Should I have children, I see myself walking my teenage son to the clinic to get this done. A rite of passage of sorts.
It is difficult to understate the importance of bringing only wanted children into this world, and that both parents agree on it. The cultural importance of this invention will be revealed in time, I hope.
Keep in mind that even though unwanted pregnancies could be a problem giving your teenage son this option will also give him the false impression he's immune to STDs which a condom could have prevented.
I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. I can't fathom a parent who would go through the effort of getting their child on birth control, but not having a discussion about STDs and safe sex.
"Kids" are going to have sex, we should take every opportunity to provide them with a means to do it as safely as possible.
It's simple really. Teenagers tend to take more risks. A possible pregnancy is a good reason to use a condom, as a side effect a lot of stds are also prevented. Removing the pregnancy possibility from the equation removes the need for condom use.
Yes, I know when I was a teenager, getting a girl pregnant seemed like a FAR worse outcome than getting AIDs and dying. I'm not sure if you think teenagers lack basic reasoning skills, or if this is actually your personal reasoning skills being projected onto all teenagers.
STD risks are generally overstated. There's basically three practical categories:
1. Herpes. It's usually on the level of "slightly annoying" rather than catastrophic. Pretty much the biggest downside of having herpes is the obligation to tell sexual partners that you have herpes.
2. Things that die to antibiotics. Syphilis, Chlamydia, etc. You get them, you get sick, you get treatment, you get better.
3. HIV/AIDS. Treatment is much better than it used to be for this, but it's definitely still the scariest one.
Basically, getting tested regularly is probably enough precaution. You'd feel more regret over picking up an STD than putting too much effort into avoiding STDs, so it makes sense that people over-invest in this area (see also: hiring decisions).
>Basically, getting tested regularly is probably enough precaution.
Maybe I'm reading your comment entirely wrong, but this sounds ridiculous? What even is regular testing anyway? I should suddenly be just fine going on tinder or taking men from bars home and not require any condoms, instead just check myself every month and take a bunch of medication if things did go wrong? Or do you mean me and my partner can have sex in our monogamous relationship without condom but instead a regular checkup?
I see the first idea as a terrible idea, and the second as - while safe - a little excessive after the initial checkup when you both are ready for it.
Default to using a condom, unless your partner has a recent STD test (as measured by your estimate of their number and promiscuity of sexual partners since the STD test). I'm not saying to go to an orgy and have unprotected sex with everyone there.
It's probably difficult because you don't have children and therefore lack the experience necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of the topic.
That's not to say your partial understanding is not valid, it's just incomplete.
Not only am I adopted (thus not "wanted"), but neither of my children were planned and my wife and I initially couldn't agree. From my real world experience, and not speculation, it only takes one person to "want" a child, and biology literally has nothing to do with it. I'm also not angry, sad, or pained with regret; it's impossible to generalize how individuals will respond.
All of that said, I'm all for increasing the availability and effectiveness of birth control, and hope that children make their way to an environment of love and nurturing. So, what really can't be understated is the importance of parents and guardians being emotionally equipped to respond to those responsibilities in a way that is positive to all involved.
Maybe I'm misreading your comment, but it seems like you're missing the entire point of GP.
No one is attempting to cast aside unwanted children. We're trying to prevent conception from happening in the first place for people who are not ready. In this sense, there would be no need for adoption (optimistically speaking), because the only children conceived were done so with intent. It takes out the whole, "Oh crap, I'm not ready aspect," (again, optimistically speaking), because both parties would have had to agree that they were attempting to have children.
To reiterate, this is optimistically speaking. There are always instances where parties agreed but then realize mid- or post-pregnancy that having a child isn't for them for any number of reasons. Contraceptives won't fix that. I'm not trying to trivialize your experience nor your feelings. I just think that you're addressing something completely different.
> It's probably difficult because you don't have children and therefore lack the experience necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of the topic.
> That's not to say your partial understanding is not valid, it's just incomplete.
Thank God somebody who understands everything has shown up to set them straight.
So are you saying that, despite the effort, time, and money it takes for adoption, your adoptive parents didn't want you?
That doesn't make any sense.
