Much has been made recently of Judge Edward Korman, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, whose decision forced the Food and Drug Administration to make emergency contraceptives (morning-after pill) available without a doctor’s prescription or parental permission to girls without any restriction on age. Others have done well pointing out the mind-numbing inconsistency in our country as it relates to children’s/teenager’s sexual freedom vs. other freedoms. They are permitted to purchase and use this medication, without restriction, yet they are not free to:
- Have aspirin at school without a parent’s permission
- Watch an R rated movie without adult permission
- Get a tattoo
- Vote
- Purchase a cigarette or wine cooler
I’m sure the list could be longer. And I’m sure that these absurdities will continue to be highlighted by bloggers and enraged pundits on cable news. These inconsistencies exist because our culture is shaped by laws and policies of legislators from competing worldviews.
There is a worldview that is advocated by Planned Parenthood, writers of the New York Times and various law makers that sex should be enjoyed and experienced without restrictions. Perhaps more accurately stated, we have a right to free expression of sexuality without boundaries. This right, in their view, is not for adults alone. Rather, it is a basic human right that must be extended to all, even those as young as 11 or 12 years old. This right is so basic that it trumps the rights of parents to be informed of or involved in the decisions before and after their child’s sexual activity.
Though I don’t agree, I think I understand this worldview. The problem is that those who hold this worldview don’t truly understand it. The ultimate expression of sex without boundaries is rape. And rape is an all too common reality for the young girls in want of the morning after pill.
Young teenage girls who find themselves in the motherly way rarely are the sexual partner of a classmate. They are often the prey of much older teenager boys or men. They are the victims of statutory rape. And this decision of Judge Korman’s is making it easier for the unconscionable abuse of young girls to continue without consequence.
If you are a middle class mom or dad, you shouldn’t be too alarmed. This grotesque reality will be visited most upon the poorer of us. The young teenage girl whose dad is absent. The young teenage girl whose mom works 2 jobs. The young teenage girl who has hours at home alone each day after school. It’s when an older boy or worthless man takes a shine to this girl and takes advantage of her isolation and impressionable youth.
This is reality. And now, to the joy of deviant men, it’s much easier to keep their activities on the low without fear of consequence. Welcome to the United Rapes of America.
Church Is Messy (and that's a good thing) 
Really, that title was the best you could come up with? Insensitive and crude. Come on.
Really? How insensitive. I don’t agree with the law change but you completely disregarded those of us who have fallen victim to rape. And your theory on those girls who are raped I didn’t fit into any of your categories matter of fact I came from a middle classed family. I came from a military family, I was just simply a pretty girl that a sick and twisted man felt like my personal space didn’t matter. My body was his to take so I disagree with your theory it simply means girls and boys can continue to have sex without the worry of responsibility for their actions. And your blog about Joyce and Joel you are a danger to Christians leading them to judge for just because we don’t agree with how someone lives or if they fully understand the gospel we cannot say what’s in their hearts!
Paul writes in Phillipians “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice,
And here we have reason # 4,503 for why churchgoers should not make a habit of absorbing everything said by men in ties behind pulpits. I don’t know that I have ever come across a more hateful, spiteful, insensitive, and laughably uneducated viewpoint in my life. So you know, the “morning after pill” is not an abortion pill. It will NOT terminate a pregancy. It is a large dose of the regular monthly pill. It will not, as you less than eloquently stated, lead to an increase in rapes, statutory or otherwise. Please, for everyone else’s sake, keep these ridiculous opinions to yourself. I don’t like having to explain them to normal people. It would also be large of you to apologize to the multiple rape victims whose experiences you have so flippantly bastardized to prove a point.
Sadly, I must agree with the above posters on your attitude about the pill and rape. I think that you need to accept that rape is not sex. Rape is using sex to control, dominate and inflict powerlessness upon the woman or man the rapist targets.
While I dislike on the grounds that prosperity theology is not Biblically sound I think that your article missed a key point that boiled down prosperity theology is merely greed is good or Ayn Rand of the religious bent.
