I honestly can’t figure out what position you support.

Boy have you dot-dot-dotted the middle of a sentence. And attacked the wrong tree. Go back and read again the line right before the part you’ve quoted – where I say “What YOU’VE proposed instead is…” And then I argue against that proposal.

In your first post, you lamented that a young boy got more than he deserved. Taking your story at face value, I agree with you. The problem here – and I would argue your problem – is with the judicial system which lumps everything into categories and doesn’t know how to judge minors. Yes, I am a conservative, and no, I don’t rely on the government to be merciful and wise…

What I disagree with is the next jump in logic you’ve taken – saying that since in your case the revelation of this boy’s actions started this chain of events, for some reason you think that means that Planned Parenthood should not be required to report _any incident of sex with a minor_.

That’s an odd position to take for someone who just vented about the sex drive of adolescent boys.

I think you just want Planned Parenthood to survive at any cost. Let’s find out. In an earlier post, you ask: “Assuming you and your fellow blue noses manage to force PP to start turning in boyfriends, what kind of score do you think you’ll rack up?” Let me propose a different one and see how you respond: Assuming PP continues to not report incidents of sex with a minor, (as has been documented and is actually the case as we debate,) making internal decisions in favor of allowing the incidents to continue and quietly carrying out an abortion to destroy the evidence, how many rapes do you think are going to pass through?

How many young men with not-so-good intentions are going to see Planned Parenthood’s policy as ‘friendly’ to their needs? What would be the number of unreported actual sexual abuses of minor women by older men that would cause you to say, well, that’s enough – looks like Planned Parenthood needs to be reeled in?

I don’t think you realize the enormity of the situation. “… since a few young men who pursue sex with underage young women are innocent of real crime …”.

A few young men? I’m talking about your son! Do you have an adolescent son? Then unless he’s sick and dying, he is most assuredly pursuing sex with an underage woman unless he prefers to date older women. Remember that most young men date women a year or two younger than themselves.

How old is your son? Here’s a list of the ages of consent by states: http://www.webistry.net/jan/consent.html

Here in Wisconsin, it’s 18. What state do you live in? Assuming your son’s girl is a year younger than him, what are the odds that your son can have a fun night out with his girlfriend and not risk assault charges?

Do you think he and his girlfriend ever do a bit of necking? Think he gets to first base? He might get away with that.

Second base? Second degree sexual assault! YOUR child. ANY MALE CHILD WHO HAS A GIRLFRIEND UNDER THE AGE OF CONSENT!! Jail. Trial as an adult and adult prison because you moralists have scared politicians into “cracking down”. And lifetime registration as a sex offender if he gets out alive!

You say that Planned Parenthood must report your son “so that the law enforcement agency can see if a crime was committed.” Man, what planet are you living on? If he gets to second base, a crime HAS been committed. Are you hoping that the cops will ignore the law and not arrest him? Do you have some kind of power over the District Attorney?

Oh wait, I know. First Things is a conservative magazine and you’re probably a conservative person. So you’re expecting the government to show wisdom and mercy and let your kid go, right? After all, he didn’t do anything you didn’t do when you were his age. Good luck with that.

Hey, what if you check your adolescent son’s cell phone and find some sexy pictures sent by his girlfriends. If one of them shows a bit of nipple, are you ready to turn him in? You’d better be because the law says that if you don’t, you’re a criminal, just like Planned Parenthood.

You moralists don’t even realize the damage you do. You hate Planned Parenthood and you will ruin innocent lives to get them.

That’s a difficult situation for that girl and the entire family. My prayers and condolences for the young man.

I would agree with you here that the situation you’ve described should not carry the penalty the boy received. Your beef is with the judicial system which adhered to the letter of the law when perhaps a lesser sentence was called for.

What you’ve proposed instead is that – since a few young men who pursue sex with underage young women are innocent of real crime – Planned Parenthood should not be required to report any of them.

(In contrast, as I Catholic I can’t help but reflect on the recent push to force the publication of every single accused priest’s mug shot in the local paper – for the childrens’ safety – because just one of them might be guilty.)

But you’re fighting the wrong fight. Planned Parenthood is required to report the incident of sex with a minor precisely so that the law enforcement agency can see if a crime was committed – or not. Or to decide not to press charges. But the point is that Planned Parenthood is making that decision itself – and consistently protecting the man involved – and every time against the law meant to protect, in particular, young women.