While it might be true that your birth parent(s) didn't want you, there might be reasons why that is so; of course, I can't speak to that as I don't know your situation.
What I can say, though, is that my parents wanted me when I was adopted. I can't really say why my birth mother (let alone whoever my father is/was) gave me up for adoption (what I was told as a child, doesn't sit completely right with me as an adult - I'll never know the truth, though - and that's ok). But I do know that my adoptive parents spent a lot of time and money to keep me (I was a foster child before that, at 2 years of age). That and the rest of my life growing up makes me know that I was wanted.
Perhaps I'm just misinterpreting what you wrote; if so, I apologize.
To be honest, I think children adopted very early in life would have better childhoods than children raised by their birth parents because
p(parents are generous/caring/loving | parents are the type of person to adopt a child) > p(parents are generous/caring/loving | parents bring pregnancy to term)
In addition, for adopted parents, we know that both parents want the child. Whereas with birth parents, we know that the mother wanted a child but we do not know if the father did.
> Whereas with birth parents, we know that the mother wanted a child [...]
I can think of many situations where this wouldn't be the case. Poor women in states with restricted access to abortion (requiring multiple visits to a clinic that's hundreds of miles away for example); women trapped in controlling relationships where leaving could be physically risky; teens who get pregnant for socially immature reasons and end up not wanting the child.
I don't have your experience, nor do I really know what it's like, but here's a perspective I thought of after reading your post.
Your birth parents may not have wanted you, putting you for adoption. However, you were wanted in a different sense, chosen for adoption by whomever adopted you.
-shrugs- Don't know what point I wanted to make, just a thought
Religious or other social reasons aside, the fact that s/he was brought to term indicates that he was wanted in some sense by his birth parents. Late-term abortions are most typically done only in the case of a grave medical issue (for the fetus or mother).
Instead, what may have happened are situations changed for the couple. Maybe a nasty divorce occurred, or one of the partners abruptly left the relationship for reasons? Or maybe the father suddenly died? Or lost his job (or she did - or they both did)? Or any one of those coupled with already having other children. Any one of those, and other reasons, could be the case. Had something like that happened late in the pregnancy, where a legal late-term abortion wasn't available or allowed, then adoption might be the only choice for the parent(s).
That doesn't mean s/he wasn't wanted by the birth parents, but that they instead (perhaps) loved the resulting infant so much that they decided adoption would give a better chance for life than keeping him/her. Maybe that was the wrong choice, maybe not.
Oh, there are a ton of people complaining that female contraception encourages people to have sex they shouldn't be having. It's not usually framed in terms of STDs, but I'm pretty sure the STD argument here is just a cover for a moralistic argument anyway.
Argue it all you want, just don't try to force it. If you're going to argue for sexual restraint but want to let people make their own decisions on it, you're going to have to work really hard to distance yourself from e.g. the people who fight against the HPV vaccine because they're more concerned with premarital sex than with cervical cancer.
It's really rare to find anyone who merely wants to argue for it. Most either keep it to themselves or try to impose their morals on others.
I think we can all guess how that came about. Back in the day there was no contraception and the church was at the center of community life. Imagine the inconvenience and heartbreak to everyone involved from unwanted pregnancies! Especially those from teenagers, who I'm sure were pressured into suddenly abandoning their own ambitions to become unwitting parents. Pre birth control of course church leaders would council people to simply say no to pre-marital sex. Sure it'd be difficult for some, but I'm sure avoiding any unwanted pregnancies was worth it for everyone involved, and better for the community at large.
Fast forward a few centuries and that (very practical) advice has become 'word of god' moralistic. Now with modern birth control we have better ways to avoid pregnancy than abstinence. But (unsurprisingly) the church's practical advice hasn't caught up with modern technology.
Not all of them. Buddhism, for example, disagrees with several abrahamic religious conclusions on moral issues. Hinduism, I believe, has a caste system which doesn't exist as a moral controversial issue in abrahamic religions but is still a controversial issue in modern times for which Hinduism is a popular religion in the region.
Abrahmix religions and Hinduism generally disagree on several moral issues, such as how many gods may be worshiped.
