Colorado GOP blocks successful birth-control program

Liberals remind me of Peter Griffin from Family Guy.

 

Clearly, you don't know what you are talking about. The program was privately funded. It's still in place, still going to be in place and still going to keep teen pregnancy down. The only thing that happened is that when asked to add state funds amounting to $5 million, the state legislature voted no.

 

I'm not familiar with the nature of the program. My understanding of some studies in this area is that price is only one factor, and perhaps not the most important. So I'd judge the downhill slope as a function of the number of unwanted pregnancies. If each additional (that is, marginal) dollar reduces the incidence of unwanted pregnancies less than the previous dollar, this doesn't necessarily mean you've reached the optimum. You have to make the cost comparision between the cost of an unwanted pregnancy and the cost of preventing it. You reach diminishing returns when the cost of prevention outweighs the cost of abortion and/or aid to dependent children.

Admittedly, this is difficult. How can you put a dollar cost on the burden society bears due to unwanted children, many of whom grow up to be gang members and criminals? We could probably approximate by looking at incarceration costs of unwanted children, plus the court costs, plus the costs from the crimes themselves. But I couldn't begin to quantify the cost of living in fear, in gang-infested neighborhoods. And of course, there are law enforcement costs, etc.

 

As long as you have people (*)(*)(*)(*)ing, no amount of money is going to stop unwanted pregnancies. That's more of your liberal utopia insanity.

 

OK, do you agree that the $5 million would be poorly spent? If the private program is highly successful, ramping up might well be a good idea. I admit I don't know how the vote not to do so broke along party lines.

 

Free birth control is about the only form of free healthcare that I would support. It saves society a lot of money.

 

This comment is amazingly stupid. Birth control is real, and it really works. Used properly, it can reduce unwanted pregnancies to nearly zero. There is nothing "liberally utopian" about birth control. You might as well argue that since overeating makes people fat, eating anything at all is a waste of effort.

 

Maybe they have other programs they want to spend $5 million on? Maybe they did a cost analysis and decided that throwing an extra $5 million won't increase the results sufficiently? Any number of reasons. We continue to throw trillions at poverty, but our rates have gotten worse. Throwing another $5 million wouldn't help.

 

Depends on the method. Nearly 0% for condoms is a lie. Condoms have a 3% failure rate over the course of a year when used perfectly. Typical use results in a 14% failure rate.
http://youngwomenshealth.org/2009/11/03/success-and-failure-rates-of-contraceptives/

Abstinence is the only way to truly 100% pregnancy seeing as even vasectomies can fail and ruin your dreams.

 

Wrong, it is currently funded through an anonymous grant. What republicans voted down was adding an additional 5 million to it to expand it. Using taxpayer money on abortifactants is a contentious issue.

 

You missed the entire point. I know birth control works. My reply targeted the notion that birth control would result in no unwanted pregnancy. That's as stupid as suggesting that throwing more money at education would result in a 100% literacy rate, throwing more money at poverty would end it or throwing more money at drug enforcement would see no one using drugs.

It's pure utopian insanity.

 

Indeed. People are going to have sex. People may use birth control 99% of the time. All it takes is a condom failure once. The real problem is, people don't like using birth control if it affects their pleasure. We could throw the GDP of the world at birth control. We'll always have unexpected pregnancies.

 

Beats me. But I know there are lots of ways to attack poverty. Subsidizing it does't work. But one would (I hope) expect different results paying people NOT to have children, than paying them extra for each child. What do you think?

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The problem with such a fatalistic attitude (people are going to have sex and kids no matter what) is that this program apparently DOES reduce unwanted pregnancies. Your position seems to be that if any strategy is bad, all strategies are bad.

 

Agreed, some methods are more effective than others. Clearly, "just say no" doesn't work even as well as the rhythm method. You make the same mistake as others, by implying that HUGE improvements are useless because they are less than perfect. Trust me on this, a 14% failure rate is much better than the failure rate of crossing your fingers and hoping to get away with it.

 

No, you go overboard in the other direction. Vast improvements ARE worthwhile even if they are not perfect. This program is said to have reduced unwanted pregnancies 40%. That strikes me as a big step in the right direction. You seem to be rejecting excellent because perfect is impossible. Even a 10% reduction in unwanted pregnancies would be cause for celebration.

 

This is what really bothers me on this subject. The right decides that idealism, rather than pragmatism is the best approach to very problem. Idealism, while noble in it's intentions, ignores reality. And reality is that people are not robots that can be programmed to do the right thing all the time. People make mistakes. That is reality. The best we can do is to minimize the effects of those mistakes on society at large, and that is exactly what this program did.

BUT, since it did not fit the conservatives view of the perfect world, they rejected it. And that is utterly ridiculous and counter-productive. Talk about pure utopian insanity.

 

What does that have to do with whether or not the kids are in need whether before or after. You are making no sense.

You this is why I started asking how this thing would work because very quickly it makes no sense.

The best option is to give the woman birth control.. thus reducing the amount of money you have to pay.

 

I am not a leftist. It is you who has no fiscal conservative sense with your lets create a whole bunch of children so we can pay for them rather than giving birth control.

2.) Yes this is the problem with Islam and it does not matter whether they are extremists or not.

They are against freedom and what this country is based on. Either you accept individual rights and freedoms or you don't. We should not be letting folks into the country that do not accept this ... and Islam does not.

 

I have never understood why the right wing thinks that we on the left like Islam. It's a religion. We're not fans, least of all regarding Islam. It goes against anything I care about. I have always stated that I am firmly against Islam in this forum. AlphaOmega, you don't pay too much attention, do you? I will, and always will be, a proud liberal leftist. Why? because the alternative is horrible.

And yes, the kids I knew who got pregnant when I was in high school were guess who? The preacher's kids. Ya know, because abstinence education solves everything, right?

 

Well, it would certainly seem short-sighted, BUT.....isn't it now an overlap with the ACA? Everyone is required to have insurance, the ACA mandates FREE female birth control under all insurance coverage, so why would there be a duplicate program needed anymore? Wouldn't these poor, low income women and teens be covered under Medicaid? (no snark, serious question)

 

Why do taxpayers have to pay for other people's kids birth control? Buy your own dang condoms!

 

Do you realize how many kids get in trouble for shoplifting condoms because they're too embarrassed to buy them?

Guys are socially shamed for buying condoms. Girls a socially shamed for having a baby while in her teens. Girls are socially shamed for getting abortions. It's easy for adults to pick on kids and make their lives hell.

 

I'm not big on guessing games. Again if they wanted 5 million for this program something had to be cut, they had to raise taxes or borrow.

Instead of discussing that we have a lying OP. Go fig.

 

So someone posted earlier that the program is still in place and that the vote was against spending $5 million of tax payer money on it. I am not seeing the problem at all. Clearly there is money enough for the program as it is now so why would you not seek out additional private sources instead of just automatically going to the government coffers?

This reminds me of the story from yesterday about Wyoming making it illegal to take pics in Yellowstone. Just more outright lying from the left.

 

There is no need to teach children to re-frame from sex until marriage, NA, Lets just do the liberal way,
Which is to have all the sex you want, then like a good liberal MOM, just KILL your child.

OK I got ya.

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