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From: rwp@hogpc.UUCP (R.PAUL)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Semi-Mandatory Birth Control - A New Point
Message-ID: <380@hogpc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Apr-84 14:31:14 EST
Article-I.D.: hogpc.380
Posted: Fri Apr  6 14:31:14 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 04:54:51 EST
Lines: 44

[]
David Pugh:

      Given a safe, effective, and long duration (1 year?) birth
  control drug, why not make its use semi-mandatory for children
  attending public high school? I say 'semi-mandatory' because I
  think it is reasonable for a person to be excused for religious
  beliefs, or other valid reasons. The idea, of course, is to make
  the use of effective birth control the norm (rather than the
  exception, as it seems to be now).

Since posting his original article, several arguments against this
proposal have appeared and David Pugh has posted his rebuttals to
those arguments.  I won't take any position as to the truths and
fallacies of the arguments and rebuttals, but I would like to bring
up one point that, as yet, hasn't been mentioned.

That point is that this drug would be given to all high schoolers
(except those with a good excuse, of course) regardless of whether
or not they would be having sex before their eighteenth birthday.
Does anyone out there have figures to indicate the percentages
involved here?  I would guess (naive me?) that the majority of high 
school students (let me define "high school" here as from fertility
to graduation) have not had sex.  If that is indeed the case, and
I admit it is possible I may be naive since I don't have any figures,
how can anyone justify giving this "wonder drug" to a large number
of people (YES, HIGH SCHOOLERS ARE PEOPLE, TOO!) for whom it cannot
possibly do any good.  I know that I don't like to take any drugs,
even aspirin, unless I feel confident that I need them.

Of course, you could always change the proposal to say that any
high schoolers who wished to have sex had to take the drug, but
how many would admit to that who would not have used the presently
available birth control methods?  Very few, I would venture.

In closing, I think the proposal was pretty stupid, not to mention
dehumanizing to those it would effect.  If the author had not public-
ly replied to the arguments against, indicating his seriousness, I
would not have even thought it worth debating.

				Rick Paul
				AT&T Information Systems Laboratories
				Lincroft, New Jersey
				ihnp4!hogpc!rwp