Pray tell - how does one determine whether a religion is "real" or not? Furthermore, are you positing that of all of these "real" religions, that they all speak to the same truth regarding humanity and it's relationship with their deity(s)?
Oh yeah, it's great how every religion came up with the exact same views on how many women you should marry, how you should treat people who worship different gods, what kind of food it's OK to eat, whether religion should be subservient to the state or vice versa, and so forth.
"Morals are a good thing" whose morals, exactly? Let me guess, yours happen to be the correct ones?
Sex outside of marriage is wrong because it might result in STDs or children you can't care for. And technology which solves those problems is wrong because it might encourage sex outside of marriage. /s
Might have something to do with those men who preach virtue having a tendency to be incriminated in soliciting illegal male prostitutes or fondling children.
Also regardless of political correctness, the US at least doesn't seem to have any problems ruining young people's lives in order to appease to religious groups demanding to dictate what consenting adults can and can't do to their own bodies.
I mean, one would think that anyone with the minimum sense of logical thinking would understand that it is way easier to prevent 1 (as one, singular) single egg to get fixated in the uterus during the course of 28 days, than to prevent millions (as in > 1000000) of spermatozoids to be produced every single day.
But perhaps it's just me that actually looked at the obvious numbers...
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss female contraceptive side effects. I know it's anecdotal but my wife quality of life improved a lot after she stopped taking them. And it was not brand related because she used like 4 different ones.
No, but he's saying that the "pill" that you're talking about, in quotes or not, is completely different from what's described in this article, so it's irrelevant.
It also has literally nothing to do with the thread in question, which is discussing whether one should advocate for these kinds of contraceptives when they may increase the rate of STDs.
The reality is that it's a lot easier to block the sperm than the egg. The former just requires a bit of intestine, or latex if you feel like being modern. Zero side effects too, at least for those without allergies to the material.
The article disagrees with you. It references a study that says 30% of women stop using the pill due to adverse side effects. Fewer than 10% of men in the male pill study stopped use due to adverse side effects.
It's certainly obvious with minimal logical thinking. But when you think about it a little more, you realize that such an argument doesn't actually make sense.
I agree in the sense that an STD only has to impact your life whereas a child is virtually guaranteed to consume vastly more resources and go on to impact society at large.
That said, you may be surprised to learn you can live a pretty normal life with a child.
I could argue that I live a better life without children. Others could easily argue the opposite, though.
My wife and I made the decision not to have children a long time ago, and we don't regret it in the slightest. What we have found, though, is that our friends and co-workers continue to have on-going "problems" with their children.
Issues of sickness, parent-teacher and other school things, dealing with unruliness or other behavioral problems, the on-going costs of raising kids, finding daycare, time off for activities - or simply picking the kids up from school, having to get a more expensive (larger) car(s) because of having a kid (or more kids)...it just goes on and on, all the way through (and sometimes beyond) high school graduation and college. If the parents are lucky, the kid goes to college and moves away. But increasingly, that doesn't seem to be the case - we hear and see about many parents (friends, co-workers, and strangers) whose children stay at home, without a job. So they (the parents) continue to complain about that, wondering when their children will leave, or get a better education, or whatever.
It's gets tiresome after a while; it is also tiresome that you want to tell them about something you bought, or something you're doing or going to do (a vacation, higher education, a new job opportunity, or a business venture) - but you sometimes have to hold back, because you know that you're just throwing it in their faces that "this is what I have, and you don't because you're dealing with your kids".
...then there's the relief we've seen on our friend's and co-worker's faces when they (finally) say that their children have bought a house, and have moved out, or have a job, after graduating college or high-school or whatever; they look like a burden has been lifted from them (while at the same time a bit sad - I imagine because of their kids no longer being around - I can empathize with that).
It seems like children are a double-edged sword. Are there good times and good (great!) experiences to be had with children? Surely! I'll never know the thrill or excitement of teaching my child how to ride a bike, or use powertools, or how to code, or any number of other experiences (and there would be many). But with that loss, I also won't ever know the debt and trials children put parents through, the loss of time and energy, the fear when they don't come home on time.
