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The bit that interests me in all of this is that the state (whoever they are) always feel the need to educate outside the context of the family, however wide that family might be.

It's been a while since I read up on this in any detail, and I would need to dig out statistics. But as I recall, Sex Education had very little impact on STD rates and teen-pregnancies in the USA and the UK. It didn't matter whether the Sex-Ed programme was abstinence-only, ABC, information led or interactive. A good relationship with a parent remained the best predictor for sexual health.

It does seem surpising that Education had no effect. Several explanations were on offer.
(i) The "seatbelt effect." Wearing a seatbelt radicaly improves your chances of surviving a car crash. Yet increased use of seatbelts did not lead to a reduction to in fatalities in car accidents. One explanation is that wearing a seat belt makes the driver feel safer, and less risk averse. So it is possible that increased use of contraceptives leads more teenagers to engage in more sexual activity, increasing their risk.
(ii) Increased alcohol use leads to increased risk taking. Teens take a lot of alcohol. All the education in the world won't help them make a wise decision if they've had too much to drink. So maybe we need to focus our efforts at reducing alcohol consumption among under 21's.
(iii) Messages from teachers can be undermined by messages from family, government, society. To take an example, insisting that we should be selfless and seek the public good can be undermined by the government closing every library, post office and leisure centre in sight. If the Government doesn't care about civil society, why should teens?
So a message about wise sexual behvior can be undermined by a culture that uses sex to sell music, movies and broccoli. George Gerbner has argued that media encourages people to be more fearful of violence than they need be, as the media makes violence appear more prevalent than it actually is. It is arguable that the media also makes teen sexual intercourse seem more routine than it actually is, and increases pressure to paricipate in it.


It is very difficult to measure media effects. (I remember Robert Winston repeating Bandura's "bo-bo" doll experiments on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, and then implying (and explicitly staing in the Daily Mail) that this proved the media increased violent behaviour. This experiment proves no such thing for anything other than the very short term.) So what evidence *could* the watchdogs have that they'll be making things better? More than likely they are just keeping some special interest group happy. It would be interesting to know which.

In any case, if education can't make an impact, I doubt ads will. Given the highly sexualised nature of television broadcasting and the media in general, I doubt they could make things worse, so I'm not in a "moral panic" about this. And if a family doesn't like these ads they could just get rid of the TV arial. DVDs are cheap and plentiful. Books not so cheap, but we have libraries. Sport, games. There are alternatives.

GV

Ads for abortion which is illegal in Northern Ireland in almost all circumstances should certainly not be shown on television, anymore than we'd advertise heroin or prostitution.

Had to reply to post #3.
Abortion cannot be compared to heroin or prostitution and it is facile and ridiculous to attempt to do so. Abortion is indeed illegal in Northern Ireland - unfortunately. Therefore advertising would probably not be terribly helpful to those who would like this access extended to them. I would argue for the right to both the access to abortion and the right to watch a televised informative advertisement on the subject.
Its called choice, people.

Lots of things are called choice though.
Some of them are good and some are bad. It's called morality, people.

I don't think that libertarians would consider the legalisation of heroin or prostitutin facile. In fact the "Economist" has argued for the legalisation of the latter.

GV

That seems a bit gruff.

My point would be that if you are arguing that women should have a right to bodily self-determination, and if state interference with that right is paternalism, then that right would extend to the use of drugs and the right to sell sexual intercourse.

This is especially true in the case of abortion, in which case we are not actually asking the state to step out of the way, but actually assist the women in controlling her own body.

The fact that you see the connection as "facile" perhaps indicates that this is not the argument that you intend. Perhaps you want women to have control over "reproduction" so that women would have the same economic and sexual freedom as men. (Perhaps it would also strike a blow against "patriarchal" sexual moralities, like traditional Judaeo-Christian morality.) Now if the government is to promote equality, then it would have some reason to offer abortion services to women.

The problem is (a) that it is not obvious that the fetus is not a person. Most arguments used to de-personalise the fetus would also de-personalise the neo-nate. (b) The protection of innocent human life seems fundamental to morality and law, taking precedence even over liberty (c) Unless the women has been raped, it is difficult to see how bodily self-determination has been denied to her. (Note that this presents a case for allowing abortion in case of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest).

But the counterargument to (c) would be to point out that bodily self-determination was no longer the issue. Rather it was that women should have the same economic and sexual opportunities as men. (b) answers that objection to some extent - all other rights seem to presuppose the innocent person's right to life.

But perhaps we should seek ground that "pro-lifers" and "pro-choicers" can agree on. Is it obvious that abortion is the only way to equalise opportunities for men and women? Or is it possible that both sides of this debate could advocate a radical set of laws guaranteeing free child care and substantial financial aid to all mothers, regardless of marital status? Pro choice and pro-life are divided as to whether abortion should be *supplied* by society. But shouldn't BOTH sides be committed to massively reducing the *demand* for abortion? That would not seem to interfere with anyone's rights.

GV

sympathetic to GV here.

From what I can make out even pro-choice folk do not consider abortion a pleasant experience by any means.

In other words, surely there is plenty of common ground to provide practical support for women with crisis pregnancies who feel they have nowhere to go, nobody to turn to and could not cope with a baby???