Letters to the Editor
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abortions are 100% effective
abortions are 100% effective.
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anonymous 1:54 here
First of all, the point with the driving drunk analogy is that there's nothing wrong with using someone else's mistake as a negative example--what I was saying, dumbass, is that if Jamie Lynn Spears were caught driving drunk, I'd have no problem using her as an example of the stupidity to which we all can be prey--but we don't have to be. As far as my smarts when I was 16, I didn't think I was all that bright until I read some of these replies, but now, I do. Damn, I was responsible. I had a sex life, but it was a smart one. And almost everyone else I knew did it the smart way, too. Big public high school, folks. Claiming that sixteen-year-olds are too stupid or intellectually undeveloped to take responsible charge of their own sexuality is not exactly what I would call politically progressive, or even accurate.
I can't believe all this crap about the failure rate of birth control. What are you guys, trolls for the abstinence only movement? The last time I heard this litany of condom failure and birth control pill ineffectiveness, I was in a youth group meeting where they were telling us that latex wouldn't protect you from AIDS, so how could it stop a sperm, which was so much bigger than a virus.
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@Anonymous at 3:25 p.m.
Since when does abortion have to be sneaked or clandestine?
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Really, it's nobody's business but the people involved
No one's. Not even Nickelodeon's. Whether you or I or anyone else approves or disapproves of her behavior is irrelevant. Take care of your own genitals, and stop worrying about what total strangers are doing with their's.
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I'm with you, Tracy
I'm surprised by the amount of hostility toward Ms. Spears. Many readers have pointed out that there is nothing to be ashamed about regarding sex at 16, and I think that the knowledge that 16 year-olds will be having sex is good for awareness, education, and communication between parents and kids (and between kids and kids). Ms. Spears has acknowledged that hers is an unintended pregnancy - mistakes happen! Condoms do break, pills get skipped and forgotten. Shaming her, blaming her, or excoriating her for accidentally becoming pregnant are completely unacceptable. She is an actress. But as far as I know, young actors and actresses are not required to pledge that they will be high-minded leaders-by-example; Ms. Spears' academically-minded and confident character is certainly an acceptable role model, but why should she herself be required to be a leader more than any other 16-year old? And what about the boyfriend? Readers seem to have little insight into how his actions precipitated the pregnancy (a hint: he's at least 50% responsible). I feel bad for Ms. Spears in this day of rampant tabloidism, but it is in no way my place to judge her for a mistake she made. I wish that we as a society could move the widespread and blithely normative attitude that womens' bodies are for childmaking (and that controlling this function while it is active is a horrid offense), but for now we should keep our mouths closed, and maybe consider turning off the TV and serving as role models for the kids ourselves.
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The chick didn't know enough to pee on a stick, don't tell me how smart she is.
Have any of you followed the story to any amount?
A) She wasn't smart enough to pee on a stick to see if she was preggers,
B) She planned her announcement to waylay her Simpson enemy.
Yeah, she's a real role model all right.
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Boyfriend is 19?
That's girl under age, boyfriend over age.
It may not be statutory rape, but it is scummy. 19 is much more sophisticated than 16. It's enough of a difference so that the boyfriend would be putting on inappropriate pressure.
What a little scumbag this boy is. I have no respect for him. In the first place, any 19 year old who needs to have a 16 year old girlfriend is a poor excuse of a human being.
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Yuck!
Never mind "bad" or "impure." How about STUPID, CRIMINALLY STUPID in a person who has every material advantage and access to medical help, including birth control? When I was thirteen, I knew what it was and how to use it. So did my friends. We were ordinary middle-class kids who found out from "Our Bodies, Our Selves," which we had to read on the sly in the bookstore. But we found out.
What about adults so clueless that they don't know their underaged kid (who, incidentally, is their meal ticket for the next decade, since their eldest seems to be incapictated) is knocked up until it's beyond the point where an abortion is an easy option?
I'm also weary, very weary, of people who think of the Spears clan as role models. Why? Why, for that matter, any entertainer? Most such people are not particularly educated. Many of them, beyond their particular talents, aren't especially interesting or especially bright. Some of them seem sorely in need of psychotropic medication that they don't have the sense to obtain and take.
There is no reason to consider them authorities on anything except their areas: singing, dancing, acting, whatever.
As for the Spears group, the old ladies in my southern home town had a name for people who acted like that, and it wasn't progressive or pretty but does have a certain relevance where the Spears family's concerned.
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What does that make Tom Brady?
Tom Brady, the QB for the Patriots, recently a baby out of wedlock and nearly fathered a second, with a new woman, weeks later (I never heard if she miscarried, a "pregnancy scare" or pure fiction). He's 30, so presumably should have known how to use contraception. I don't recall hearing the "what a poor role model" wailing from parents of young football fans.
Of course, his career didn't suffer (not carrying the baby himself, he could still risk getting sacked, while Jamie Lynn Spears will need to take a hiatus from "Zoey"). But it seems that parents should have been as disgusted, ashamed, vindictive, etc at Brady's predicament as they are at Spears'.
(Ditto to KFed, come to think of it.)
And yet, they weren't.
None of this is my business, even though these people are "famous." And neither Brady nor Spears deserves the kind of vitriol that Spears is receiving now. It truly does turn my stomach how people are so hateful. Aside from being mean and smug, it's also really ghoulish. Do we really need play-by-play commentary on another celebrity train wreck?