I and my wife have chosen this; to say our life is abnormal because we came to that decision based on many discussions is to devalue our ability to make our own adult and independent decisions. Similarly, I can't honestly criticise someone for having children. All I do ask is to quit complaining about the decision(s) you made. Because that is the adult thing to do.
Don't misunderstand "normal" as meaning "good," or "abnormal" as being "bad." I have no problem with your life (I mean, why would I) and what you say about children being a double-edged sword is absolutely true.
The fact is, just by the numbers, having children is normal. But that doesn't mean you should do it!
What are you going to do with your extra money, sleep, and free time? You don't have to worry about the dating pool when you are married, something you should couple with who you are having sex with. Also the dating pool shrinks with age regardless. On ability to travel: most people eat sleep go to work go to the bathroom and spend time with their families (another reason the dating pool shrinks so significantly). And I don't know what kind of peace of mind you get by living for your own pleasure. If you're not dedicated to raising others up, either your kids or in some kind of missionary work, then not really sure you can say you're living your life and are doing anything worthwhile.
> most people eat sleep go to work go to the bathroom and spend time with their families
> I don't know what kind of peace of mind you get by living for your own pleasure
> If you're not dedicated to raising others up, either your kids or in some kind of missionary work, then not really sure you can say you're living your life and are doing anything worthwhile
Are you unable to look at life through any lens other than your own? There are lots of different types of people in this world living a myriad of different lifestyles, many of which offer plenty of personal satisfaction, add real value to the world, and should be considered worthwhile. Having kids and doing missionary work might personally give you a sense of self worth, but that doesn't mean there aren't other paths to finding self worth/meaning that aren't just as valid. Your worldview is not the only one that matters.
Not to mention, some people can't have kids (I know this is not super relevant to a discussion on birth control). Are their lives completely devoid of meaning?
Yes, having kids brings meaning to a lot of people's lives. It's certainly not the only way to lead a fulfilled life, though. In fact, with populations booming everywhere, I'd say it's a good thing that less people want kids.
I know of many people who DO have kids who are constantly bitching about how annoying it is to have kids. They smile through their teeth and say it's the best thing they've ever done, but it's obvious they're reading the script society has handed them while silently thinking "what the hell have I gotten myself into?"
> I don't know what kind of peace of mind you get by living for your own pleasure
The peace of mind that my non-existent children cannot get hit by a car or get cancer or get killed in Iraq or any of the myriad worries that are at the forefront of every parent's mind.
> On ability to travel: most people eat sleep go to work go to the bathroom and spend time with their families
I'm lucky to have a lot of opportunities by living in a first world country with a high salary and a strong passport. It seems wasteful to give them all up just to live like 'most people'.
Fear of it not being as reversible as it was supposed to be would be a pretty good reason not to use this one.
If you're married, with children, and looking for an alternative to vasectomy, that risk is lower in the sense that should the reverse procedure not go as expected, it would probably be less crushing than the same experience as a newlywed.
Freezing sperm costs on the order of $200-400 per year depending on how far you pay in advance. Worth paying if you're getting a vasectomy, but probably not worth it for this kind of (hopefully) temporary BC.
I think what most people usually miss when dismissing the "condoms fail" argument is that while it's indeed unlikely that condoms literally break if properly used (they're stress tested to ensure a ridiculous level of quality so while possible that's still extremely rare) "user error" is not exactly unlikely. It's also extremely likely that user errors will be reported as condom failures instead.
You're right, it does. It highlights the strange special status sex is given, and the awful consequences caused by that special status.
I can't think of many other situations in which (all else equal) a parent would choose to increase a child's risk of life-altering mistakes because reducing that risk would not reduce other risks as well. Don't tell Becky to brush her teeth; she might just fall down and break them out anyway.
Everyone's child is a special snowflake, but we know abstinence-only education is a failure at reducing unwanted pregnancy and STDs. What it doesn't fail at is increasing human misery by weaponizing moral choices about sex.
It highlights that people bring up arguments like this to shame people out of having sex, but refuse to consider that something as simple as comprehensive sex education would contribute greatly to solving the aforementioned potential problem.
I don't think I don't deserve them tbh, I was being super glib/lazy. I interpreted the parent as implying that was going to be "job done" for getting a child prepared and it struck me as odd.
