Young women face difficult choices
During the debate over whether emergency contraception should be available without a prescription to all women of child-bearing age (as of now, young women under the age of 15 need a prescription), we’ve become completely caught up in the politics of it. And in the science. In the ethics.
How do parents feel about the possibility of their daughters taking emergency contraception? How does blocking the measure to allow access affect Obama’s credibility and his political image, his desire to be seen as tough yet reasonable? Liberals ask how could we, as a seemingly intelligent nation, distrust scientific evidence that proves emergency contraception is safe for women of any age? Conservatives ask how could we, as a moral nation, condone sex among unmarried teenagers?
But all of these questions downplay or flat-out ignore the perspective of the important part of the entire debate: the young women.
The young women, who have found themselves in a scary, potentially life-changing situation, need a way out of it. (And, to be clear, that situation is not an unwanted pregnancy. Don’t confuse morning after pill with Mifepristone, the abortion pill. The morning after pill prevents the woman’s body from releasing an egg, which therefore prevents conception. No egg and sperm ever meet to become a zygote, or anything even approaching a living being, because there is no egg. Women release eggs that go unfertilized every single month, and those are not called miscarriages. Again, emergency contraception is not akin to abortion, and anyone who says otherwise is flat out lying).
Life for teenaged girls is incredibly difficult. Of course, life for all teenagers is difficult. Most of us couldn’t be paid to go back there. But there’s a layer of difficulty for teenaged girls that teenaged boys just don’t have to deal with.
Sexuality for young males is pretty straightforward. Everyone knows young men have hormones, and they are given free reign to act on them. Boys will be boys! But when it comes to young women and sex? A lot of times it’s a huge mess of shame, desire to please, self-esteem issues, and, yes, hormones. Add to that the fact that the consequences of sex for young women far outweigh the consequences for young men, and it becomes even more important that women have control in this area of their lives.
But I want to be sure not to paint young women as victims, here. Lately it seems like that’s the way we’re most comfortable talking about them. Of course, terrible crimes like the Steubenville rape case should be reported on. But half of the reportage was about what drove the “promising” young football stars to such actions.
The way we talk about teenagers, the boys make decisions — and editorials constantly question, “What’s wrong with America’s young men?” We dissect the choices that lead them to bring guns into movie theaters and schools and put bombs in backpacks. Meanwhile women are expected to just make do with what happens to them. They don’t have a choice. They don’t get editorials.
And when we turn young women into victims, we don’t trust them to make sound decisions on their own regarding their own bodies. So no, young women aren’t victims. We should be comfortable knowing they can handle taking one pill to prevent pregnancy (and that’s what the most popular brand of emergency contraception, Plan B One-Step, is — one pill).
I’m writing a series of stories for the 蘑菇视频 about the community service efforts of eight young women (and one male, non-traditional college student). These young women who volunteer time with their churches, with children with pediatric cancer, with organizations that fight every day to make our community a better place.
It convinced me that our community is full of bright, giving young women with dreams, goals and the wherewithal to handle the challenges life throws at them.
They are not victims.
And they can make decisions about their own bodies. Let’s do away with all of the “concern” for health, forget about ethics and science of the debate and give young girls a voice in this. They’ve been in the background long enough.