The Pill is so last decade
A Princeton professor says it’s time to ditch the “outdated” Pill because it has done nothing to stem the tide of unintended and teenage pregnancies. James Trussell, director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, made the recommendation while speaking last month in London at a conference of Britain’s largest abortion-promoting organization, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. He also said that emergency contraception is not the solution because there is too much unprotected sex occurring.
Trussell instead suggests that what’s needed is more and better contraceptives: “The Pill is an outdated method because it does not work well enough. It is very difficult for ordinary women to take a pill every single day. The beauty of the implant or the IUD is that you can forget about them.” Even still, Trussell–who serves on the board of the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation and is a senior fellow at the Guttmacher Institute, the research branch of Planned Parenthood–said there is no “magic bullet” answer for preventing unintended pregnancies. He seems to have overlooked the fact that abstinence is a guarantee every time.




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back to top34 Comments to “The Pill is so last decade”
Humans were designed so their judgment is least functional at the same time their sexual urges are most urgent because … ?
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Agreed that abstinence works every time. The problem is convincing teens with strong urges and weak wills to stop. Though I have often wondered how educrats expect teens to say no to drugs yet hand out condoms and advice to keep it safe. Are not both drives equally controllable?
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#1: You’re beginning with a false premise, RN. Human beings weren’t “designed” that way.
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Making kids abstinent is easy. Dress them like dorks, make them wear thick glasses and don’t teach them to bathe.
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#4: ZZ, the reason that kids don’t dress like that is all Bush’s fault.
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Hey, when did ZZ come back?!
TJ, you beat me to it with #5.
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“It is very difficult for ordinary women to take a pill every single day.”
While all y’all may want to discuss abstinence as the proper birth control, I find the above quote rather revealing of the elitist attitude:
What the elitists are saying is that the masses are not smart enough or disciplined enough to take a pill every day?? It’s too difficult???
“that can be forgotten but will still be foolproof”
God forbid fools should have children.
It appears that what Trussell is looking for is population control.
I’m glad the article points out that the IUD is not a contraceptive.
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From a strictly utilitarian point of view, none of these contraceptives are helpful in protecting folks from STDs.
The girls I speak with on hotline are still upset by an unplanned pregnancy but totally freaked out by the idea of getting an STD. A pregnancy will only last until tomorrow or at most to nine months. An STD could kill you.
But, on another purely practical matter–how many ADULTS do you know exercising personal discipline, whether it be in finances, gluttony, TV viewing or even computer use? Is it even fair to ask kids to abstain from sex when our society generally doesn’t limit themselves on anything unless forced? A tank of gas, anyone?
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Wiglaf – it isn’t that women are stupid, but rather they are BUSY! If the pill isn’t taken at the exact same time – within a very small window – it loses its effectiveness. That is very hard for average people to do – I know it would be for me! I do not take the pill, simply because I don’t want the health risks associated with it. But, I do know several people, my sister-in-law included, who have children conceived while they were on the pill. Very hard to take the pill exactly right – for anyone. It’s unfortunate that so many women seem to think it’s foolproof, and don’t take it properly. False sense of security sometimes.
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Abstinence only works if the person also has the good character attributes required for success first. But success in all things requires the correct character attributes first so nothing is new there. This is why young women who are too whacked out mentally to even be able to take a pill a day and get pregnant as a result, also struggle with other basic problems they must solve in their every day life to be successful and fail at them too.
The two biggest reasons young teenage girls get pregnant today is one, they want to get pregnant (they might even make a pact and do it as a group) and two, there are few bad consequences if they do and no deterrent that they can easily see and know will happen to them.
There is no way to stop a teenager from getting pregnant if that is what they want to do.
If they get pregnant and don’t want the child they can take the morning after pill, they can have an abortion, they can have their boy friend kick them in stomach until the baby dies (don’t think this doesn’t happen) and they get off Scot free even if their boyfriend gets probation if convicted.
If they want to have the baby but not keep it they can have the child and put it up for adoption or they can keep it but either way their parents or their boyfriend’s parents will let them live with them at home no problem and the high schools will allow them to attend school and provide day care for the child no doubt. They can still go to church and take communion. They can get all kinds of government and private aid so it is no problem having a baby or aborting it whatsoever. It is just an extended free ride.
Still, young girls that get pregnant are pushing a cart with a wheel gone missing somewhere and they will most likely be less than they can be, are prone to bad things happening to them or will always perform at a low level since that is all they can or want to do. They will likely always be a problem about to happen.
