jab eh? I'd be up for that and I'm a dude

Klingon Hamlet

Shouldn't boys under 17 have their tubes tied, too?

Jabs last 5-6 years. Tubes tied = permanent sperm death!:)

I wonder if guys were offered the ability to have their wangs sterilised for 5-6 years, allowing them the safety of not making a girl pregnant...would they take it? If I'd been offered that at 17 I might've gone along with it (if there were a jab for men, that is)

Prof.Badass

The government should never have the power to force the population to take any substance (no matter how benificial). The potential for abuse of this power is far too great.

And besides, I'm doubtful whether increased would have the intended effect of reducing the number of single mothers. It could give more power to the culture of careless casual sex leading to an increase in single mothers once the jab wears off.

Trying to get teens to make more sensible choices is far better than any sort of silly approach like this. We can't expect any miracle solutions, just small things that hopefully will eventually have a cultural impact. We can start by getting over our societal obsession with sex (which is pretty immature when you think about it) and also stop portraying casual sex as the desireable standard for society.

Indubitable

What I would be worried about would be an increase in sexually transmitted infections by people not using condoms etc. if girls were sterilised for 5 years

Blazer

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

Jabs last 5-6 years. Tubes tied = permanent sperm death!:)

I wonder if guys were offered the ability to have their wangs sterilised for 5-6 years, allowing them the safety of not making a girl pregnant...would they take it? If I'd been offered that at 17 I might've gone along with it (if there were a jab for men, that is)

If you did it would have probably rotted off by now...STDs are already rampant as it is..can you imagine if no one needed to use condoms how much more widespread they would be?

HalloweenJack

Giving girls this injection, imo, would just encourage them to have unprotected sex and a lot of it and would lead to an increase in STD's.

Essentially it's free rein to sleep around.

ocokev

Just give it to the lower class and unemployed, its a disgrace how the middle and upper classes have to pay for these people. Luckily we are catholics in this country so we dont have to worry about sex before marriage. May god bless us all.

zimovain

Oops just discovered this article is two years old (a friend mailed it after seeing it on another forum), also found out the Guardian wrote a reply to the original article...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/18/fearingfay

Fay Weldon aired a "modest proposal" in the Daily Mail last week - that the state should temporarily sterilise girls between the ages of 12 to 17.

"This is now possible thanks to the development of contraceptive jabs and implants which can last up to five years." The novelist explained. "This would have the advantage of bringing down the teenage pregnancy rate, so high in this country it makes us a disgrace among the nations ... The abortion rate would fall sharply. And silly young girls could get on with the education that is meant to produce serious, responsible taxpayers, not benefit recipients."

Conceding that certain woolly liberals might find this idea "horrific", Weldon consoles: "We are moving into a science fiction age in which life itself can be created in a test tube, and it seems that, before long, perfect babies could be bred at will, largely free of hereditary disease and illness. So, in my view, there is little point any more in feeling shock-horror at the idea of mass sterilisation."

Unfortunately, the article doesn't seem to have been a Swiftian satire. Among the readers' comments at the bottom of Weldon's article, Alan Preen writes: "I love it. Keep them sterile until they marry. No more unmarried trollops with kids by various fathers living off the taxpayer. Better still, keep them sterile until they pass an intelligence test."

In her eighth decade Weldon has suddenly, inexplicably, done a pirouette on feminism. The cocksure ballbreaker who once coined the (rejected) advertising line for Smirnoff, "Vodka gets you drunker quicker" ("It just seemed to me to be obvious that people who wanted to get drunk fast, needed to know this," she explained) is now blaming the Spice Girls for today's young womanhood for taking to "binge drinking [and] Saturday night sluttishness".

A couple of years ago, Weldon wrote "What Makes Women Happy" to a chorus of tut-tutting. In it the woman who's published 27 novels and raised four children, railed against women "having it all" and included a section called "The Joy of the Fake Orgasm" in which the wife on her third husband blamed a woman's desire to climax on the ruination of modern marriage. But none of this quite prepares us for new Daily Mail Fay, completely unable to tackle an issue of importance with anything like rationality. The number of Weldons in bookshops, as Stuart Jeffries has pointed out, is regularly eclipsed by the number of Ann Widdecombes - so why does Weldon not devote her time to dredging up her literary legacy - to the Fat Woman's Joke to The Life and Loves of the She-Devil - instead of penning hysterical rants in the tabloid press?

