Rachel Allison
This week I received an email from a good friend. Among other news, she wrote that she had gone to pick up her birth control pills and was told, “No Charge.”
My first thought? “It has begun! Unrestricted sex for everyone!
With her email she sent a link to an article entitled “Free Birth Control Means Drastic Drops in Unplanned Pregnancies.” The article triumphantly touts that “the number of unplanned pregnancies and abortions didn’t just go down, they plummeted.” This was the result of a study that was done between 2007 and 2011.
“Birth control was offered to more than 9,000 St. Louis teens and adults who were also educated about their options. The study subjects were aged 14 to 45…. All were considered at risk of unplanned pregnancies and were willing to try a new birth control method.”
Results?…”Drum roll: The free birth control program reduced unplanned pregnancies substantially and cut the abortion rate by 62 to 78 percent over the national rate…
The results were published online recently in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. They found that from 2008 to 2010, the abortion rate ranged from 4.4 to 7.5 for every 1,000 women. For 2008 (the last year calculated) the national abortion rate was 19.6 per 1,000 women.”
“The birth rate among the girls aged 15 to 19 in the study was 6.3 per 1,000. That’s far below the U.S. rate of 34.3 for every 1,000 girls of that age range.”
The article was a “feel good” read. We should cheer the results and expect no less from Obamacare’s free birth control mandate.
However, I hit reply to my friend’s email and sent her an article of my own that I’m sure dashed her jubilation to pieces. It’s title, “24,000 U.S. Women Become Infertile Every Year From Undiagnosed STIs” tells in part the disheartening results of unabated sexual freedom.
“Many tend to think of HIV or maybe syphilis as the serious one. But gonorrhea and chlamydia can and do cause a lot of infertility. Twenty-four thousand women in the U.S. become infertile every year as a result of undiagnosed STIs according to the same CDC data. Most women who have chlamydia or gonorrhea have no symptoms, which make awareness and access to screening especially important. We’re still catching so few of the cases. Among 15-24 year-olds infected with Gonorrhea only 200,000 of the estimated 570,000 who have the infection are diagnosed and treated.
Chlamydia: Only 1 million of the estimated 1.8 million are diagnosed and treated.
After I sent the email I remembered an interview I read recently touting a book written by Ms. Donna Freitas entitled, “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.” According to the author students have come to realize that even though “hook ups” are supposed to symbolize the modern mind set, “Don’t get attached,” many students are finding that it is almost impossible to “walk away emotionally unscathed and not caring.” They’re just not good at it. I haven’t read the book, but Ms. Freitas claims that it is the males who are being hurt. I will have to read her book to figure out her reasoning.
Dr. Miriam Grossman’s book entitled “Unprotected” which I have read sights the opposite. It is the young women whose lives are being robbed of the normalcy that accompanies healthy, loving, and loyal relationships.
After reading “Unprotected” I had a knot in my stomach that made me physically sick.
This sexual freedom that is supposedly liberating both male and female from “all consequences” is a big lie. The men involved may be dealing with concern and regret, but it is the women who are being hurt…wounded…damaged…injured…I can’t find a strong enough word that describes the consequences to a woman having sex with multiple partners. Over time the giving of herself, and then the rejection that follows will destroy a woman…if not physically, then emotionally.
Katie Collins, Research Assistant to Dr. Grossman wrote, “Our culture does not properly honor sexual intimacy, and the cost is the health and hearts of countless young people.”
Sex without consequences is one of the biggest lies being disseminated across this country. Free contraceptives may reduce unwanted babies from becoming the victims of this sex-crazed society, but young women of caliber are being broken, confused, misled and defeated. That is a travesty in this world of “caring” and “compassion” and so called “women’s rights.”