by Duane N. Burghard
©2015
Sorry I've been away for a few weeks. After my last essay, I returned to working on my second novel a bit, and then on my business, and then on a new business project ... and somewhere in there, I kind of lost my blog voice (which happens) for a moment. Fortunately, as is frequently the case these days, Facebook was there to rescue me today.
So today's Political Rant Of the Week (PROW) comes to us courtesy of the State of Colorado ... not for something they're doing that's particularly stupid, but for something they're doing that's actually quite brilliant, helpful and generally good, but that they're going to stop doing ... and in this case, the stupidity of stopping will quite literally hurt.
In 2009, Children's Hospital Colorado (near Denver) and a number of other hospitals in the state, began an intentional and focused effort to increase the presence and use of pregnancy preventing implants (e.g. IUDs) in teenage females. Their intent was to lower the number of unwanted pregnancies among young people and, simultaneously (obviously) lower the number of abortions performed. Unlike the pill or condoms, IUDs are statistically far more effective at preventing pregnancy (they also don't have to be thought of immediately in advance of sexual contact). Unfortunately, a very small percentage of teenagers use them, and part of the reason why is that, unlike the pill or a condom, IUDs are significantly more expensive (hundreds of dollars) and can only be implanted by trained professionals, adding even more to the cost. To overcome the funding problem, the state of Colorado was given a $23 million grant from the Susan Buffet Foundation (and yes, Susan Buffet is billionaire Warren Buffet's wife).
So what happened? Well what do you think happened?? By 2013, teen births in Colorado had dropped by FORTY percent (substantially more than the nationwide drop for the same period). Statistics for 2014 haven't been officially released yet, but officials have noted that the number has continued to decline. Similarly, the number of abortions performed on teenagers in Colorado has also dropped significantly during the period.
So what do we have here; teen pregnancy is down, abortions are down and births to teens are down. I HOPE that we can all agree that these are all good things. But that's not all. You see, when teen births go down, all sorts of other good things happen too. Colorado's Medicaid expenses have gone down as a result. With fewer teen births there is a savings in government assistance. More of those teenagers are finishing high school and going on to lives where they will earn more, pay more in taxes, and have more opportunities. These all seem like really good things. They also seem like the sorts of things you'd want to see continue, right?
Apparently not.
You see, the money from the Buffet foundation recently ran out, and so Colorado's Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper (yes, that's his real name) went to his state assembly to get the money to continue this program, a program which, had it been using state funds all along, WOULD HAVE BEEN PROFITABLE in that it has saved the state more than the $23 million the Buffet foundation has invested ... and that's where the trouble began. Republican State lawmakers (a generous title indeed given all they do to NOT make laws) say that the program is too expensive and that it "sends the wrong message" to teenagers. Some have raised concerns about the program leading to an increase in Sexually Transmitted Diseases (though there is, to date, not a shred of evidence to support that fear).
It's at this point that several "rant alerts" go off in my head. I'll see if I can get them coherently organized for you (no promises).
First, let's talk about being pro-life. While I'm sure it will not surprise any of you, I am firmly in the camp that has long been known (and somewhat badly named) as "pro-choice" ... which, incidentally, is the same camp that many if not most Republicans belonged to before Reagan. Although you would be forgiven for not knowing this today, it is in fact true that it was the Republican Party that first endorsed the landmark "Roe v Wade" decision back in 1973. They endorsed Roe because it was consistent with their conservative "hands off" approach to government. They recognized that the decision had less to do with abortion and more to do with not letting the government have a hand in deciding what we can and cannot do with our bodies (legally speaking it was about the interpretation of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment ... in any case the decision was and is consistent with an actually conservative approach to governance by a state). Today, sadly, pro-life has come to simply mean "pro-birth" and there is precious little (if any) interest in the life of the individual once they are born. But the one thing that I thought the so called pro-life community and I could universally agree upon, was that lowering the number of unwanted pregnancies and the number of abortions is a good thing. So when we see a program that is empirically lowering the number of abortions (AND SAVING MONEY), it would seem to be a "no brainer" that we could all agree that funding such a program would be a good thing. Alas, no, it turns out that, in this case, logicians need not apply.
