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Teddy Roosevelt at Osawatomie
December 22, 2011 | 44 comments
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For the Kids
August 18, 2011 | 59 comments
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Extremism and the Democratic Party
August 1, 2011 | 79 comments
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Sue to Protect Your Marriage
July 21, 2011 | 38 comments
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Tie Breaking
June 30, 2011 | 7 comments
A Further Perspective
The Obama Administration and Child Sex
The Plan B contretemps reveal an appalling lack of common -- and moral and legal -- sense.
The nation was rightfully outraged at the failure of Pennsylvania State University officials to protect young children from rape (assuming the charges against former Coach Sandusky are true). Those were, however, the actions of a few men acting in their private capacity affecting a dozen (?) children-victims. So much worse is the Obama Administration in its consideration of policies that would facilitate child sex.
Let's remember why Plan B is called Plan B. It is, in the first instance, a brand name of a particular emergency contraceptive (just as Kleenex™ is for facial tissue or Xerox™ for photocopier). Another brand name for an emergency contraceptive is Next Choice™. In normal parlance, a "plan B" is a plan of action in the event the first plan should fail. So, the drug manufacturer chose "Plan B" as a name for its emergency contraceptive drug because a customer's (or patient's) first plan did not work. What first plan? Either not using a contraceptive or using one that failed.
Before last week Plan B had been approved by the FDA as safe and effective. Girls under the age of 17 could obtain it only by prescription. Girls and women 17 and older could obtain it without prescription but, because of the age restriction, had to purchase it from a pharmacist. The narrow issue before the FDA last week was whether girls under the age of 17 could understand and follow the drug's label, including instructions concerning side effects. If they could, the prescription requirement would drop for them, letting all girls and women of any age purchase the drug off the shelf (or, over the counter). While the issue was narrow, we should expect our elected and appointed officials to place the issue in a larger context. The very purpose of emergency contraception was never addressed in the statements made last week by the Obama Administration.
First up was Food and Drug (FDA) Administrator (and medical doctor) Margaret Hamburg who announced her approval of the use of Plan B by girls under the age of 17 without prescription. Within a day, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled that decision. On the next day, December 8, President Obama expressed his support of Sebelius at a press conference. (Obama denied inserting himself into Sebelius' decision, but newspapers had reported on December 5 that the FDA decision was imminent and the next day, December 6, Sebelius flew with Obama on his flight to Osawatomie.)
Hamburg asserted, both before and after Sebelius' ruling, that the scientific evidence was that "all females of child-bearing potential" could follow the label, based on "scientific findings, input from external scientific advisory committees, and data contained in the application [made by Teva Women's Health, Inc., a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries] that included studies designed specifically to address the regulatory standards for nonprescription drugs.…[E]xperts, include[ed] obstetrician/gynecologists and pediatricians."
Teva, for its part, stated the study it submitted with its application showed that "nearly 90%" of girls ages 11 to 17 could understand and follow it. (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 8, 2011.) In overruling Hamburg on December 7, Sebelius stated her concern that girls as young as 11.1 years of age could not understand and follow the label:
The average age of the onset of menstruation for girls in the United States is 12.4 years. However, about ten percent of girls are physically capable of bearing children by 11.1 years of age. It is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age. If the application were approved, the product would be available, without prescription, for all girls of reproductive age.
Obama declared in his December 8 press conference that he agreed with Sebelius and that it was important to apply "common sense" to over-the-counter medications.
Criticism from the left has focused on whether the Obama Administration was more concerned about the politics of the issue than the science (contrary to his March 9, 2009, executive order on the subject), how the pro-abortion Sebelius must have yielded to the President's political ambition for re-election, how Obama has forsaken his pro-abortion base, how outraged so-called women's health groups are. (Note: While this is about girls' health, not women's, because users of the drug must be 17 or older, women 17 and older must show pharmacists proof of age and of course this is limited to times when pharmacies are open. This is a small price to pay by women to protect those under age 17, as I shall point out.)
The right has continued to raise the issue that Plan B serves to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg and is thus an abortifacient. The right also raises issues of whether use of the drug by minors without prescription would promote promiscuity, eliminate an opportunity for girls to discuss STDs with parents or a doctor, deprive parents of the right to raise their daughters, and allow men and boys to prey on girls. It is this last point that is my focus.
