South Dakota KIDS COUNT fills its Twitter stream with interesting data. Today’s chart shows that we’re doing a relatively poor job of persuading teenagers not to make babies:
#SD compared to its bordering states and the nation for teen birth rate #KIDSCOUNT #Databook pic.twitter.com/D2D5xkPqM8
— SD KIDS COUNT (@SoDakKC) August 4, 2017
South Dakota teen birth rate of 26 per 1,000 is still better than 38 in Arkansas and 35 in Mississippi, New Mexico, and Texas. But it’s pretty bad compared to 19 in California and Colorado (19), 15 in New York, 14 in Minnesota, and 9 in Massachusetts.
Given the multiple adverse effects of teen pregnancy, what might we do to reduce our above-average rate of young people making younger people?
Researchers have found that long-acting reversible contraceptives, such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) and hormonal implants, are substantially more effective at preventing pregnancy than short-term methods that require frequent compliance. But only a small fraction of women in the United States use long-acting birth control. Expanding public awareness of and access to these types of contraceptives could substantially reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy and promote a culture of active decision making about when to become a parent [links converted from footnotes; 2017 Kids Count Data Book: State Trends in Child Well-Being, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2017.06.13].
What? IUDs for teenage girls? States can do that?
Colorado’s IUD program caused the teen birth rate and abortion rate to both drop by around 40 percent, but lawmakers declined to fund it because they were worried it would encourage teens to have sex. This is obviously backward if your goals in preventing teen sex include preventing teen births and abortions, but politics is apparently more important [Beth Skwarecki, “Which Policies Lead to Less Abortion? The ACA, State Law & the Supreme Court,” PLOS: Public Health Perspectives, 2017.02.06].
Hmm… contrary to the White House’s intentions, educating young people and providing access to health resources reduces teen pregnancy and abortion rates. Go figure.
I dunno, but I think sex brings on pregnancy. So if we all can come to that same conclusion then what can be done? Contraceptives and education seem like the solution, but maybe a selective breeding program might work as well, oh, that has been tried in the past.
Come on Cory, SD has to live up to its hick uneducated reputation.
Here we go with the dog and the two bones analogy again, some more and too still yet.
“You’re killin’ me, Smalls” Another of my district’s nimrod politicians makes The Free Press. First Mike (Green Zone Desk Jockey) Coffman and now Kathleen Conti.
The birth control program that was so successful here was operated with $23m from Warren Buffet’s wife. It provided free IUD’s to Doctors to keep on hand so a teen girl didn’t need to make a second visit to her clinic. Her parents weren’t told unless she told them. Catholics and born agains hate that. The money ran out and Conti went to the mattresses over the state spending tax money to re-fund it. When the teen birth rate rises we’ll have data and know what fundamental religious zealots to blame. (CO legislature is split. House is red. Senate is blue)
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/03/437268213/colorados-long-lasting-birth-control-program-for-teens-may-not-last-long
“But it’s pretty bad” and having babies to grow into adults, pay taxes and support those of you who are societies leeches is bad how?
Every child begins the world again.~ Henry David Thoreau
and having babies grow up and be forced to work for slave wages so the koch bros don’t have to pay any taxes is bad, how?
Might I suggest either support birth control, sex education, Planned Parenthood and in rare cases abortion or stop complaining about all of the above.
You got names for the leeches or are we supposed to assume you are talking about the koch bros, Sarg?
mfi, you nailed it man. If you look at the job numbers today, they are deceiving as they only show that we are basically back where we were before the recession of 2008 which was not yet even with the recession of 2001. Then take into consideration that the numbers reflect what the workforce would have been in 2008, not 2017. We are not winning and we are certainly not winning in the wage department either.
“and having babies grow up and be forced to work for slave wages so the koch bros don’t have to pay any taxes is bad, how?” really”
Why not “and having babies grow up and be forced to think an entry level job is slave wages so the corp bros that employ, train and educate the entry level youth don’t have a right to make a buck by creating jobs that provide employment, training, education and keep their brothers locked inside the social block houses called slums created by the democratic left to keep the poor poor while lining their own pockets with union dollars?
“You got names for the leeches or are we supposed to assume you are talking about the bros, Sarg?” Yep, I got names: Obama (millionaire), Pelosi (millionaire), Reid (millionaire), Clinton, (millionaire), Delany (millionaire), Warner (millionaire), Polis (millionaire), Blumethal (millionaire), Feinstein (millionaire), what’s incredible is the majority of them became millionaire after getting into office. . .