Reflecting on the conversation thread, it’s interesting to note how much money is tied to the defense of birth control. (And let it not be ignored that money – in the form of revenue – also drives the question for Planned Parenthood.)

It strikes me how much the two are tied together and influence each other. In questions of ethics and morality – as this surely is – it should raise a yellow flag when one drives the other.

Let me ask, if money were not part of the equation, why would you support birth control?

You write “I’ve met many people who criticize birth control. Most of them are celibate priests.”

Have you considered that those celibate priests have often met with and spoken with literally thousands of married couples – across the entire financial spectrum and in all life circumstances. Are you sure their insights can be so easily dismissed?

“Perhaps I have a biased sample. In that case, please point me to a list of public critics of birth control who have at least six children and live on household incomes of less than $30,000.”

I know many families personally with that many children. I have not surveyed them for their annual income. I do know that they tend to not drive the newest model car and have not always paid their kids through college. Ironically, often their kids grow up in lively, happy families and end up winning scholarships of some sort to offset the expenses of higher education. And sometimes they don’t. Aren’t you a little concerned that you’re making such a strict tie between whether to procreate and how much money you make?

I’m from the proverbial small town in Wisconsin. I was visiting my mother last spring when she mentioned that she was going to a town half way across the state to see a cousin graduate. This cousin is the granddaughter of a first cousin of mine. I don’t know if she’s a third cousin, first cousin twice removed or what.

I don’t really know her very well, but I know she’s from my home town and I asked my mother why she was graduating half way across the state. Well, it turned out that a couple of years ago, when she was a freshman or sophomore in high school, she went out on a date and had sex. Unfortunately, I’ve got some major blue noses in my family (they’re Protestant blue noses, so they’re probably not reading this) and one of them found out about it. I hate to think of how they got the information out of my young cousin.

Anyway, she and he were both way underage and my family blue nose went to the police and reported the boyfriend for statutory rape. “Hooray,” you say, “put the evil bugger in jail?” Not so fast. The “rapist” turned out to be a pretty nice guy, a couple of years older than she was, smart, hard working, doing well in school, probably got a scholarship coming and hoping for college, well liked by just about everybody, on the football team – a nice kid with a good future ahead of him and he’d of probably made a good husband too – but he was arrested for statutory rape.

So he’s about seventeen and suddenly his life has turned into a nightmare. He’s looking at a probable jail sentence and a lifetime as a registered sex offender. Forget the scholarship, so forget college. Forget even about going into the military, forget all of his dreams. His parents took out a second mortgage to pay his lawyer. He got convicted anyway. He committed suicide.

So the whole school turned on my young cousin. She didn’t report him, she didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, all that was done by the blue noses. But it still got so bad she had to leave town and move in with a relative on the other side of the state, lost a year of school in the process and is just now graduating. I hate to think of what this episode did to her.

Final score, one nice kid dead, another nice kid with a suicide on her conscience and her life more or less ruined. Assuming you and your fellow blue noses manage to force PP to start turning in boyfriends, what kind of score do you think you’ll rack up?

I’m not sure what you are talking about here. I’ve met many people who criticize birth control. Most of them are celibate priests.

Perhaps I have a biased sample. In that case, please point me to a list of public critics of birth control who have at least six children and live on household incomes of less than $30,000.

Read chapter 8 of that book. It is simply not true that she was opposed to poor people having children — she criticizes the “middle class bias” of eugenicists who did in fact think that poor people should not have children.

Sanger was a radical socialist and a radical feminist. One doesn’t need to defend her entire worldview or all the bizarre causes she embraced during her life to appreciate the one positive contribution she made — to make contraception a respectable and viable choice for women who find it necessary in their own life circumstances.

As you know, the procreative ability is naturally destroyed when a woman reaches menopause, on average around age 50. A tubal ligation simply pushes the date forward. Oppose this if you want, but every woman already knows she will reach a point in her life when she will be physically unable to have more children.

Maybe God will ask them to give up more in order to bring another soul into the cosmos. And perhaps they will be happy anyway with the riches of their fourth child.

This is what makes me think you don’t really grasp the real world difficulties. Simply put, an extra child means they have to pull their older children out of private school or not send them to the best universities they can get into. Again, I remind you I am talking about a country with very limited opportunities for people who do not attend the best schools and universities.

When I grow up, I want to be
A kindly abortionist.

When I grow up, I want to administer
A clean euthanasia clinic.

When I grow up, I only want to be
In charge of the duct tape we surely will need

For the mouths of those who would name
The Enemy.

Robert Bové 6-23-10