Bloodless Coup

Knowledge is power

Angry Black Bitch talks about the work she does volunteering with teenage mothers. For any who have ever uttered - or allowed to flit through their minds - the thought "how can someone be so dumb as to get pregnant accidentally?" her post should make you reconsider the thought. Women can't acquire knowledge in a vacuum. With increasing assaults not only on reproductive choice, but on basic contraception and sex education, how are young women supposed to learn about their bodies, and make intelligent, well-informed choices? How can they understand the trimester system, if they don't even have the information to understand the mechanics of contraception? (emphasis mine)

As most of you now, a bitch volunteers with teenage mothers at several local shelters. Some of these mothers chose to have their babies and some of them were simply too far along in their pregnancies to have any viable choices beyond adoption or keeping the child post birth. This illuminates the issue of ‘choice’ in Missouri and many other states within the union. Choice has not been as simple as choice for quite some time.

Freedom of choice requires freedom of information. The anti-choice movement has steadily been restricting access to reproductive information for years. Most of my current disgust at the advocates of anti-choice policies stems from that fact.

See, a bitch would like abortion to be rare as a motherfucker. Safe is followed by legal, which is followed by rare. My ass is one of millions of Americans who works diligently to educate my community…both men and women…on the various choices they have and options available that will assist in lowering the number of unplanned pregnancies. And a bitch averages at least 5 women per 6 month class session who have no fucking idea how their reproductive system works, what the real health risks and advantages are associated to contraception and what family planning is.

An average of 5 women…usually out of a total of 10 to 15…have to be educated about their reproductive cycle, how sex may result in pregnancy, what contraceptive methods are available to them and/or how to choose the best method. And Average of 5 women per class cycle relate misinformation about contraception…feel that using the pill may make them unable to have a baby in the future…believe that the pill may protect them against sexually transmitted diseases…feel that it is inappropriate to ask their sexual partner to use a condom because it ‘assumes that they are sick’…strongly believe that they can not contract a sexually transmitted disease from oral sex…think the withdrawal method works...think that you can ‘tell by looking at someone’ if they have a sexually transmitted disease…and do not feel that they need to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases until they are pregnant because they ‘feel fine’.

A bitch has met the victims of rape, incest and exploitation who believed that they could douche the problem away. A bitch has listened to women who have three or four chil’ren but ‘aren’t sure if they have ever had an orgasm’ and ‘did it because they needed to keep their man’.

One current student engaged in over 60 unprotected sexual encounters in an effort to ‘get rid of those sinful feelings for women’ and sincerely hopes that her child ‘helps her not be a dyke anymore’.

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The sad reality is that anti-choice advocates are creating more unplanned pregnancies through their ignorance is bliss policies…and those of us in the trenches are shoveling in a downpour. A bitch struggles to understand the logic and finds that there is none.

Any group that wants to decrease the number of unplanned pregnancies in America needs to start with comprehensive education. Abstinence…yes! And…oh, and that ‘and’ is one massive motherfucking word…comprehensive sex education so that each individual is armed with the facts, the options and the tools to make an educated decision about their life and their body.

Women aren't dumb. Too many are uneducated and misinformed, a result of puritanical approaches to sex education. Teaching abstinence only - or teaching nothing - doesn't make people less likely to have sex. It makes them less likely to make informed decisions about sex.