Sweet: https://twitter.com/GOP/status/893532515474034693
Will there be a follow-up article to show how our “pro-life” friends have rushed to the financial support of these children (and celebrated these mothers’ choices)?
Ol Sarg — the problem is that the entry level jobs and wages stay that way.
I used to believe in that “American dream” and that being a good worker led to advancement. It just isn’t there.
Someone should tell these children, as soon as they are old enough to understand, that their lives are only due to the product of sin.
“Will there be a follow-up article to show how our “pro-life” friends have rushed to the financial support of these children (and celebrated these mothers’ choices)?”
A better question would be “Has there EVER been an orphanage or adoption organization founded by a progressive/democrat/socialist/communist group?”
Sarg – There’s at least one: The Humane Society.
Unwanted babies conceived via the sin of teenagers tend to have a much lower quality of life and upbringing – therebye inducing a higher propensity for sin in their own lives, and therebye cursing them with a higher likelihood of burning in hell for all eternity. Abortion is not the worst thing, it actually helps prevent lost souls from unduly filling the chambers of hell – statistically speaking.
Abortion can be used for the good.
You left put a few leeches, Sarg- A more detailed look:
Over the 2008-2012 period, five-year effective tax rates for the 288 companies ranged from a low of –33.0 percent for PEPCO Holdings to a high of 41.2 percent for St. Jude Medical. Here are some startling statistics:
• One hundred and eleven of the 288 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes in at least one year from 2008 to 2012. Fifty-five of these companies enjoyed multiple no-tax years, bringing the total number of no tax years to 203. In the years they paid no income tax, these 111 companies earned $227 billion in pretax U.S. profits. But instead of paying $79 billion in federal income taxes, as the 35 percent corporate tax rate seems to require, these companies generated so many excess tax breaks that they reported negative taxes (often receiving tax rebate checks from the U.S. Treasury), totaling $28 billion. These companies’ “negative tax rates” mean that they made more after taxes than before taxes in those no-tax years.1
• Twenty six of these corporations paid less than nothing in aggregate federal income taxes over the 2008-12 period. These companies, whose pretax U.S. profits totaled $170 billion over the five years, included: Pepco Holdings (–33.0% tax rate), General Electric (–11.1%), Priceline.com (–3.0%), Ryder System (–4.7%), Verizon (–1.8%) and Boeing (–1.0%).
• In 2012, 43 companies paid no federal income tax, and got $2.9 billion in tax rebates. In 2011, 44 companies paid no income tax, and got $3.3 billion in rebates. (See Appendices with year-by-year results.)
• 119 of the 288 companies paid less than half the 35 percent statutory corporate tax rate for the five-year period as a whole. And more than two-thirds of the companies, 189 of the 288, paid effective tax rates of les
Making a buck,huh?
Thanks oldsarg for allowing me to sound the trumpet, I give you the best example in the world to answer your “Has there EVER been an orphanage or adoption organization founded by a progressive/democrat/socialist/communist group?” INDEED THERE HAS
https://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html
Cult republicans like yourself want to destroy Social Security because you want the money. To hell with adoption, old age pensions and protection for our most vulnerable. You want it all. Medicaid is Social Security. By your kinds insistence of destroying it, you destroy pre natal care, you destroy well baby, you destroy it all and invoke abortion.
Definition: Jerry = WIFM
Definition of jerry= WIFM I assume that acronym for me means this W Was, I In, F Front line, M MOS. Speaking of acronyms, what was your MOS in the military? MOS means Military Occupational Specialty or what you did in the military service.
Here is why Colorado is way cool, they love their women. They are not afraid to show it either. http://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2016a/bills/2016A_135_signed.pdf
Hey Colorado it was not so long ago
I left your mountain to try life on the road
Now I’m finished with that race it was much too fast a pace
And I think I know my place Colorado I wanna come home
There was a woman but I left her far behind
I could have loved her if I only had the time
But I stopped along the way just long enough to say
Lord I’d really really like to stay
But my lady knows I’ve got to go
I was too young to know what I’ve done
I made my plans but I was wrong yes I was wrong
Hey Colorado is it too late to change my mind
I’ve done some thinking and I’m trying hard to find
The way to come back home
Oh I’ve been so very long alone
Won’t you take care of your own Colorado I think I’m coming home
Roberts, Flying Burrito Brothers
Not sure why we’re on service records or billionaires. I am fascinated that OldSarg defends teen pregnancies, 89% to 95% of which happen outside of marriage. So much for family values.
