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From: chabot@miles.DEC (L. S. Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: birth control
Message-ID: <724@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 14:09:45 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.724
Posted: Mon Feb 25 14:09:45 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 09:48:41 EST
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I've changed the title from that of Isaac Dimitrovsky's article ("Yet Another
New Topic"), and I think it is something worth discussing.  Discussion of
responsibility of birth control is a lot like discussion of alcohol: in the
movies and tv you see people drink a lot and act sophisticated, but you much
less often see anything depicting the problems with alcohol.  For instance,
people drink, but then must convey themselves home somehow, presumably by
their own car.  Yes, on tv there is or was some funny law about how you really
can't see people pour the stuff down their gullet, but in parallel, you don't
see intercourse either.

Of course, some religions are opposed to birth control, so to discuss it on tv
would alienate those religions' adherents, or at least anger those religions'
leaders and prominent public figures.

But not mentioning birth control, which actually must be something used in
those scenes depicted (either that or we see a lot of tv about sterile people or
couples), is adding to the problems faced by adolescents with sex: you see it
on the screen, and it's obviously adult and exciting...and then there are all
those letters to Beth and Ann and Abby in the paper about "gee, we only did it
once and we know you can't get pregnant from just once" or unless you decide
it's okay or if you're married... 

L S Chabot
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