In her denunciation of the Spice Girls, Weldon asks: "Did I take off my wedding ring for this? - which I did, back in the Seventies, out of fellow feeling for the way any woman over 30 was made to feel inferior if she didn't have one." Weldon may have abandoned her feminist views but - as the state, thank god, won't be placing controls on a young woman's womb any time soon - her new views don't even make sense.

Would an inability to breed, alone, unleash social ladder-climbing en masse? Unlikely. "Not having babies takes intelligence, planning, prudence and boring appointments with doctors." No it doesn't. It takes condoms. It takes the pill. There are reasons why so many young girls are falling pregnant so early that need examinging in a serious way. And there are reasons why girls aspire to be Jordan or to marry a footballer or to go on reality television - which however much media land may despise the fact - can seem more achievable aims than being a doctor or a lawyer or a ballerina. The debate deserves better from someone who used to be the less-fortunate woman's champion, and her writing deserves better than such penny-a-line rants.

evolutionqy7

why not just introduce abortion...that would decrease the amount of young pregnant girls too and let them carry on with an education...

Biggins

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

why not just introduce abortion...that would decrease the amount of young pregnant girls too and let them carry on with an education...

* sigh *

Back under your bridge you!

Condoms. They exist.

That is all.

evolutionqy7

Biggins wrote: »

* sigh *

Back under your bridge you!

hey if contraception is an option why cant abortion be one

not gonna start another big debate like in the other threads...sure it was discussed a million times but it would save the airline tickets to england

The_Minister

pat58 wrote: »

daily mail must be stuck for something to wright:D:D

When they get desperate anything will fly.

Biggins

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

hey if contraception is an option why cant abortion be one...

Never said it shouldn't be.
I'm pro-choice myself.

Abortion is not "introduced" - its a case of let be available as a choice at much needed times.
Not something you treat as an item on a school list of "must get's"

The_Minister

vinylmesh wrote: »

The government should never have the power to force the population to take any substance (no matter how benificial). The potential for abuse of this power is far too great.

*Cough*
Fluoride.
*Cough*

evolutionqy7

Biggins wrote: »

Never said it shouldn't be.
I'm pro-choice myself.

Abortion is not "introduced" - its a case of let be available as a choice at much needed times.
Not something you treat as an item on a school list of "must get's"

agree at the point it shouldn't be done as often as grocery shopping but the fact that availability could save some one's career and life at a younger age

and agree with vynilmesh no one should be forced to do anything...really up to the girl...

Biggins

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

agree at the point it shouldn't be done as often as grocery shopping but the fact that availability could save some one's career and life at a younger age

and agree with vynilmesh no one should be forced to do anything...really up to the girl...

No disagreement here.

entropi

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

Jabs last 5-6 years. Tubes tied = permanent sperm death!:)

I wonder if guys were offered the ability to have their wangs sterilised for 5-6 years, allowing them the safety of not making a girl pregnant...would they take it? If I'd been offered that at 17 I might've gone along with it (if there were a jab for men, that is)

Well here's an article link taken from another forum here on Boards...

Research using Ultrasound as temporary male sterilisation

How would that sound then? There is still the obvious risk of STD's if no condom is used, but it could be a viable option...

bluto63

Biggins wrote: »

Never said it shouldn't be.
I'm pro-choice myself.

Abortion is not "introduced" - its a case of let be available as a choice at much needed times.
Not something you treat as an item on a school list of "must get's"

Is abortion covered by the NHS? In other words, is it available to anyone or is it a costly procedure?
In any case, abortion should be a last option decision, only used when all else has failed. Easily accessible contraception should be the main prerogative.

evolutionqy7

bluto63 wrote: »

Is abortion covered by the NHS? In other words, is it available to anyone or is it a costly procedure?
In any case, abortion should be a last option decision, only used when all else has failed. Easily accessible contraception should be the main prerogative.

do i have to find and post how many implications the pill causes to the health?

