Fact vs. Opinion

My 9-year-old son recently brought home a routine reading assignment in which he had to read a story and then answer some questions from the story.  He gets these almost every week, but this one caught my eye because the last question on the sheet was about the difference between "fact" and "opinion."  The story was about some animal helping another animal.  I can't remember what they were, but for the purposes of this retelling, we'll call them a squirrel and a frog.  The question was multiple choice and asked the student to pick out the "fact" amongst the "opinions."  The choices were along the lines of "the squirrel was nice to help the frog," "the squirrel shouldn't have helped the frog," and the "squirrel was bigger than the frog."  My son wanted to go with "the squirrel was nice" answer, so we had a discussion about what "facts" are and what "opinions" are.

I was glad this subject was even broached in today's modern third grade classroom, and wish more adults had to do the same kind of training.  It seems like we now live in a society where fact doesn't even really matter as long as you have opinion on your side.

For example, we know that abstinence only "education" is terribly useless, and does pretty much nothing to prevent sexual activity amongst teens, and therefore does not prevent teen pregnancy or the spreading of STI's.  How do we know this?  We've studied it. And yet, many people still insist that it should be taught because they are of the opinion that teen sex is the worst thing that could ever possibly happen.  But it's just not effective.  Fact vs. opinion.

We also know that evolution happened, and that the Earth is not, in fact, 6,000 years old, despite what the bible may have told you.  How do we know this? We've studied it. And yet, many people still hold the opinion that the bible is right, and that there is some sort of "controversy" we should be teaching kids about regarding evolution.

But my biggest problem with the juxtaposition of facts and opinion these days is in the political sphere. "Obama is a communist!" No, he's not.  That's an opinion based on your dislike of his policies, but it doesn't change the definition of communism and the fact that Obama's policy decisions don't support your belief. "Obamacare is a 'government takeover' of healthcare!" No, it's not. A true government takeover of healthcare would be a British-style national health service. But that's not what Obamacare does. You can dislike it all you want, but you can't claim the "government takeover" bit as a fact. Because it's not. End of story. Fact vs. opinion.

I think the political landscape would be very different if people could agree on which things are "facts" and which things simply are not.  We would still disagree on the "right" way to do things, because we would still have our differing "opinions," but maybe our conversations would be a lot less frustrating and more productive if we agreed to rely on actual evidence.

By the Numbers

My brother and I tend to call each other when we're out driving and we see interesting bumper stickers.  The other day, he called me and said he was sitting behind someone with a bumper sticker that read, "1 in 4 babies dies from choice."  We both thought that number seemed a bit off, so I did some Google-ing and found this at the Guttmacher Institute website:

"Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion."

So I guess that number was (fairly) accurate.

What interested me more, though, was the statistic I found right above that one:

"Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended."  Wow.

So then I thought, I wonder what the stats are in Europe, where they are much more open about sexuality and provide comprehensive sex ed and easier access to abortion.

I couldn't find useful comparisons on the whole population, since I'm lazy and unwilling to go past the first page of Google results, but I did find a teen comparison on the Advocates for Youth Site.  According to their numbers:

"In the United States, the teen abortion rate is twice that of Germany and more than 1.5 times that of the Netherlands. "

You can read their full report here: http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=419&Itemid=177

So what does this tell me?  Our abortion rate could be much lower than it is if we quit insisting on turning a blind eye to the realities of sex.  We seem to tell kids, "Sex is dirty, scary and dangerous, so you should save it for the person you really love and never give it to anyone else."  How realistic is that point of view?

Does it make me sad that our abortion rate is practically 25%?  I guess.  But not because I think "babies" are dying.  It's because I think many of the women who have been put in a position to choose abortion may not have had to do so if they had reasonable access to birth control and education.

National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy

Today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, so it's time to think about what we as adults can do to try to curb the epidemic of teen pregnancy in our communities.

One thing going on in my community is the Wellness Educators program.  It's a program that teaches teens about various wellness issues (birth control, substance abuse, nutrition, suicide prevent, etc.) and then tasks them with mentoring the peers about what they've learned.  There's also a service learning component in which they have to work for various community organizations.

There used to be a similar program (although it was just for boys) called "Wize Guyz" that was run by the local Planned Parenthood office.  That one was seen by the community as a ploy by PPH to get their evil claws into our children for the purpose of teaching them how to have rampant orgies and abortions.  Wellness Educators is run through Sexual Assault Services, so it's seen as more acceptable by the community.  I guess sexual assault is better than planning parenthood.

I'll be heading over to the WE session tonight to help them make buttons.  What will you do today to help engage the youth in your community?

16 and Pregnant (with an asshole for a boyfriend)

I'm addicted to MTV's "16 & Pregnant" and "Teen Mom."  I know the shows get a lot of flack for "glorifying" teen pregnancy, but I don't think they do that at all.  I think they give a pretty accurate portrayal of how hard teen parenting is, even under the best circumstances. 

I also think that they provide a little snapshot of the state of teen behavior in America today.  And that state is depressing.  On almost every episode, the girls have a discussion with their friends about what they were using for birth control when they got pregnant, and almost across the board the answer is some form of "what's birth control?"

No matter what their race, social class, or educational status is, these girls seem to know astonishingly little about contraception, and I put the blame squarely on the abstinence-only "education" that we continue to rely on, despite the plethora of evidence showing that it doesn't work.

Besides the contraception ignorance, the other thing that makes me crazy is the attitude of the boys on the show.  I will say that some of the young men are decent, caring boys doing their best to rise to the challenge and be good fathers and partners.  But by a sad majority, they seem to be foul-mouthed assholes content to sleep and play video games while their girlfriends do all the real work of parenting. 

The way that some of these boys talk to their girlfriends is either bordering on, or all out, abusive.  They say the most despicable, unacceptable things to these girls, and no one (including their own parents) seems to call them on it.  I have two sons, and if I ever heard some of things these boys say come out of my sons' mouths, I think I'd have to give them a swift slap across the face (not that I advocate child abuse or anything).

Maybe along with comprehensive sex ed, we need to start teaching a class on basic respect and social behavior since so many parents don't seem to be teaching that anymore.