The result of our glorious efforts to keep kids ignorant of their bodies and how to protect themselves while they’re having sex results in us having the ninth highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation (pdf). Do you suppose that makes God happy? Are these kids and their kids an acceptable sacrifice, do you suppose?
If ever you’re sitting in your church wondering why more and more people in this country refuse to affiliate with organized religion, consider the fact, Tennessee, that you worship a god who gave his only son as a perfect sacrifice so that no other human sacrifice was necessary and yet you keep demanding other people accept that you have to oppress them and fuck them over in order to appease your god–who has told you repeatedly that such sacrifice isn’t necessary. Even people who love and trust your God are going to be uneasy hanging out with a bunch of people who have so terribly missed the central point of their religion.
Anyway, certainly being a teen mom is not the end of the world. But it does make life more difficult. And there are real risks to both mother and baby. Having a baby when you’re a kid yourself may indeed be the right choice, but god damn it, how can we say that one in four girls in this state really has a choice when we work so hard to keep them ignorant about themselves?
Filed under: My Imaginary Friend is Better Than Yours, The State of Tennessee
This is just wonderfully put.
Just the cover of that report is striking, especially the contiguous dark-green belt from Nevada through Kentucky. Since so many of those people who want abstinence-only education, can we call that region the “Chastity Belt”? :-)
Seriously though, how the heck did Alabama (my high school home) not get included in that club?
here’s one for you to chew on…
http://www.womenstake.org/2009/03/warnings-from-wisconsin.html
[...] Tennessee has the 9th highest teen pregnancy rate. Actually, they say 9th place, but if you take out all the states that are tied, we’re 6th! Great news, right? (via Tiny Cat Pants.) [...]