The statements by Obama and his Administration's officials, and the criticism from the left, miss the forest for the trees (in a way not meant by Jessica Arons, Center for American Progress, when she criticized Obama's politics for missing the forest). The forest is this: No girl under the age of 17 can lawfully consent to sexual intercourse (with some exceptions in some states). If a girl believes that an emergency contraceptive may be useful to her, it can only be that she has engaged in sexual intercourse. If a girl wants an emergency contraceptive -- the label of which warns that it is a one-time contraceptive not intended to replace routine birth control pills (that are available only by prescription) and must be taken within 72 hours of intercourse to be effective, she is not trying to regulate her menstrual cycle. Rather, she has engaged in sexual intercourse. Bells and whistles must go off. It is an emergency. The emergency is not only that she may be pregnant; the emergency is also that she has engaged in sexual intercourse. That is an emergency because the law of some states may allow a 16 year old to consent to sex with a 19 year old, but not with a 25 year old. And then there are the 8 and 9 and 10 year olds who can never consent under the law. Even without such laws, there are some parents who would perceive it to be an emergency.
The FDA rule as proposed by Hamburg may still go into effect. For one, Teva still has an interest in obtaining a larger market for its product. We can expect that Teva will submit additional studies to address Sebelius's concerns. For another, a federal judge in Brooklyn is presiding over a lawsuit on the subject and could order the FDA and Sebelius to issue the rule. Look at the effect of such a rule:
• As Sebelius pointed out, fully 10% of all girls experience the onset of menstruation (technically "menarche") before age 11.1. What she did not say is that the age of the onset of menarche continues to drop, so younger and younger girls would be able to buy emergency contraception. One cause of the drop in age is living without a father. (Michele K. Surbey, "Family Composition, Stress, and the Timing of Human Menarche," in Socioendocrinology of Primate Reproduction,pp. 11 -- 32 (1990); R. Quinlan, "Father Absence, Parental Care, and Female Reproductive Development," Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 24, no. 6, p. 376 (2003).
The number and percentage of girls living without their father continues to grow. According to a 2011 report by the Census Bureau, in 2009 it had climbed to 24% of all children, 50% of African American children.. Another cause of the drop in age is obesity. (D.H. Morris, et al., "Determinants of Age at Menarche in the UK: Analyses from the Breakthrough Generations Study", British Journal of Cancer, vol. 103, no. 11, pp. 1760 -- 4 (2010).) And it is well known that the number of such children continues to climb.
• If a girl, age 10, were to present the emergency contraceptive for purchase to a drug store sales clerk, the sales clerk would be under no legal obligation to report it to a pharmacist, doctor or police. Pharmacists, by contrast, may be required by law to report evidence of sexual abuse of minors.
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coal carrier| 12.15.11 @ 8:01AM
The communist policy wonk is at it again.
Alan Brooks| 12.15.11 @ 6:18PM
What? everyone gets to have sex with kids except me?
Alan Brooks| 12.16.11 @ 3:42AM
Being a closet homosexual like the president I could care lass about girls.
florin| 12.15.11 @ 8:47AM
We have to remember that Obama chose as his school czaar Jennings who wants child/adult sex to be legalized and who has introduced homosexual sex manuals in elementary schools...although there was a major outcry about this, Obama kept his precious Jennings anyway. And Obama was the only one who voted against the born alive infant act which wanted nurturing care to be provided for an infant who survived an abortion attempt...Obama is not a good man.
Alan Brooks| 12.15.11 @ 8:24PM
I want to cover Justin Bieber's naked body with mayonnaise and Kaopectate.
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.15.11 @ 9:41AM
They're in favour of it, aren't they? They're in favour of Child Sex. Most of their Core Constituents are in the Business of Child Sex, be it the HOW TO part, the Engaging in it part, or the Cleaning Up Afterwards part of it.
I know , for a FACT, that they can't get enough Sex Education, going on in our ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Group Sex, Masturbation. It's all good. In fact, Obama's "Safe Schools" guy, even wrote a Book, that I believe, is a 'JOY OF ANAL SEX' Documentary, and he wants it being read in the 3rd Grade.
