It's nothing to do with morals. Unsafe sex at an early age is just plain a stupid dangerous decision, and there's plenty of people to tell you that. Sure - I feel bad for the people who are now going to be paying for the consequences for the rest of their lives, but it's not some arbitrary religious code. It's not so different from experimenting with drugs in that regard.

Kids make stupid and dangerous decisions because their brains aren't fully developed, they don't have the same sense of perspective that they will (hopefully) have as adults. Once upon a time, this was part of why we had a separate judicial system for them, too.

Religion comes into play because the lobby against making birth control available to teenagers is also the lobby against abortion clinics (and any clinics that offer health services and birth control to teenagers) is also the lobby to teach abstinence in schools (or not teach sex ed. at all), and that lobby gets most of its funding from religious organizations.

So, the slightly awkward week in sixth grade where my teacher gave us anatomy lessons and a birth video is something my daughter didn't get to experience, even though I brought my family back to my hometown. Instead, she gets the even more wonderfully awkward talk from her parents, which my wife likes to paraphrase as "your mouth won't get pregnant" (thanks Bill Clinton).

Teen pregnancy is not currently a common issue (it has been declining since 1990), but that doesn't mean it won't start going back up if we continue making it more difficult for young women (and men) to have access to birth control and education about safe sex.

We even had some discussion in school about how to reduce the risks of experimenting with drugs, though I don't think many people followed those directions.

Religion _was_ the birth control for a long time. It appears to have stopped working sometime in the late 1960's though.

In the old days they used to say "First babies can arrive whenever they want, the second baby better take nine months". Which is to say they knew unmarried people would have sex, but any girl that got herself pregnant was expected to marry the father before the baby was born and stay married.

Religion never worked great, but it was all they had.

Expecting kids to wisely abstain when their brains aren't fully developed yet and their bodies are telling them that having sex is the most important thing they could possibly do is foolish. Giving them ready access to contraception and sex ed so they don't harm themselves or others is easy and effective, and there's no good reason not to do it.

You are looking at a problem with a simple and well-understood solution, and instead of talking about implementation you're going "Tsk, tsk, it's their own fault for being stupid." So, yes, you're absolutely moralizing.

> it's not some arbitrary religious code.

Giving teenagers worthless abstinence education instead of proven sex ed is the definition of an arbitrary religious code.

I think you missed the part where I said unsafe sex. I'm trying my darndest to find where I said abstinence, but gee golly I just can't do it. But I guess it just has to be someone else's fault somehow.

You said: "Unsafe sex at an early age is just plain a stupid dangerous decision, and there's plenty of people to tell you that." In the US there are major political lobbies whose goal is to prevent kids from hearing that in favor of abstinence-only. You can't just gloss over that and say that kids should know better when people are actively trying to keep them ignorant.

There is more than sex involved, but that was the biggest factor - at least in my experience which could well be different from typical.

I carefully avoided passing a moral judgement on their acts. However the fact is sex at 16 immediately jumps into moral issues (not just Christian - most world religions encourage marriage). I did my best those to focus on the fact that as a result of that choice they have eliminated their ability to get a head.

YOU are the one placing moral judgement on their choices and trying to make it look like my judgement.

In what way does sex at 16 immediately jump into moral issues exactly?

I don't buy for a second that being sexually active as a teenager somehow equates to lack of moral fortitude.

There's plenty of teenagers that are aware of birth control and use it appropriately. Do they lack moral fortitude, too?

Having a kid at 16 will screw you up. Most people have a moral objection to screwing up their life like that, as well as the practical objection. Most religions of the world have some form of moral objection to sex outside of marriage, it can be easily argued that the moral objection comes form the practical issues. (most religions predates any form of effective birth control. Today you can argue that the moral is obsolete)

Or put it another way, you cannot talk about kids having sex without everybody bringing their own different morals up. The two are very intertwined.

Yeah okay that doesn't exactly equate to lacking moral fortitude. Think you're projecting a bit there.

fair enough. I should have put moral fortitude in quotes.