In a scene from the most recent Twilight movie, Bella tries to convince Edward that she wants him and wants to take the next step in their relationship by having sex. While Edward makes it clear that he definitely wants her back, he tells her that in his time, there would be a whole process before any of this could take place. He would have wooed her, they’d hold hands, he’d get permission from her father to marry her, they’d get married, then they’d do the deed. Bella informs him that it’s now her day in age, and that’s definitely not the way it works. Who knew that Twilight would have such a brilliant metaphor for why abstinence-only education doesn’t work?
The problem with abstinence-only education is not so much that it wants teenagers to prolong sexual activity until they are married, but more that it’s completely out of touch with today’s modern teenager. Suporters of ab-only education seem to believe that sex should only occur during marriage, and anything outside of that concept is morally wrong. They suggest that comprehensive sex education that teaches students about condoms and other forms of contraception is what causes teenagers to engage in sexual behavior. As if saying, well if kids don’t learn about condoms and contraception from their sex-ed teacher at school, then they will magically never be curious about sex or have any idea what it is. Apparently, they’ve never turned on their TV.
The simple truth is, teenagers are exposed to sex on a regular basis, whether their parents want to accept it or not. It’s on TV. It’s in music videos and song lyrics. It’s in magazines and print ads for their favorite clothing store. And on that little thing called the internet. Sex is a part of our society and our culture, plain and simple. Sexuality is part of the human condition. And it’s complicated. (more…)
The first time I answered the question, “Nice to meet you. What do you do?” with the complete, whole truth I found it hard to breathe. I waited to see the faces change, the hand pull away. That was because, until that moment, when I first met people, I never revealed my full job description. To my relief, no one attacked me, judged me, or even looked at me strangely. I didn’t lie, but I definitely had perfected a watered down, vague answer, a safe answer, to that dreaded question. However this time, taking a deep breath, I declared proudly, “I work in women’s reproductive healthcare. I am a business manager for offices that provide reproductive health care and we specialize in abortion care.” Huge sigh of relief.
Why I couldn’t just say this from the beginning was something that I had reflected on constantly since my job had transformed into a career. I was certainly not embarrassed about what I had chosen to do every day for a living. In fact, in direct contrast, I was (and am) proud to put my values in action working in a field about which I care deeply and for a cause I believe in, heart and soul. However, my beliefs regarding women’s healthcare did not form based on the field I work in, but rather from where I grew up.
In a recent interview, an employer asked me “what legal arguments can you make against states that accept federal funding for abstinence-only sexual education programs?” After a couple of “ums” and “wells” and “I uhs,” I had to accept temporary defeat. But I don’t go down that easily. I’m willing to admit that my inability to articulate a satisfactory response to this question may be indicative of my legal ignorance. But it also indicates a lack of effective domestic legal tools to challenge federal efforts to curtail youths’ access to accurate information about their sexual and reproductive health.
As I thought harder about the question, I realized that while the civil rights delineated on our Constitution may not demand comprehensive sexuality education, various international human rights documents and directives do. Like the American Constitution, human rights law applies to state action. Unlike the Constitution, however, human rights law demands that nation states take affirmative steps to ensure that all persons have the means and conditions necessary to enjoy their rights.
Several treaties specifically support adolescents’ right to comprehensive information about sex and sexuality, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The rights enshrined in these documents do not carry binding legal force in U.S. courts because Congress has not ratified them. However, many courts—including the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas—have cited human rights documents and doctrine as persuasive authority.
Even though international human rights law has various applications to the domestic struggle for reproductive justice, most law students—past and present—have to go outside the classroom to learn about them. Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ), a national nonprofit organization that supports law students around the country in their efforts to promote reproductive justice, is filling the gaps left by our coursework. With resources like the new Human Rights Law Primerand Human Rights on the Home FrontEasy Event in an Envelope, LSRJ provides the next generation of legal experts with the information and skills we will need to make reproductive rights a reality for all people. With these tools, aspiring legal scholars and advocates like me can enter practice ready to articulate well-reasoned arguments that demand access to a full range of reproductive health services and induce government action to effectuate those rights. (more…)
In her feature on the supposed generational divide in the pro-choice movement, which ran in Sunday’s New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg correctly observes that abortion has hit the headlines recently in the context of health care reform and the horrendously restrictive Stupak amendment—and it’s not something reproductive rights advocates are happy about. But there isn’t much else I can relate to in her assessment of the current landscape in reproductive rights advocacy and activism. In fact, I think the story—which argues that there is a chasm between the “menopausal militia,” meaning the generation of feminists who came of age before Roe v. Wade and view abortion in “stark political terms,” and the “millennials,” the younger set for whom Stolberg suggests abortion is a personal issue—misses the mark in a sad but revealing way.
Relying on quotes from Naral Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, Stolberg promotes this political/personal dichotomy without actually explaining how this supposed shift to the personal manifests itself—other than the fact that the post-Roe generations seem less responsive to single-issue pro-choice calls to action. Provocative accompanying artwork, which consists of a black rectangle with brightly colored letters spelling “WE” floating above “ME,” implies that younger women are selfish in neglecting abortion politics. Yet Stolberg acknowledges that “a clear majority of Americans support the right to abortion, and there’s little evidence of a difference between those over 30 and under 30.” In fact, she herself points to several examples of young people organizing right now to stop the Stupak amendment (including LSRJ’s recent webinar on abortion and health care reform legislation). So what’s the issue?
Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg concludes that young people don’t respond to email alerts about contacting their legislators because they know abortion is legal and believe “if you really need one you can probably figure out how to get one.” Which means not only are we selfish, but we’re also foolishly complacent. But what about the millions of poor women, immigrant women, and young women who can’t ever “figure out how to get one” because the barriers we’ve erected to accessing legal abortion are simply too high? Such women may be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or to induce an abortion through other means, with serious consequences for the health and security of themselves and their families. And what about those of us who aren’t poor, immigrant, or under 18 but believe deeply that how our society treats those women reflects on all of us, individually and collectively?(more…)
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