The CDC identifies prevention of teen pregnancy as one of its top seven public health priorities.
Guess it’s all about babies Cory. I often think of the Declaration of Independence which says something along the lines of “All men [CREATED] equal” told me Maybe the baby killers just haven’t read what CREATED means. . . I always thought it meant “conceive”. Conception to me is the moment the child is CREATED. That little spermy thingy finds the eggy thingy and BOOM!: CREATED comes up again.
I’m listening to jazz guitar and having a few cocktails. Have a good evening. ;)
All White men are created equal. http://www.mattbrundage.com/publications/jefferson-equality/
according to Thomas Jefferson as he had some 200 slaves and a black slave gal that he practiced that conceive stuff with.
OldSarg, before we start to throw around the “baby killers” term, lets be clear about the fine points of the law (even though you clearly do not agree with it and that is your prerogative, but you do have to acknowledge it). Created means born under the law.
Now to apply your slur appropriately, are those who voted to repeal the ACA and cut Medicare also “baby killers” and held to the same contempt in your view? Are the profiteers who make access to healthcare out of the reach for children and expecting mothers also “baby killers” and subject to your disdain? Are the officials in cities allowing toxic levels of lead to save a few dollars for the influential tax payers worthy of your contempt as baby killers?
I understand the passion on the right to life issue; I just don’t understand the limited, partisan focus it takes on.
I think/believe human babies are ‘created’ when the conclusion of a healthy term of pregnancy is achieved. Pointing at cells being fertilized and calling it a baby is so redicilous that crosses the boundary line into pure stupidity or intentional misleading.
“o” and Adam, you two can believe a different definition all you want. You can believe a dog is actually a cat or a plant is a bird. You can even believe you can indiscriminately change the definition of any word you want but it doesn’t change the truth. “Created” does not mean “born “, “conclusion” means “end” and to say these things make you look silly. I understand the desire to change definitions in your attempt to justify the killing of your fellow human beings. This has been done throughout history. Just as the Nazis defines the Jews as the source of all of Germany’s troubles so the left has tried to redefine the creation of life as “after” birth but neither is true in a rational world. A new life does begin at conception. It has been scientifically proven beyond a doubt. To argue against fact, to change definitions, to excuse behavior to appease and to compromise your integrity to “be liked” will neither win you friends or make the chicks like you more. It’s a new day. Start it right. Live in the reality in which you exist.
It’s not a life until it’s born and God blesses it with a soul. Until then it’s a woman’s choice to become a mother or not and it’s never anyone else’s business but hers.
OldSarg: “You can even believe you can indiscriminately change the definition of any word you want but it doesn’t change the truth.” You seem to deliberately avoid the point I made about the definition – that we can believe anything we wish, but there is a legal definition of when life begins and is recognized. We can make value judgements about that definition, but it is still the definition that the law of the United States follows. It is so easy to hold that it is that definition that causes abortions, but that is not true. To say that trivializes the whole debate and deeper reasons underlying those decisions. It allows a simple dismissal of those deeper, underlying issues that need to be addressed in our health care and social systems.
How about an answer on the scope of your definition of “baby killers” and ALL who ought to be branded with your ire? Or is there a single litmus test – actions that affect babies’, children’s, adults’, the elderly’s health are not under the umbrella of whose lives and well-being our society needs to protect?
Porter, People should not terminate the lives of others based on their individual beliefs concerning whether their victims have souls. We have idea exactly when the body receives its soul. There is no test for souls. Therefore, we must rely on what we can test, which is whether a life form is biologically human. If human than the logical assumption is the child has a soul. Remember: When Mary’s greeting reached Elizabeth’s ears in Luke’s Gospel, the unborn John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother’s womb (1:44).
Contraception is the point Cory is speaking of and I see you agree. Indeed, contraception lets the woman decide if she wants that bundle of joy to leap in the womb or it she wants to wait until the little jumper arrives at a more appropriate time. Keep in mind that your Book details instructions on how women can abort.