If it wasn’t so easy it wouldn’t happen so much. It’s just common sense. Sometimes our compassion contributes greatly to the problem and we become the problem.
There are girls of course who learn from their mistakes abort their child or have it and go on to be President of the United States one day too – Well maybe not since no women have ever even been nominated for President but if they one day do become President after a pregnancy as a teenager, will just prove they are lacking something somewhere to take that worthless, thankless and underpaid job… OPPSSSS but that is what Feminazis call the job a stay at home mother does anyway and what they claim all jobs that women have today are….never mind
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“Making kids abstinent is easy. Dress them like dorks, make them wear thick glasses and don’t teach them to bathe.”
Hey, no fair making fun of my HS yearbook picture!
Still, the dorky girl with greasy hair and thick glasses still came on to me.
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Some of the brightest of our young people are getting it about the virtue of chastity before marriage that is a guarantee against STD and pregnancy, though most importantly it respects the God given dignity of men and women. The Anscombe Society of Princeton in a statement, Sexual Ethics and Chastity , remarks as follows:
Outside of the context of marriage, then, sex ultimately reduces the participants to mere instruments serving an incomplete end—be it the desire for emotional intimacy, physical pleasure, or personal security. Even if two people love each other and plan to marry later on, sexual intimacy must articulate a unity and gift of one’s entire self that has yet to take place. To use sex for pleasure or emotional fulfillment alone not only fails to realize the essential purpose of sex, but degrades the inherent dignity of the human being to that of an object—a means to an end.
Groups like this are laying the foundation that in the long run will consign the decadent sexual “revolution” to the dust bin.
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If it’s too much trouble for a woman to remember to take a pill once a day, do you think it might also be difficult for her to remember to feed her child three times a day — if she allows her child to live until birth, that is?
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Taking that attitude Michelle, you can throw your hands up in the air, sit back and have another coffee.
I don’t know who you are acquainted with, you mention a number of lazy people, who most likely are fat, without enough backbone to keep, and spend their money carefully. We don’t know many as you have described above, if they did fit your scenario they are FAT, POOR, with their TV’S blaring – That doesn’t sound like anyone I’m friends with.
Now for the ‘PILL’ – putting them right next to your tooth brush and paste should end the problem, water, swallow pill, then brush teeth – that isn’t to hard to remember -
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Victoria,
The problem is, the fat and poor women with TV’s blaring that you refer to probably lost that last tooth years ago, so no tooth (or teeth) brushing necessary. Better to put the pills next to the remote control and TV guide.
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People want sex without consequences, and they just can’t get the technology right.
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In Gloucester MA 18 high school girls chose to get pregnant even though the school offered free contraception.
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Wiglaf –
That was funny!
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Xion, isn’t that the group of girls who all made a pack to get pregnant?
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Victoria,
There is no evidence of the pact.
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From The Sunday Times
June 22, 2008
Teen ‘pregnancy pact’ has US town reeling in shame
Tony Allen-Mills, Gloucester, Massachusetts
WHEN a 15-year-old girl at Gloucester high school in Massachusetts discovered she was pregnant earlier this year, she displayed no trace of fear or concern. Shown the results of her pregnancy test, she responded: “Sweet!” She then rushed off to tell her friends.
The girl was among a group of up to 18 Gloucester teenagers who may have made an apparent “pregnancy pact” that has stunned this decaying fishing community and sparked a renewed national debate about sex education in American schools.
The notion that girls as young as 14 might deliberately try to become pregnant has embarrassed school and health officials. It has also ignited a row about what exactly the girls were up to, and to what extent the religious beliefs of this predominantly white and Catholic corner of New England may have encouraged an unprecedented spike in teenage sexual activity.
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“…FAT, POOR, with their TV’S blaring…”
Hey! I resemble that remark! Aside from the TV, that could be me!
Of course there is a computer around here someplace…
Come to think of it, we never used the pill either.
Seriously though, even though we were only a jump ahead of the poverty line most of my career, we always paid the bills on time, raised two kids who never missed a meal, and are almost completely out of debt.
If we had used the pill, I don’t think it would have been such an onerous burden. What’s easier than taking a pill? Honestly… I wish getting in shape were that easy.
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MIM, you made me smile
I bet your kids had a great time growing up.
Walking MIM, walking, and then pushing yourself away from the table.
