Thursday, September 17, 2009

Their Readin' And 'Ritin' Ain't So Good, But The 'Rithmatic Is Tops. 'Specially Multiplyin'

You know, as touchers of the future ourselves--no not that way--we feel obligated to once again point out the wisdom and relevance of that old bumper sticker:

Think Education is Expensive? Try Ignorance
U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests. Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh offers a speculation of the most probable explanation: "We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself.
Gee, ya think? We were going to go with something in the water.
While the study reveals information about states as a whole, it doesn't shed light on whether an individual teen who is more religious will also be more likely to have a child. "You can't talk about individuals, because you don't know what's producing the [teen birth] rate," said Amy Adamczyk, a sociologist at the City University of New York.
Well, actually Amy, we do know what's producing the [teen birth] rate. Scientifically speaking, this scenario is a direct result of the addition the available number of females (x)and males (y) divided by the availability of sufficiently unsupervised locations (z). Therefore we can calculate that y + x / z = the total number of instances in which the previously identified research cohort will successfully accomplish copulation. Or, to put it in the vernacular, how many games of hide the sausage are going on at any given time.
"It is possible that an anti-contraception attitude could be caused by religious cultures and that could exert its effect mainly on the non-religious individuals in the culture," Strayhorn said. But, he added, "We don't know."
OK, so in the most religious state in the nation, only the godless heathens are having sex? What would that result in, like four or five births per year?
Said Amy Adamczyk, a sociologist at the City University of New York, who was not involved in the current study. "Are there just a couple of really precocious religious teenagers who are running around and getting pregnant and having all of these babies, but that's not the norm?"
Yeah, that's a possibility, providing they figured out a way to have a kid every three weeks or so.
The researchers found a strong correlation between statewide conservative religiousness and statewide teen birth rate even when they accounted for income and abortion rates.
Maybe someone needs to explain to the kids that "Love thy neighbor" is metaphorical.
"The index of religiosity is tapping into more fundamentalist religious belief," John Santelli of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University said. "I'm sure there are parts of New England that have very low teen birth rates, which have pretty high religious participation, but they're probably less conservative, less fundamentalist type of congregations."
You're sure of that, huh? Kind of an odd thing for a scientist to say without any of that there whadayercallit, data and stuff. Sure you aren't trying to tip toe away from the implication that these yokels grew up stupid and they're doing their best to pass that along to their kids? Just asking.
Earlier marriage among religious individuals could also partly explain the finding.
Can't argue with that. After all, you probably have met all your cousins by second or third grade.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Supposedly, 89% of women who are sexually active and could become pregnant, use some form of contraception.
What happened to the lesson learned for the others?
Maybe it was just too complicated. And not free.

Anonymous said...

Its not even that good. There are also higher rates of STDs, in addition to the pregnancy rate. Now, I did read a study not so long ago, that using condoms statistically speaking was not that much better than using the withdrawal method when it came to preventing pregnancy. On the other hand, Condoms are very effective in preventing STDs--when properly used that is. So with higher rates of syphilis, and the clap, etc., I believe its safe to say that kids are not using protection, i.e., they are riding bareback. This is extraordinarily bad because it raises the likelihood of both STDs, and unwanted Pregnancy rates, but also in the long term could also contribute to certain forms of cancer, and infertility issues.

Religion should never be accepted as a viable alternative to scientifically proven prophylactics, medically speaking.

And I have to say, as a woman, it just rankles me to no end that our government has in effect established NeoConservative Christianity as THE state religion, when it comes to promoting shame based ignorance over comprehensive reproductive education and disease prevention through safer sex practices.

I am disgusted even more by the fact that all of the Shame Based Ignorance is heaped upon womankind, while various Sperminators and Dirty Dicks are given a blank check to keep spreading their seed and their crotch crickets around with impunity, whereas the partners they infect or impregnate are relegated to the Slut Bin.

Yep gotta big problem with that.

Anonymous said...

Amen to that, babe.

scripto said...

Hey! The kids and I drop by on Fridays for the dog pictures. Crotch crickets? Sperminators? How am I gonna explain that? I don't even know what that is.

a concerned parent

Anonymous said...

Immaculate Contraception....are you good or what!