Condoms...well thats up to the parents to teach their children...my mum was always very free around the sex part...hey 3 years with my girlfriend still no 9 month hell countdown yet

its not the fact that kids dont have condoms...its the fact they dont wanna use em...and pill isnt 100% as we all know it...

Prof.Badass

The_Minister wrote: »

*Cough*
Fluoride.
*Cough*

Well technically we're not forced to take it, but you raise an interesting point.

Biggins

bluto63 wrote: »

...In any case, abortion should be a last option decision, only used when all else has failed. Easily accessible contraception should be the main prerogative.

True, very true.

evolutionqy7

vinylmesh wrote: »

Well technically we're not forced to take it, but you raise an interesting point.

yes were not forced...we can just stop drinking wated...

times likes this im happy to have a private well

seamus

There are a few million reasons why this is a bad idea:

1. If girls are "sterile", then condom use will collapse and STD transmission will skyrocket, which is far worse than a few thousand young mothers.
2. It would create bad habits around contraception, so when the injection wears off, *boom* thousands of pregnant teens who didn't realise.

They should just get to the nub of the problem and sterilise all men who go to jail or leave school before they're 18.

PeterIanStaker

Did some googling there, the vasectomy, i.e. the snip is €250. Permanent though. Still cheaper than kids.

evolutionqy7

seamus wrote: »

*boom* thousands of pregnant teens who didn't realise.

i think you missing the point theres thousands out there already give them the though that they cant get pregnant... oh dear...

even all my gf's friends ae getting pregnant one after the other...at ages of 19...

Magill

seamus wrote: »

They should just get to the nub of the problem and sterilise all men who go to jail or leave school before they're 18.

Yeah and while their at it they can cut your fingers off so we don't have to read as much ****e on boards .

Kasabian

STOP READING THE FCUKING MAIL AND STOP QUOTING IT IN AH.

Sorry for shouting

This is just a suggestion

entropi

LOUD NOISES!!

Relax on the lettering...

Most people who read AH have more sense than to read that piece of toilet paper, yet some still choose to...their problem tbh.

Kasabian

Master of Nothing wrote: »

LOUD NOISES!!

Relax on the lettering...

Most people who read AH have more sense than to read that piece of toilet paper, yet some still choose to...their problem tbh.

I have turned down the volume , I'd love to get the statistics of how many threads have been started here which have been initiated by a Daily Mail ( Spit ) headline / article.

WindSock

Why don't they make knowledge of contraception an entry requirement for secondary school instead? Or have it as a compulsory subject for the JC/GCSE's.

The_Minister

pat58 wrote: »

daily mail must be stuck for something to wright:D:D

The_Minister wrote: »

When they get desperate anything will fly.

Was this just too nerdy?:(

StormWarrior

vinylmesh wrote: »

The government should never have the power to force the population to take any substance (no matter how benificial). The potential for abuse of this power is far too great.

They already force us to take flouride and other crap in the water, "fortify" cereals, sell food covered in pesticides, etc.

I'd be against the proposal, because contraceptives have side-effects and people shouldn't be forced to put up with the side effects against their wishes. It would be more simple to do as they do in Holland, just refuse to give teenage mothers council houses. I'm sure youngsters would be more careful if they wouldn't get any benefits or help at all.

Also teenage boys would pressure girls into sex more, and without condoms, "come on babe, it's not like you're gonna get pregnant..."

muffy

The_Minister wrote: »

Was this just too nerdy?:(

I LOL'd!

Indubitable

StormWarrior wrote: »

They already force us to take flouride and other crap in the water

You are not forced to drink the water.

evolutionqy7

kingofthe3rdyrs wrote: »

You are not forced to drink the water.

oh no were not...

StormWarrior

kingofthe3rdyrs wrote: »

You are not forced to drink the water.

I'll just choose to die of thirst then.

The_Minister

StormWarrior wrote: »

I'll just choose to die of thirst then.

Buy water or set up a rain butt.