So let's talk about sex. One Colorado State Rep said that she thought that funding the program would send the wrong message. She said that the message was, "feel free to have sex with everybody." Now, just so we're clear, I haven't been a teenager in just over 31 years, but I did used to be one, my children are teenagers, and I have been able to keep up on what they're generally like over the years. In my experience, the desire to have sex is a pretty universal desire of the average teenager. Certainly when I was a teenager, I was rather ... focused, on members of the opposite sex. And by the way, if I may run off track into a separate rant for a moment and attack this ABSURD school dress code issue that we're seeing today ... I'd like to be CLEAR that, when I was a teenager, if I thought you were attractive, what you were wearing made absolutely NO difference whatsoever (and if I wasn't that into you, your attire similarly made no difference ... I know this is true for girls too because I dressed the way I did and yet several girls still actually went out with me). Telling girls that THEY are responsible for what guys think or do as a result of what they wear IS in fact a perpetuation of rape culture (not to mention an incredible insult to men who are being told that they're not capable of controlling themselves or acting responsibly). The bottom line is that, regardless of what a girl is wearing, a guy either wants to have sex with her or he doesn't, and either way he IS still fully responsible for controlling himself AND for paying attention in class.
But this is nothing new. Teenagers have been wanting to have sex since before the term teenager was invented. And the idea that we can train people out of this desire (especially in a society whose members do NOT all share the same religious or moral background or beliefs) is without a single example of success. In fact, the states which spend the most and place the greatest emphasis on abstinence only education are the same states that have the highest rates of unwanted teen pregnancies. And according to Advocates for Youth.org (and their website references a number of empirical studies) there is NO statistical evidence that "youth enrolled in abstinence only programs were any more likely than those not in the programs to delay sexual initiation, to have fewer sexual partners, or to abstain entirely from sex." Put simply (in deference to those who apparently need it to be put simply): IT DOESN'T WORK.
So we have a program that, empirically, is lowering teen pregnancy, preventing abortions and saving the state money ... ALL of these things are things that the Colorado Republican Party SAYS they are interested in ... and yet a large number of them oppose funding this program. And this brings me neatly around to my last mini-rant of the day: State Legislatures.
As incredible as it is for me to see on my screen as I type it, this December will mark the 10th Anniversary of my announcement to run for Congress in 2006. One day I will write about that amazing experience and the many good and bad things I learned about our system and how it "really works" (from the standpoint of a candidate), but for now let me say that one of the things that became increasingly important to me during that campaign was ensuring the success of "downballot" candidates (specifically people running for the State House and State Senate seats in my US Congressional District). In fact, one of the things that I am most proud of was that, even though I didn't win that year, a significant number of people within the party credited me with keeping my opponent so busy and spending so much money on defeating me, that he didn't have time to do his normal interfering work (funding and working for downballot candidates) in other races. As a result, to this day, many people in the party give me partial credit for the election of several downballot candidates. Why is that a big deal? Well, despite the lack of money and sexiness in those races, your state legislature is enormously important and, in actual fact, has a far greater impact on you and your daily life than you might think (including the fact that most state legislatures get to draw these ridiculously gerrymandered US Congressional District lines which intentionally protect (most Republican) Congressmen ... and that protection makes them less willing to compromise and more prone to the gridlock we so often see today).
So at the end of the day, what do we have? We have a program that's working, saving money, preventing unwanted pregnancy and lowering the number abortions. It seems to me that ending such a program would be, to quote Stephen Colbert, just about the dumbest f*cking thing I've ever heard (and I would remind my readers that the preceding designation was NOT intended to be a competition ... though it does seem to be working out that way) ... but sadly, that's probably what's going to happen. Yes, Colorado can look forward now to a future with increased abortion, higher teen pregnancy and higher social program costs. And why? Well, mostly because so many of the citizens of the State of Colorado just don't take a greater and more interested role in who is representing them in their state house (I say this because the number of people who vote for state representatives in most districts is decided lower than those who vote for statewide or federal candidates in those same districts). As a result of this lack of interest and participation, we once again all get to live with the will of the majority ... of organized people who vote ... and there's really only one way to fix that isn't there?
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