I KNOW that if you wanted to score yourself a few 14 Year Old Girls, from South America, for PROSTITUTION? You can go to one of Obama's Best Friends - ACORN - and someone there will hook you up. No questions asked, baby.
I KNOW that Obama is 100% in Favour of School Teachers taking Young Girls, no matter their age, to an Abortion Clinic, for an Abortion, WITHOUT their Parent's PERMISSION. You need to Cross State Lines? No Problem.
Do I need to go on? They have TAKEN our Children from us. What they do, Teaching little kids about things that WE, as their PARENTS, would never allow, especially at these young ages, is no different from the COMMUNISTS, who remove the children from their parents, to go live with THEM. The better to Wash Their Brains, that way.
If teaching The Joys of Homosexual Anal Group Sex and Bondage, isn't "Endangering the Welfare of a Minor" Charge, than what the Hell is?
DTOM| 12.15.11 @ 10:03AM
December 8 is the Catholic Church's Feast of the Immaculate Conception. How wonderfully ironic that that leading Christian Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. would take the occasion to promote, by illegal fiat, an illegal, abortion technique for little girls raped, actually or statutorily based on the notion that because they have been violated they are capable of reading and comprehending the instructions. What grade level are the instructions written at? 8th? 5th? K? Newborn?
Dear God in Heaven, we know we have sinned, but do we really deserve THIS? Please Sir, it'd be such an easy, simple miracle for You. Please, Sir, PLEASE!
DTOM| 12.15.11 @ 10:05AM
Ooops! TLP I wasn't responding to you in particular, I mis-clicked. I do agree with you on all that. Shouldn't membership in NAMBLA be prosecutable? I say yes, as a felony, yes. Time to apply zero tolerance where it makes sense!
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.15.11 @ 10:45AM
I don't know. I think that maybe you were copying me. You weren't copying me, were ya? Coal Carrier tells me that word's going around that you're copying me.
You're not Copying me, are you? And why am I picturing Margaret Thatcher and Meryl Streep naked, all of a sudden?
Rollando| 12.15.11 @ 3:49PM
Did you copy this?
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.15.11 @ 4:37PM
I'm copying it, right now.
Al Adab| 12.15.11 @ 10:45AM
Simply another example of the Lefts' penchant for moral relativism and situational ethics. Once any semblance of a moral compass or Truth are removed from the public square results like this are to be expected.
As J. R. Ewing (of Dallas fame) once said, "Once you give up integrity, all the rest is easy".
Riff Raff| 12.15.11 @ 10:49AM
This goes way beyond moral relativism. This is politics. Leftists use sex as a means to separate children morally from their parents, and once separated morally, they can be more easily separated politically. The goal is politics.
Kingofthenet| 12.15.11 @ 12:22PM
OK, so now you coercive Conservatives can MAKE your daughter have the baby, Happy Hitlers?
TrueBlue| 12.15.11 @ 1:32PM
Do I feel bad for them having to take care of, or at least carry for 9 months, a child while they are still children themselves? Yes. But it is a matter of taking responsibility for their actions, regardless of their age, and the fact that women who have had an abortion are more likely to commit suicide (even moreso than those who had a miscarriage).
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ne.....20/5120107
Contrary to leftist propoganda, the majority of cases of rape do not result in pregnancy. They have this stupid habit of counting women who call rape after they slept with someone while drunk, or high on drugs, and then regretted it after they realized what happened. Guess what, unless you were unwillingly drugged, it's not rape, you made the choice to use the drug/alcohol. It's just one more position the left takes to relieve people of responsibility for their actions.
Now someone will bring up the line about how many children will be born in poor homes or to parents unable to care for them, etc... guess what, DON'T HAVE SEX IF YOU CAN'T TAKE CARE OF THE CHILD THAT RESULTS!! (Now I'll get people yelling at me for suggesting abstinence over personal pleasure.)
A TRUE Consevative | 12.15.11 @ 4:35PM
How about this instead, BTW: JUST as valid, "DON'T HAVE SEX IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD PLAN B or an Abortion". but you God doesn't like that one...