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Victoria, I think Cameron was probably referring to these more recent new stories, both of which appeared in the Boston Globe after June 22:
“In the strongest rebuff yet of the national “pregnancy pact” story that has scandalized Gloucester, top city and school officials say there’s no evidence that nearly half of the 17 pregnant teens at Gloucester High conspired to have babies together. “We have not been able to confirm the existence of a pact,” said Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk, trying to defuse the national story on the school’s teen baby mama drama. “The information from the principal has not been verified by any other source.””
“A Gloucester High teen-ager who is five months pregnant told a national morning TV program today there was no “pregnancy pact” at the North Shore school where 17 girls became pregnant last year. “There definitely was no pact,” said 17-year-old Lindsey Oliver, who appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America with her baby’s 20-year-old father.”
There’s also a story from a local TV station here: http://wbztv.com/local/Gloucester.teen.pregnancy.2.754440.html
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TJ,
I’m sure we will all find out what the truth is, however it does appear the girls did make a pack -
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How hard is it to take a pill. There are people who take blood pressure medicine every day. There are people who take pills on a daily basis to save their lives. I have always been amazed that insurance companies will pay for the maternity care and birth of a child but would not pay for BCP’s yet they would pay for the little blue pill.
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Victoria,
So it doesn’t matter that several news stories have corrected that idea? No child has said it, and everyone involved denies it, but because the concept of a pact was mentioned on the day the story broke, it must be true?
You’ve obviously never heard of the “24-hour rule”–what breaks on the first day is rarely the whole (or accurate) story.
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Cameron, time will tell –
“You’ve obviously never heard of the “24-hour rule”–what breaks on the first day is rarely the whole (or accurate) story.”
Everyone’s heard this Cameron, no big bulletin on your part!
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Amphipolis, #16
But entrepreneurs will keep marketing new technology, and people will keep buying and trusting in the technology, hoping for the magic bullet that “delivers”.
Then they reach an age when they want a baby, and can’t have one, in which case they’re in the market for a different sort of technology…
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Obviously, I forgot to include my irony icon . . .
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Those ‘IRONY ICON’s’ come in handy when it doesn’t work out.
It’s like “just kidding” or it was just “humor” here’s another one, it was just in “JEST”
yeah right!
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What is even more weird about the Gloucester incident is how mean the surrounding towns have been about it. Beverly and Salem both held parades mocking Gloucester with the most vicious language. Beverly had a float with a giant penis spraying water. They had many signs filled with hateful ridicule.
While I think shame is the proper response, no one is ashamed. Not Gloucester, nor the surrounding towns which actually have worse pregnancy problems. Everyone is simply mocking a very serious problem.
These schools make being pregnant cool! They have day care centers and give the mothers special attention. This is obviously better than abortion, but who is talking about abstinence?
Who is talking about waiting until marriage? Who is talking about responsible parenting? Not the schools. And certainly not Planned Parenthood which has nothing to do with either planning or parenthood.
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Victoria,
If you’re aware of the rule, then why are you so sure the first-day version is the truth, when no one on either side supports it or has any proof for it?
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#7- Indeed, nice that the article points out that the IUD is not a contraceptive. Too bad that the article does NOT point out that one of the actions of the Pill is, in fact, abortifacient. Don’t believe it? Just check the package insert or the Physician’s Desk Reference. In the midst of all the legally gobbledygook, you’ll find a description of its action– yep, one of the ways it works is by “disrupting the endometrium so as to prevent implantation of the fertilized ovum.” Indeed, this is one of Baulieu’s (one of the key inventors of RU-486) stated reasons for confusion as to why RU-486 was such a struggle to get approved when Americans have been using abortifacients for years. Then, again, from the physician’s standpoint, maybe The Pill is technically a contraceptive– seeing that FACOG (the OB/GYN medical specialty organization) redefined pregnancy in the 60s (strangely enough, shortly after The Pill came to market) from fertilization to implantation.
Years ago, I tried to get Dobson’s Focus on the Family Physician’s Advisory Board to tackle this issue. You should’ve seen the justifications fly when a bunch of “Christian” family physicians realized that they were about to lose a bunch of patients if took the moral highroad and refused to prescribe the abortifacient known as “The Pill.”
The Pill ain’t contraception anymore than the IUD. Studies show that a woman taking the Pill faithfully actually releases an egg 20% of the time. What happens to a human baby– oops, a fertilized egg– if the mother has chosen to take the Pill? Oh, its cut off from nourishment– just as surely as the human baby– oops, fetus– is cut off from nourishment when the abortionist inserts his instruments into the womb.
Wake up, folks. The Pill is not just a Catholic or Orthodox hangup– it’s a moral issue for all Christians.
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