People lacking in self control is no reason to provide them with free services to alleviate the responsibility and/or consequences of that lack of self control. In fact, all that teaches is that self-control isn't needed at all.

Huh. I didn't even like boys at 14.

I disagree with abortion. Adamantly. The question remains: Where does life begin?
Conception, birth, at the first sign of a heartbeat, or when the cells start to differentiate into the germ layers? Answer that, and we have the answer. So everyone just calm down.

One of my first sex partners was a preacher's son

This is said like I'm (or anyone else) supposed to exclaim and put my hands over my mouth!! Happens all the time. We had a "preacher's" son in our community just arrested for drug use. I wasn't surprised. I know the Dad. Actually I think I even predicted it years ago.

Quite often preachers neglect their own family in the care and busyness of their congregation. Look at what happened to Billy Graham's son and daughters. They eventually came back but not before taking some pretty big falls.

Where does life begin?

That really is the million dollar question isn't it?

Middle Schoolers having sex is a result from not teaching self control at a younger age.

I don't know if that's the only reason but I agree with you. Training begins as soon as they walk and talk and sex and respect for the other sex should be part of that training as soon as they can understand. Of course this is the parent's job supported by the teachers but *sigh* we are not living in a perfect world and our kids will be influenced by others whose parents don't feel the same way and even teachers who don't either.

"Life" at its most base definition begins when you differentiate in your parent's sex organs. The egg is alive and so is the sperm. Now these renew every month for women and every day for men. I'm not sure if that counts as slaughter, but it does go to waste.

As for when sperm and egg meet...they're still alive all the way through if they don't die.

Of course I'm not exactly sure when you would call it a person...I mean you can't tell the difference between mammal embryos in the early stages of development. Dolphin, cat, human...not easy to see difference except on the genetic level.

Perhaps that's getting too indepth and overthinking it. I think the basic argument is when you start calling it a "human" with certainty. I mean, a zygote or blastula doesn't really bring out the thought of an adorable baby. Whatever...I'm no fan of abortion and I'm not going to have one...thank God that I'm a man.

~Zoo

the hypocrisy involved in forbidding birth control while claiming to be against abortion, or the fact that so many Christians abandon their lofty ideals when their own families are subject to these sorts of tragedies.

I'd like to discuss this LW.

Where is the hypocrisy in NOT believing a youngster or unmarried should be on BC and ALSO being AGAINST abortion? Are you saying because I don't believe in one or the other I'm a hypocrite? Actually don't you have it backwards?

If I believed in ONE but not the other as a Christian, wouldn't that make me a hypocrite? Or if I preach against it but secretly allow it to happen in my family wouldn't that make me a hypocrite? If I took my d-i-l for an abortion, as a Christian, wouldn't I be the hypocrite then as your parents did?

A hypocrite is one who believes, does and says something and then acts against it. I have not done this. When my son and d-i-l got pregnant, in no way would I have ever compounded that error with another by advising them to abort. I may not like their first mistake but I gave them credit for NOT making another. I applaud the fact that they held themselves accountable and did the right thing in the face of adversity. It's never right to do wrong. Never.

I've asked my father repeatedly why they chose to force me to have an abortion when it flies in the face of his so-called faith. The only lame excuse he comes up with is...'you were so young.'

You may not believe me when I say this, but I am very sorry that you had to go thru this LW. I've said this to you before.

If I were able, I would have counseled your parents for you to keep the child as my 15 year old best friend did in HS.

at 15, your friend convinced your parents to let you keep your child?

as impressive as that seems, it does underscore an important aspect of the middle school issue: kids bending parents to their will instead of the other way around.

no, my best friend got pregnant. Her parents sent her away for the pregnancy but she came back with the child. She was not taken to abort the child but allowed to go thru with it.

You know...I've never understood peer pressure. I can honestly say I've never been influenced by it.

~Zoo

Bullshit.

Really? I don't recall any time I have...at least not negatively. No drugs, booze, or crazy sex parties.

~Zoo

"No drugs, booze, or crazy sex parties."

Me either, but I'm sure there are things I did that were influenced by peers. Just not to that extent.

There you go, you've got to qualify the statement.

But I'm sure there's at least once where you watched some dumb movie that you really didn't want to watch, just because your friends wanted to watch it.

That's peer pressure - not all of it is bad; in fact, the power of the peers is neither good nor bad in and of itself. I was influenced to do a lot of good things from peer pressure. Conversely, I was also influenced to do a lot of bad things by my peers as well, but it all depends on how it's used.

We are all creatures who will follow the pack, if only from time to time. No one is lone wolf all the time.

Students often start college because of peer pressure. They get jobs because of peer pressure. They do missions work because of peer pressure.

In fact, the very essence of "abstinence only" education is creating POSITIVE peer groups so that teenagers will have friends to help KEEP them from having premarital sex. So as SC said, peer groups can be a good thing.

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I agree.


And public schools are guilty as charged!


Public schools teach "Sex education" starting at age 5 in kindergarten..in other words they are educating for sex...and in doing so they violate their latency period, their natural innocence and modesty. Each successive year the educating for sex gets more and more explicit...by now their natural innocence and modesty is gone. So by the time the student is 11 and in middle school, they've had 6 years of being educated or primed for sex...

Puberty kicks in...and guess what? They are primed and raring to go...no self control anywhere in the picture.

I don't think simply NOT 'sex educating' age 5 students would solve the problem, though.