TrueBlue| 12.15.11 @ 5:53PM
God has nothing to do with it. When people have no facts regarding abortion they always point to how God and religion must be the reason people think a certain way. Hate to tell you (not really), for a very long time I was extremely anti-religion, I still do not agree with organized religion in general. Abortion however has ALWAYS been wrong to me, the one exception being a TRUE medical concern for the life of the mother. I helped several of my friends in high school get through their unintended pregnancies after their boyfriends ditched town, and they sure as heck had a hard time balancing everything, but not a one of them regretted their decision. That is the case for the majority of girls and women who carry their pregnancy to term, the same cannot be said of those who have abortions. This is FACT.
Basic biology tells you that life begins at conception, any other ideals are political or opinion. You could even consider an unborn child a parasite, but they would still be human. Heck, children after birth are technically parasites, they don't really produce or contribute anything to the family life. Your opinion is not valid because it is just that, an opinion, whereas mine is fact. A life is a life, regardless of what stage of development it is at.
Then again, politicians are parasites...
poli - tics: multiple blood-sucking insects
By the way, if you want to call yourself A TRUE Conservative, you might want to spell it correctly, the colon between BTW and JUST is unnecessary, and "but" should be capitalized.
runningdeer| 12.19.11 @ 2:23AM
Excellent!
Al Adab| 12.15.11 @ 2:06PM
So some human beings are less significant than anothers based on what standard? Convenience?
TrueBlue| 12.15.11 @ 2:17PM
They always go back to their belief that life doesn't begin until after the child is born into the world (not that this has prevented a subgroup from suggesting that post-birth "abortions" are okay too), nevermind that practically every biologist in the world has said it begins at conception, and apply it to other animals without issue, but humans are different for some reason.
Al Adab| 12.15.11 @ 4:27PM
Good question Blue,
At what point does retroactive abortion become murder?
Riff Raff| 12.15.11 @ 3:48PM
Your "compassion" for teen mothers is overwhelming. (yawn) Your "concern" for your fellow people is boundless. I'm sure that, in your "compassion" and "concern" you would be all to happy to arrange sexual encountes for YOUR daughter. Maybe you can make some "liberal" cash on the side as your kid's pimp. Maybe even watch it yourself or charge admission. You're the type to do this; shiftless, amoral, egotistical, arrogant, and frankly, stupid.
Old Blevins| 12.15.11 @ 2:26PM
The county where I live now requires me to get a prescription to purchase over-the-counter allergy medicine. (Psuedophedrine...the good stuff.) Oddly enough, even before the current prescription-only law, minors under the age of 18 were not allowed to purchase OTC psuedophedrine-based allergy medications. (Had to drive to a different county to purchase a box of Claritin-D for my 16-year-old daughter before she went to summer camp.) I fully realize that allergies and pregnancies are not equivalent medical conditions. However, restrictions on minors are placed on other products, such as alcohol and tobacco. It is hard for me to rationalize allowing OTC purchases for minors for Plan B, while I need a prescription for Claritin-D during the hayfever season.
cicero| 12.15.11 @ 4:42PM
Have they no shame? We have allowed the liberal teaching establishment, and their supporters, to usurp our duties as parents over the physical and moral insstruction of our children. Our daughters have been rendered three legged antelopes in the jungles of our colleges, schoolyards, and workplaces. Our sons have been relegated to the status of adolescents forever. Do our children really need to know the mechanics of all forms of sex in the 3rd grade?
It is time we took back our civilization. Of course, that means that it is up to us to raise our children, not the village's. It means that fathers have to assume the traditianal role of provider and protector of their woman and children. And it means that the women have to resume their role as the center of the family, and not just some inconstant party girl wanna be. But don't get me started.
And we have to get government out of where it does not belong.
Ground Control| 12.16.11 @ 1:29AM
They didn't usurp MY duties! I sent my child to private school and closely monitored what they taught. My wife and I agreed when our child was a baby that public schools were unacceptable and we would not use them. This was a wise decision, despite the cost and we have no regrets.
Richard Baker| 12.15.11 @ 5:36PM
Sometimes when I read of this nonsense I think that NAMBLA and others must be laughing out loud. The attitude of Sebilius and others seems to be that the little weasels will do it anyway so let's take the consequence out of it. This allows the adults to not feel guilty in their own promiscuity. In their minds, the era of Sport Fu**ing is NOT over.