Abstinence

My teenage daughter and her peers, lately, are obsessed with movies and TV shows about teenagers having babies. I have watched some of this stuff with her (probably less than I should) – episodes from “The Secret Life of an American Teenager”, part of the movie “The Pregnancy Pact”. Even her new favorite show, “Life Unexpected”, is about the (implausible) consequences of teenage motherhood in the life of the baby, now a girl in her own teens. It’s not just shows for teenagers which have these themes, either – I remember an episode of the police show “Without a Trace” which would fit completely into the paradigm discussed in this essay, and that is just one more case among many.

From what I’ve seen, these shows:

1) Present abstinence-only as a legitimate moral choice, even if, as in “The Pregnancy Pact”, they may question whether it is the best one,

2) Tend to strongly argue for keeping and raising the baby as the most legitimate choice for a teenage girl ONCE pregnancy has occurred. Abortion and even adoption are strongly devalued as choices.

Within the context of the post-birth aspects of these kids’ lives, the shows do tend to show kids trying to be mature, and responsible, working hard on their relationships with friends and lovers, their own parents, and the baby’s father. This presents positive images for their teenage audience to live up to. On the other hand, since these fictional kids tend to be so good at this stuff, which in reality is so hard, even for those of us who waited until we were in mature, stable relationships (and had decent jobs), before we had our kids, that one effect is to make the “have your baby” choice seem less fraught than, in reality, it is.

But I’m particularly concerned about the growing acceptance of an abstinence-only policy as a legitimate moral choice, even if not a necessary one. In fact, abstinence-only is a bad choice, based on a false moral premise. It has absolutely no moral benefits, and tends to produce at least two bad moral outcomes.

First, I need to distinguish between abstinence-only as a policy, and simple abstinence. It is not morally wrong for a person to be sexually abstinent, if they choose to be. But abstinence-only is a policy that says the best (or only moral) way to avoid teenage pregnancy is to remain abstinent until marriage. Since effective birth-control methods are readily available in our society, there is no rational basis for this prescription. As a policy, abstinence-only “makes sense” ONLY if you accept the implicit premise that sex before marriage is morally wrong. This is the false premise on which abstinence-only is based.

Not only is sex before marriage not morally wrong, I would argue that most people SHOULD have (safe) sex before marriage. Marriage is an important decision, involving a melding of the whole complex of life choices facing two people and (yes) often the question of bringing more people into the world, who must be raised and cared for. Such an important decision should, in my opinion, be kept as free as possible from the heady influence of overactive hormones. Separating the choice to have sex from the choice to get married results in better choices about both.

Abstinence-only, even if it “works”, acts to make kids marry before they are ready. It is worth pointing out that, even on its own premises, abstinence-only is not a prescription for preventing TEENAGE pregnancy, but only PREMARITAL pregnancy. I can see no sound reason for viewing premature marriage as a moral “good” that we should design policies to foster.

And, of course, the reality is that (as even the birth-worshiping shows admit) failure of abstinence is an all-too-likely effect of a policy of abstinence-only. The TV morality plays try to gloss over the effects of such failures by depicting the noble struggles of a few fictional teens and their loving families to make their way through the forest of problems besetting them – and, yes, in real life many families do pull through, and come out all right on the other end. I have tremendous respect for the families who, caught up in this situation, manage to make it work. But a good outcome does not prove that the original choice was good. Certainly, in almost every case, the lives of teenage mothers, and their children are much, much harder than they would have been if the pregnancy had been deferred until a better time of life. In cases where other life factors are stacked against the family – factors like poverty, racism, unavailability of strong, supportive extended networks – the affected lives can essentially be ruined, as the stress caused by one bad decision leads to further bad behavior, resulting in pain and suffering for all that might have been averted with better initial judgment.

The morality plays paint a choice between evils, with teenage pregnancy, birth control, abortion and adoption all seen as ills to be weighed in the balance. But birth control is not an evil. It is a simple solution to a practical problem. Birth-control, not abstinence, is the moral choice for avoiding teenage pregnancy. And if birth control (or abstinence) fails, an early abortion or a “morning after pill” is clearly a reasonable and legitimate moral choice. As third tier possibilities, later abortion and adoption are both perfectly legitimate choices, in many cases better than bearing and raising a child for which you are not ready.

Abstinence-only, in short, is a moral position that makes sense only in the context of a Christian dream world, where the imagined word of God trumps the real-life needs of men, women and children. But sex is a normal, human act, not a sacrament, and premarital sex is not a sin. Birth control is a practical solution to an age-old problem, and is not in any way morally problematic. Insisting on a policy known to produce bad outcomes for real human beings, when a simple solution is available, is morally wrong.

In the real world, abstinence-only is not just an irrational or impractical policy. It is an immoral choice. And it should be shown to the world as such.