Your solution is… what? Make sure and punish those helpless victimized teenage girls with a child to remind them not to get raped! That’s a wonderful bigoted strategy.
I’m from one of those competing worldviews that holds consent in the highest regard. *That* is what you’re looking for when it comes to the ultimate unrestrained expression of sex, or has your morality been so warped that you don’t understand fundamental ethics?
It’s good to know the gospel is still turning otherwise good men into insensitive bigots.
I think all of you missed the point. I never claim that the morning after pill is abortive. I never make broad assumptions about rape victims.
“If you are a middle class mom or dad, you shouldn’t be too alarmed. This grotesque reality will be visited most upon the poorer of us”
That is a statement crafted to shock parents into empathy and hopefully into appropriate action. That is not a statement about rape in general or rape victims.
I’m highlight the fact that most young girls who are seeking emergency contraception are not the consensual partner of a peer. That is as a category known as statutory rape. If we truly care for these girls, we will do more than give them a pill.
Although I enjoy most of your posts, I respectfully disagree with you on this. It is far fetched to conclude the availbilty of Morning after will encourage boys/men to rape. I can’t imagine someone who wouldn’t have violated a girl, deciding they will now b/c of the pill OR in fact if the unavialibty of the pill before hand stopped anyone before. That’s really far fetched. really!
Secondly, it is also not reseanalbe to compare the legality and avialbity of alcholol with that of medicine. If there is no reason to restrict the morning after for medical reason, that is what the goverment makes a decision on. Just because you and I think our religion doesn’t support the behaviour is not a good enough reason for the whole country to make their deciion on.
I can’t help myslef but i’m really fired up by this post and really disppointed by many of the statments in this post. one of which is:
“There is a worldview that is advocated by Planned Parenthood’
since when did planned parenthood become a code name of everything wordly. so lets talk about planned parenthood. they perform abortions, which is very legal in this country of ours. why are we trying to shut them down?
Plus, the provide services to the poor women and girls who do not have insruance or a doctor or a place to go when they need their yearly ob/gyn visit. or need BC pills? DO you do that? do you provide that? then why do you ciritize the one place women can turn to to get information and help about their reproductive heath.
This is completely misdirected since your problem to me seems like with aborations which is what you should address. planned parenthood does not equal abortion. please lets get that straight. if you have a problem with aboration which is the law of the land you should tackle that and stop tragetting the one clinic out of it. the clinic makes a signifcant contribution to womens heath, you may not have in that situation, but i understand and value the other services they provide.
If something is legal, does that make it right (remember slavery, child abuse, spousal abuse, etc. all used to be legal)? So we shouldn’t target a group that does things that are incredibly wrong and evil, simply because they help people too? You do know that groups like Hezbollah build schools and such, right? As did the Nazis. Doing a good thing, or even a lot of good things, doesn’t mean you get a pass on evil acts.
I’m sorry, but the facts of your post simply aren’t true. Look up what Planned Parenthood actually does themselves. Much of the vaunted help they hand out is actually referrals (for example, PP doesn’t do mammograms). Furthermore, there are vast numbers of clinics out there that are set up to help the poor, far more, in fact, than the number of PP clinics. If you want actual names and statistics, look up Abby Johnson. She is a pro-life advocate who used to be a director of a Planned Parenthood clinic, so she knows her stuff.
Let’s get real here. Planned Parenthood does equal abortion, and on that reason alone, Christians should stand against it.
As for other comments, I think many in the comments section missed that he was talking about statutory rape, which is definitely affected by access to birth control. Do you really think a 21 year old would normally risk having sex with a 14 year old without protection?