Personally I would preach Condoms over pills (although I freely acknowledge they can fail, and indeed suspect it's even more likely when teens are the ones using them).
Its not one or the other, you preach the virtues of using both. I did that (condom and pill) with all my sexual partners before I got married and it wasn't uncommon among my peer group from what I saw.
Just like you can and should preach the value of abstinence and the consequences of sex to your teen while also teaching about safe(r) sex.
Indeed, the cultural "importance" will be revealed in time. However, I fear not in the way you intend.
There used to be a time when we as a society valued things like self-control, discipline, and tradition. No more.
What you are alluding to here is a world where we are ruled by our emotions and our basest desires without the fear or potential for having to deal with our actions. To divorce sex from children is to misunderstand intimacy, the family, and the entire underpinning of our society.
EDIT: Yeah, I know conservative positions on HN are ways to make your Karma go down, but hey, that's what forums are for right, to have your opinions regarded as trolling instead of interacting with them, right?
Marie Stopes would like a word with you from beyond the grave.
Seriously, we've had modern birth control for a century. Not only has society not collapsed but a whole number of hidden evils have been abolished (Tuam passim), and needless poverty avoided. It's our perfect anti-Malthusian weapon.
This is Hacker News in the 21st century. Tradition alone is a terrible reason to do things. I'm astonished that your comment seems to have been upvoted here.
Edit: I'm trying to keep it civil but I'm really disappointed not just that this appears on HN but it's sitting at the top of its thread tree not greyed out at the bottom.
There are valid points to be made about HN being a bit of a bubble but I'm pretty comfortable pointing out that this is a forum for intellectual honesty and you're really showing none of that. These are tired arguments (ramblings really), to the point where I'm almost convinced you're trolling.
I don't agree with nvahalik in the slightest, but I can't see any signs of intellectual dishonesty, or trolling, either.
Unless you can make a case that your values are objectively more correct than his, you two are just holding two different sets of values.
Of course society has to deal with lot's of different sets of values of lots of people, but we have democracy to accommodate for that. Simply calling people trolls for having different opinions helps nobody.
Lack of intellectual honesty? I'm sorry, was there anything I said that was false? Instead of responding to my list of illustrations all you can do is say that I'm trolling?
It's ironic because I've been thinking of writing a piece on how there are different types of reasoning, from strictly rational to the more empathetic (human?). So I cringed a bit myself writing that, because I feel a lot of HN commenters share a very specific type of "thinking" that only works for a small percent of the population and assume it applies to everyone. I see a lot of failure to empathize here, is what I'm saying.
And yet I still feel comfortable dismissing everything you said. It's not even empathetic or emotional reasoning, it's just delusional and the underling assumptions are completely unfounded. There's a problem for religious thinkers (I've checked your previous comments), which is that they aren't searching for answers, they have answers and need to twist everything else to somehow reach them. So long as you're doing that, almost everyone here is going to see through you right away.
Even if we find ourselves at a fairly fundamental level of disagreement with other community members, it's important not to let that cross into personal incivility, which this comment at least verges on.
Before birth control, it was an accomplishment one could be proud of to have children at the right time. It required stable relationships and self-control. Your family and church would give you a lot of respect if you succeeded, and contempt if you failed. It was a test that separated the virtuous from the lazy, weak, and sinful.
When such hardships are made optional by technological or social progress, most find new challenges to conquer but many regret their loss.
Birth control is old news in the Western world. But the cycle will repeat with new technologies. Suppose you're serious about fitness, you spend hours every week spinning and cross-fitting, and your abs are rippling. And tomorrow, a pill is developed that lets everyone be perfectly fit with zero effort. What do you get for all your hours at the gym? Can you imagine being bummed that everyone else is getting for free what you worked so hard for? That might give some idea what pre-birth-control nostalgia is like.
> It was a test that separated the virtuous from the lazy, weak, and sinful. When such hardships are made optional by technological or social progress, most find new challenges to conquer but many regret their loss.
And it used to be that, in order to eat food, you had to work 12 hours a day under the hot sun, which was great because only the righteous could be fed.