An abortion isn’t the termination of life. Life begins at birth. Your opinion of the matter is just that. Your opinion. Opinions are like anuses. We all have them but your’s stinks!! So are souls. We all have one but only after birth. A fetus isn’t biologically human until it is born and begins to breathe oxygen. If it fails to breathe it was never a life. The human spirit by God at birth is what produces human life.
Elizabeth does not think that the unborn John actually hears Mary’s voice independently of her – any “hearing” and therefore any “response” is entirely conditioned upon her hearing (and by implication her response). All this leads thinking people to believe that if there is any attribution of “joy” here to the unborn John it is entirely as a projection along the lines of what mothers and fathers do today when they “talk” to their fetuses still-in-the-womb (not really under any impression that they are being heard). It probably is the case that the “leap” is brought about by the Spirit, but that would make it part of the prophetic nature of the event as discussed at the outset of this response (and would also beg the question of why special divine intervention is necessary to produce this event if all fetuses are alive without the breath of God just as if they had been born and received it).
You have an obsession with telling women what to do. You may be a woman, Jon but you’ll never have a child and you’ll never have the right to tell a woman whether she can become a mother or not. Now, this thread is about contraception not abortion so take the knowledge I’ve given you and learn.
OldSarg and his crowd are the same people that cheer when food stamps are cut and healthcare from children taken away.
They’re not deep down serious about the healthy striving life babies deserve when they’re born Seriously, if they were there wouldn’t be millions of children that are not adopted going from foster home to foster home.
Jenny what have you done? Have you brought housing to the Natives? Have you cared for an unwanted child? Have you even loved? I do not want to take away EBT but I would like to see it only used for food. Instead, I see calorie ladened soda, frozen pizza and junk. Stand in line at Walmart on the 10th of the month and watch. I was in Illinois once in a drug store and the person in front of me tried to buy cigarettes with their EBT. The cashier told them they couldn’t do that but they could get cash and proceeded to give the person cash charged to the EBT card. They person turned around and used the cash to buy cigarettes. Healthcare: Medical centers cannot turn you away and haven’t for years and years before Obamacare insurance existed. No, I don’t want hardships for people but even less do I want our people enslaved to the government. Look no further than Venezuela to see the results of that.
Porter: If through killing you think you reach enlightenment then there is nothing humanity can do for you. Good luck.
Medical centers can’t turn you away but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay. You’ll get an invoice and if it’s not paid your debt will be sold to a collection agency. If it’s still not paid your paycheck will be attached as will any assets. This lengthy process drives up everyone’s costs. No one gets free medical care unless they live in a homeless shelter.
-If there is a killing where are the cops? It’s not a life until it’s born and God blesses it with a soul.
OldSarge, you misuse the words of the English language. You either ain’t too good at English or it’s deliberately done to mislead others in order to maintain you peoples’ delusion about the definition of a ‘baby.’
It’s not really about babies, Adam. It’s about a perceived superiority over women and it often stems from latent mommy issues. Jon is messed up.
All through human history and pre-history teens have engaged in sex. This is because by age 16-18 human males and females are fully sexual adults: they have functioning sexual organs producing hormones and gametes. Most teens, however, do not have a fully developed emotional maturity yet to bring a child into the world.
There seems to be a bit of a mismatch evolutionarily between human sexual maturity and human emotional/intellectual maturity. This mismatch seems not to have been selected against. In fact, this mismatch may have been selected for in any number of ways. In one way, human social structures, particularly extended family structures and tribalism, provided a way to assist young families that would provide a positive reinforcement for earlier menarche, earlier marriage, etc. In another way, early childhood death and infanticide could have been a way to allow young couples to escape any negative consequences of early childbirth. With high infant death rates, there might be selective pressure for more pregnancies and, thus, a lower age of menarche. Socially, that would mean a lower age of marriage.
Modern society frowns on and discourages early marriage and early childbirth for a number of great reasons, but teens are still fully sexually mature. They are, after all, biologically animals: sex is going to happen because it’s been programmed into their genes. Yes, we can discourage early sex as a society and tell our kids to “just say no,” but everything about their biology is telling them to say “yes.”
I think the responsible thing from an evolutionary standpoint is to provide birth control to teens. We know most teens aren’t emotionally or financially ready to provide for a child. More importantly, teens know they aren’t ready to have children, but they are fully programmed to have sex. Let’s be honest about this evolutionary mismatch, and prevent unwanted pregnancies.