Most rapes go unreported. Even in cases where there was clearly no consent given to a sexual encounter, the woman is nearly always blamed for whatever behavior is believed to have enticed the men into raping her, and the men are almost never held accountable for their actions. It regularly happens on college campuses- a rapist is given a reprimand by the school administration, and sent back to class, with no involvement from the police. It happened in Steubenville, Ohio, it happens in the military, it happens in families, it happens in church, it happens everywhere. This country is an incredibly hostile place for women who have experienced rape, the act of which is often just the beginning of a nightmare that lasts long after
The availability of the morning-after pill will have no effect on this. Many young women have been called whores, kicked out of their homes and churches, lived with the shame of their family and community, after having a child out of wedlock. The “deviant men” are not the ones who suffer the consequences. The only consequence that a man will suffer if he rapes a woman and she becomes pregnant is… what, exactly? Child support payments? That would require the mother to publicly identify the man as her rapist, an unlikely scenario.
Finally, almost nobody is advocating that sex should be enjoyed without restriction. Planned Parenthood, the New York Times, and any lawmaker would all agree that a major restriction on sexual activity is consent. If sexual activity occurs without consent, it’s rape. Age of consent laws exist because we believe that children under a certain age aren’t emotionally mature enough to understand the implications of such a complicated experience as human sexuality. If our laws agree that a young woman below a certain age isn’t emotionally ready for sex, shouldn’t it follow that she’s not prepared for motherhood? For someone so young, consensual sex alone could be, at the very least, confusing and harmful. Rape would certainly be traumatic. Motherhood could be shattering. The morning-after pill exists to protect women against having their lives destroyed by this worst-case scenario, which is unfortunately a reality for many women.
It’s important to note that the men can remain unaffected by any of this. The morning-after pill does not exist for us. If we want to make it unnecessary, we need to encourage a culture in which men understand that rape is not an acceptable way to deal with issues of control, that it is a moral failure as well as a criminal act. If we are concerned about a man thinking he can get away with rape because his victim will just take the morning-after pill, we need to take a much harder look at why we accept that some men are prepared to rape anybody in the first place. The woman and eventual child are both unwilling participants in this cultural assumption, and she should not be forced to bear that child so that we can place the blame on her and avoid looking at why rape exists in the first place.
I found this article just minutes after my original comment. I didn’t even go searching for it; it just appeared on the sidebar of an entirely unrelated article.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/raped-and-impregnated-14-girl-must-now-share-parental-rights-her-attacker
You say that “if we truly care for these girls, we will do more than give them a pill.” That may be true, but lack of access to that pill has saddled this girl with an unwanted child, and a legally-mandated 16-year relationship with her rapist, who will serve no prison time for raping a 14-year old girl. Access to the pill shouldn’t be the issue here. Adjusting our culture so men are less inclined to rape should be.
Rick, I found your blog because of the popular post against prosperity theology. It was informed and informative, and made me think about some things with regard to those teachers and their world impact that I hadn’t thought about.
I write that only to show you where I’m coming from, and that I’ve valued things you’ve written.
This, however, is a kind of confused post. I think I understand your heart here, and it’s good.
“I’m highlight the fact that most young girls who are seeking emergency contraception are not the consensual partner of a peer. That is as a category known as statutory rape.”
That’s an interesting claim. I’m not sure how accurate it is, because you don’t provide any evidence. That aside, I agree wholeheartedly with this statement:
“If we truly care for these girls, we will do more than give them a pill.”
Yes! However, what problem does giving them the pill cause? It’s not enough, correct. The tone of your piece firmly denounces the legislation allowing this, but you never quite but that denouncement into words. Do parents need to be involved in their children’s lives? Yes. Does giving a kid the ability to get the pill without parental consent damage that? Not substantially, no. I think that ability is aimed at kids who are already part of broken families and broken communities to get a little bit of what they need.
Who are the predators who were holding back from awful actions who are now released because a young girl can get a morning after pill? This is just a weird fantasy that doesn’t match up with reality. The morning after pill is not the protection that we need, no. It’s not enough. But I think your claims for its damage are highly exaggerated, and anyway I’d be interested in hearing the voices of those young girls who use it or might use it. Surely they, being the benefactors of this law, should have the final say on its utility.
Hurrah, that’s what I was looking for, what a stuff!
existing herre at this weblog, thanks admin of this website.