Teenage Pregnancy and Sex Ed.

So tonight I was watching a very important episode of So You Think You Can Dance since it was mentioned on Sarah's blog and I saw a commercial where teens are going to parties and asking their partner "are you ready for this?" in the backseat of a car. At the end of the commercial many attractive 20 somethings saying they won't get pregnant because their life is more important. It made me think about how trendy it is right now to be pregnant. I was talking to Sarah who works for Catholic social services and she was saying that it is really popular in Philadelphia for girls to have a baby in high school. Like they are the latest accessory.
I remember one of the first "sex ed" classes I went to where they taught us about how people get pregnant and STD's and probably drugs at the same time. You could opt out but if you did you were really strange. At one point we were split into girls and boys and taught about the reproductive system. They invited us to ask questions or share and of course no one did. Except Katie who asked about what a douche was and if it was healthy to do it all the time. She said she had heard it wasn't good to do it too much. Of course we were all in 6th grade and I had no idea what she was talking about. Most of my real sex ed came from pirated Cosmopolitan magazine and me asking Andrew Benton what everything meant. Maybe that has forever altered my perception of abstinence based education. If you don't know what things mean does it really help you?
I learned in high school that abstinence is obviously the best way to avoid pregnancy. I always thought that those girls who were pregnant in high school were just stupid. Why wouldn't you use birth control if you were sexually active. Well I should have asked myself that question and now she's one. I guess maybe those teenagers just aren't very responsible with their birth control. This of course has inspired me to look up various birth control options. The FDA has effectiveness rates listed here and they are quite interesting. I guess John's friend who just volunteered that she used the pull out method with her husband has a lower rate of pregnancy than something celebrated in a Seinfeld episode- the sponge.
The other day when I was talking to a friend about Danielle being a birth control baby she was like- you know you can't say that! Because maybe I was irresponsible. the point is I always mocked these people who were pregnant in high school. I don't mock anymore.