Now anyone, even those born to a weakling family, can get a job as a software developer and spend time chatting on Hacker News, and still feed a family. It's shameful.
Trust me, the only people with pre-birth control nostalgia are misguided men who are still alive because a) they didn't die in childbirth and b) don't have to have a period every month. I suppose you think that life before the polio vaccine was better too because not winding up in an iron lung is an accomplishment and how DARE someone just get a small needle in the arm without having to put in years to avoid dying a slow, paralytic death?
The problem with this lovely wheat-from-chaff heuristic is that "failure" results in the introduction of a new human life into a world that may not be prepared for it and will be strained ecologically for its existence. I would much rather have a world where the lazy, weak, and sinful pop pills towards an ecologically sustainable population than one where the virtuous are lauded for bringing five or six new people into existence, but, you know, at the "right time".
Me too. The failure mode of pre-contraceptive society (unwanted children) was terrible. But human nature is what it is, and many people are willing to accept terrible externalities in order to have a means to display their comparative virtue. The recent attack on universal health care in the US is an example. Many voters seem to desire a world where people who have their financial shit together will live, and others will die.
For a clear-eyed view of these less inspiring aspects of human nature, read Sapiens and Homo Deus by Harari.
I don't think you understand just how painful some women's periods can be. I take birth control NOT to have unbridled sex, but to live my life normally without excruciating, debilitating pain every 23 days.
Okay, I'm going to interact with your opinion: it's based on a mountain of lies and fallacies and that's why you're being downvoted.
> There used to be a time when we as a society valued things like self-control, discipline, and tradition. No more.
Is that also the time when people died from rubella and mumps, or when women weren't allowed to vote? Usually an appeal to a bygone era is a secret yearning to go back to a time when the holder of that view had more power over others who now have equality.
> What you are alluding to here is a world where we are ruled by our emotions and our basest desires without the fear or potential for having to deal with our actions.
Yeah, because humans /never/ let themselves get ruled by emotions for the first ~100,000 years of history. /s
> To divorce set from children is to misunderstand intimacy, the family, and the entire underpinning of our society.
And yet, I (a man) had some lovely martinis with my poly boyfriend last night before falling asleep with him. Today, I'm being productive and contributing money to our gorgeous house, and contributing to both my local economy and my various levels of government by paying a decent portion in taxes. Tonight I think I'll spend time with friends and our lives will all be that much better for spending time together.
But please, tell me more about how my lack of child-bearing sex is ruining society.
> Usually an appeal to a bygone era is a secret yearning to go back to a time when the holder of that view had more power over others who now have equality.
I don't agree with the GP at all, but I think you're reading something that just isn't there.
Nah, sex is for pleasure or for children (and pleasure), depending on how you practice it. Self-control is still very much valued (at least in my society). The self-control bit is using the available contraceptives when you're only having sex for pleasure.
Many people do not want a family. We have a sizeable population problem and many unwanted children are already born into poor conditions.
Safe sex is important, but "self-control", implying denying oneself sex, is a choice you can make, but certainly most would not. The "tradition" in the past was (still is in many places) patriarchal oppression and to expect or TAKE sex, forcefully if necessary. Colour me unimpressed by tradition.
Check out the CDC stats. Teenagers today are actually abstaining from sex at higher rates then ever before and the teen pregnancy rate has dropped by HALF over the course of the last 25 years. So tell me about the other magical time where there was more "self-control, discipline, and tradition" among teenagers than now?
By the way, we've been controlling our fertility since the sexual revolution which started around half a century ago. Since our society hasn't collapsed in 50 years I can assume additional and safer options to control our fertility won't bring a collapse.
We've been controlling our fertility since the beginning of recorded history. There's a plant, silphium, that went extinct in the ancient Near East because it was overharvested as an effective abortifacient.
> There used to be a time when we as a society valued things like self-control, discipline, and tradition
No, no there has never been a time. People in the past were just big liars. People have always done whatever they want. The only difference today is that many people have the option of being honest about it
It is difficult to understate the importance of bringing only wanted children into this world, and that both parents agree on it. The cultural importance of this invention will be revealed in time, I hope.