Teens having sex? Say it ain't so ...
by digby
Kaili Joy Gray at Wonkette:
The Colorado Family Planning Initiative, for example, just won an award for reducing the state’s teen birth rate by 40 percent, which sounds pretty impressive. More impressive than the states where they only teach kids Just Don’t Do Sex and somehow have the highest teen pregnancy rates, WEIRD.
You’d think any program that can produce those kinds of results would really appeal to conservative family values types who believe only nice white married ladies who live in split-level suburban homes while their husbands are corporate jobbing for The Man should have babies (lots of babies!). But hahahah, you’d be an idiot if you thought that, because the reason the state’s teen birth rates have been cut almost in half is that the program distributes reduced-cost or even free IUDs to low-income teens, so that when they do sex — as teens do, no matter what you tell them at Bible study — they do not get pregnant:
Nonetheless, right-wing Republicans balked at the idea of using public dollars to fund IUDs, suggesting that it amounts to subsidizing teenagers’ sex lives. Some opponents also claimed that IUDs are “abortifacients” that shouldn’t be paid for with government money. On Wednesday, a GOP-controlled Senate committee voted down a bill that would have appropriated $5 million toward the program.
You shouldn't need to see anything more than that to know that this is about sex. Specifically it's about girls having it without paying "the price" of motherhood.
They aren't even persuaded by money on this one. According to the article that 5 million dollars would save the state 49 million over a hundred million in Medicaid costs. But there's no price too high to "send a message" that women should only have sex in order to procreate. (Boys, on the other hand, will be boys, amirite? No stopping that ...)
.