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Comment by mofosyne | Hacker News Reader

In support of your comment. This debate reminds me of the sex education and free condom and abortion debate in the past.

It may be a personal choice that causes unwanted pregnancies, but putting the failure of teens to avoid getting pregnant on their moral failing has been a massive fail for decades until we fixed the social infrastructure around it instead to make doing the right choice easier.

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I would like for you to cite the teen pregnancy rate, and then I would like you to compare it to the average age of pregnancy, and marriage, and "unmarried mother" birth rate.

Teen pregnancies were very high when many women were getting married at 18 and giving birth at 19. Birth rates for younger teens, <16, have never been higher. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/02/why-is-the-...

I think there are parallels but the parent comment is taking the position that personal empowerment with sex education in schools and free condoms are irrelevant because only eliminating economic inequality can prevent pregnancy. I am for giving children the information and tools to make healthy choices.

Hmm, curious that you bring up "economic inequality" when I haven't mentioned it, let alone championed the quixotic goal of "eliminating" it.

It makes sense to me that someone taking a roughly libertarian position on homelessness would be laissez-faire about birth control.

The approach of offering homeless aid exclusively in the form of personal empowerment coaching still seems to me analogous to abstinence-only sex ed.

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