[Snagprophet]

It's ridiculous that it's got to the stage where we need to start giving contraception out to thirteen year olds. I didn't burden society with kids at 13, why do these morons feel the need to?

[kerily]

(Original post by Pride)
Umm, perhaps if parents did a decent job at teaching their kids basic values and morals (and the law didn't make it harder to enforce discipline at home, I mean come on now, common sense tells us what is acceptable discipline), we wouldn't have to make annoying decisions like this.

I was sexually active at 13 and I can assure you that I didn't come from a household with slack discipline I'm very skeptical of the argument that the law makes it difficult to enforce 'discipline'; however illegal it may be on paper, the vast majority of parents hit their kids (or at least in my area they did) and nobody gives a toss.

I don't think 13-year-olds are generally sexually active for a good reason, either. Of course there'll be a few who have just matured early and have a sex drive early, but I do think the majority of people having sex at that age will be emotionally/physically pressured into it by (often older) partners, or have low self-esteem, or live somewhere where there's ****-all else to do. So yes, give them contraception; far, far better than them getting pregnant or getting STIs.

[estmick]

well it is better to have some sort of protection against STD's......etc

[TheCrackInTime]

(Original post by JustMee :))
Yes, I completely agree with you, but doesn't it show them that what they're doing is alright because they are "protected"

No it doesn't, but that's not the point. Your question was should contraception be available to such young people and the answer to that is yes. The alternative is that they have sex without using protection, exposing themselves to the risk of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.

Whether it's right or not that they're having sex so young is neither here nor there. Age shouldn't be a factor when it comes to accessing sexual health services.

[Pride]

(Original post by kerily)
I was sexually active at 13 and I can assure you that I didn't come from a household with slack discipline I'm very skeptical of the argument that the law makes it difficult to enforce 'discipline'; however illegal it may be on paper, the vast majority of parents hit their kids (or at least in my area they did) and nobody gives a toss.

I don't think 13-year-olds are generally sexually active for a good reason, either. Of course there'll be a few who have just matured early and have a sex drive early, but I do think the majority of people having sex at that age will be emotionally/physically pressured into it by (often older) partners, or have low self-esteem, or live somewhere where there's ****-all else to do. So yes, give them contraception; far, far better than them getting pregnant or getting STIs.

but surely you can't deny that if you had been taught that you shouldn't be having sex at 13 by your parents, or rather, had they drilled in those morals at an early age, you wouldn't have made those mistakes...

I mean, I think it's the same with the riots. Kids went out there and trashed their own communities for a number of reasons, but one is because they didn't fear their parents or the authorities. People blame their parents for allowing their kids to do this, but their parents are worried about disciplining their own children.