I believe there are still too many hospitals that will not accept certain patients and are obligated only to stabilizing that patient and sending them on to a place that will accept them.
Cigarettes are is a narcotic that is more dangerous and more addicting than heroin. If the dude was working his way into that purchase, shame on the manufacturer of the narcotic and its availability. Here in South Dakota, the cult wants to put a buck a pack tax on cigarettes. That will take more food from the mouths of the hungry. How about just taking the nicotine completely out of the poison sticks, problem solved, no?
Regarding Venezuela, we know that the only sanctions that are not put on the country have to do with its heavy crude. Says a lot about what American priorities are. BTW, the prez there has plenty of support it seems so it looks like we shall see how it all plays out. There are many unanswered questions there.
In the meantime, in keeping on track, lets allow Medicaid Expansion and the availability of contraception for our citizens. Both will do great things for those who are pregnant and those who choose not to be pregnant.
Since 1986 hospitals that receive public monies cannot refuse patients. For profit hospitals can refuse to admit, but must stabilize patients before send ing them to another facility.
Why is it that many of the same overgodders who are “against” the act of making babies are also against preventing babies from being made, even if it’s only through education? grudznick knows it is because the more babies that are made the bigger pool of fish the “church” has to try to brainwash.
Sarg, I help many kids in my neighborhood. They can always come to my house for food and play with my daughter in the backyard on the trampoline. I give presents at Christmas to children in my neighborhood that are from less than desirable circumstances. I take them to movies, to the pool and they’ve become friends with my daughter.
There are parents in my neighborhood that will absolutely not have anything to do with hyper, unkempt kids and think they’re too good for them. I’m just the opposite, I give all children a chance to be able to visit and play with my daughter, because I know that these children need kindness and acceptance and many of them aren’t getting it. I want to teach my daughter to always remember that are many poor people in the world that need our help. I guess I really am a bleeding liberal.
Ms. Jenny, that is really swell of you. When I was in a neighborhood I would also feed many neighborhood children and let them play in my yard. I did not care for the hyper ones, but the unkempt kids were my favorites. Despite my reputation, I did not start kicking kids off my yard or lands until I grew more jaded and they started vandalizing in the woods.
Mr. grudznick, sometimes you are a man of vision sir. Your analogy of the “bigger pool of fish” for the overgodders to feed upon, is…dare I say it..brilliant.
They’re not going to talk to you over on the Vatican Blog, Grudzie.
Numbers 5:11-31 (NIV) seems to be an example of where the Bible teaches that women must be controlled. There, God tells Moses that when a man accuses his wife of being unfaithful, a priest shall require her to consume an abortifacient that will cause her to abort her fetus. Some of the relevant provisions state:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+5%3A11-31
I will take grudznick’s lead steering things back to the contraception lane. Sex education (not abstinence education) and access to birth control seem to be the only proven answers to unwanted pregnancies. Anything else is dogma disguised as policy. How silly would it be if we would mandate that driver’s education taught only walking and abstinence from driving (because we object to the morality of driving). Additionally we forbid safety standards for automobiles and ban seat belts because they hinder God’s plan of bringing the flock to Heaven through car crashes? Too often that is how the Conservative/Right/Fundamentalist/GOP seem to view and write policy for sex education and contraception.
If I have a religious objection to seat belts, can my company ban their use in cars used by my employees?
Indeed bearcreekbat, indeed. The cult only wants to use the Book to beat women over the melon with. Most if not all, know very little about what the actual contents are. Interesting that oldsarg would choose that particular place to traipse off on this travel. Perhaps the lingering effect of the imbibing he spoke of. Oh well, such as what it is. I do look to the day when all men can address women as more than equals in our journeys together and allow choices to be heard and met regarding choice. When that happens is probably never, but the hope is for it to happen.
Actually, bear, the bible beaters these days mostly prefer the New Testament. They’re better than them Hebrews in the Old Test bible.
o was good right there… real good.
Our journeys ‘together’ LOL – conserva-husbands just want dominance – and they know-NOT of such things like the G-spot (can I say that here?) as knowing that another person is doing well doesn’t mean that much to them.
LOL!!!
Crap, I was referencing jerry on the “journey’s together,” but ‘o’ did good work on that comment! God love jerry too!