Yes. Kids are capable of understanding these concepts at very young ages if you’re just honest with them and don’t dance around facts. It’s the lies, obfuscation, misdirection, and misinformation that makes them confused and prone to stupid permanent decisions and unhealthy/unsafe experimentation.
Just say no was an abject failure. Same with abstinence only sex education. Every attempt to hide the facts from kids ends with kids finding out the hard way.
What’s more, it’s often painfully obvious when a child born with male genitalia has a female brain, and vice versa, and stopping or delaying puberty is a reversible way to make their transition as adults much more successful and less invasive. There’s no legitimate reason to oppose that type of reversible treatment when everyone involved agrees it’s called for.

No. Ignorance ALWAYS does more harm than good….as do palatable lies.

Keeping kids ignorant leads to dangerously ignorant adults….something you know about.
More knowledge is always better and leads to informed, well considered decisions.
More ignorance is always worse and always leads to kids making uninformed decisions, often horrible decisions.

But the GOP says “to keep ‘em dumb, get ‘em young.”

The idea that informing curious children that their sex can be altered (with years of difficult, very expensive treatments and eventually painful risky surgeries after years of long term psychological counseling and doctor consultations) is “grooming” them, is convincing them to alter their sex, is moronic and says WAY more about those that claim it than they understand.
Did you want to change your sex from the first time you heard it was possible? Is that why right wingers say they think that? It’s the only logical conclusion.


Sad you are still incapable of addressing the traitor Ashley Babbitt who fucked around with police and found out. That says volumes.

I'm from Texas. I support Abortion. No contraceptive is 100% effective, not even if you combine them. If you don't understand that, study how percentages work.

Secondly, kids are hormonally driven creatures. They are literally under the influence of natural chemicals driving them to procreate.

Not every school or parent teaches them about contraceptives. In fact, you will find most 'Christians" only support abstinence. This is the equivalent of telling a chemically dependent addict to "Just Say No!" How well did that work in the drug war back in the day? (Hint: However, despite DARE's bold claims, research has shown that the program has failed spectacularly.)

Third, the people who are most affected by this new law are the people that can least afford the better contraceptives or having a child in a non-stable family environment. This won't bother a middle class or rich family at all, they can just send the kid off to an "aunt" in another state until the issue is resolved. Those kids from poor families will just be forced to have the kid and likely it will ruin their lives. This doesn't even take into account that the new law doesn't have ANY exceptions for rape or incest.

Fourth, the USA was founded on religious freedom. In other words, you get to believe what you want and others get to do the same. This means that if a religious person tells another person that something they are doing is forbidden due to morality contained in their religion, that other person can tell you to fuck right off. Church and State are supposed to be separate, but the Christian right think they should be able to legislate their religious ideas on others. Do you not see the hypocrisy here?

I'm nominally a conservative. Sadly that means that I get lumped in with you ultra far right wackos that want to turn the USA into a religious state like Iran or Afghanistan. I'm not leaving my home state because some religious nut jobs think it is OK to kill adults by lethal injection but that it is BAD to kill some cells that are multiplying.

Btw, the cardiac activity detected on ultrasound at six weeks is not a true heartbeat. It results from electrical activity, but the valves of the heart have not yet formed. And the sound does not indicate the pregnancy is viable. Women typically don't notice they are pregnant until they miss a period. So if they are unlucky, they may already be close to four weeks pregnant. That leaves them two weeks to confirm it with a doctor, since home tests are not 100%, get together money for the abortion, find a clinic, and schedule an appointment that falls within the remaining time period. Since this law will cause even more clinics to close in Texas, you can add travel and patient backlog to the time. A teen could do everything right and still miss out on the lottery for an appointment, dramatically changing their life for years.

But at least some smug religious person can sip their coffee and be proud they enforced their morality on some evil women that dared sleep around out of wedlock.

Absolutely not, why are you lying? I stated that contraceptives aren't perfect, and fail at much higher rates than most think. There is no contraceptive that's 100% effective, and on average the most common are well over 8% failures according to the CDC, but there is abortion that's 100% effective. I never said anything approaching an implication that people are too stupid to use them, it's insanely stupid to think what I said was assigning blame to end users for not using other contraceptives.

They do use contraception, and still need secondary methods when contraceptives fail, which some do for over 1/4 of people who use them. No contraception is 100% effective....not even abstinence if you believe the bible.
BTW, the church has repeatedly tried to stop contraception from being available....Don't try to pretend you're still sticking to your religious arguments when you say that, the church/Christianity opposes contraception just like they oppose abortion, clearly because they like having power over others, not because we need more people.

Maybe she paid them, it's not clear nor is that relevant. The passage listed sentences for crimes done to her, but says if violent abortion was the totality of the "harm", then there was no harm and no crime. They couldn't be more clear that the unborn child wasn't capable of being murdered or harmed.

No, it hasn't been smashed. You claim it was, you look it up and prove your own position if you can. It's already been asserted successfully by people much smarter than you.

To kill something it first had to live. To live, it has to breath. No breath, no life, just a potential life.

Um, no. Leaving if you're unhappy you lost a political fight or election is absolutely not how democracies work. If it was, why aren't Republicans all moving right now?

No, they didn't. Being Christian doesn't equate to wanting to outlaw abortion. Most Americans are Christian, and a vast majority say they want abortion to be legal when asked. You're logic fails to recognize that some Christians don't believe in forcing their beliefs on others, and many only kind of believe, only when it's convenient, and limiting their options could feasibly hurt them.

No contraception is perfect, lack of sex ed in Texas means many don't even know how pregnancy works before being sexually active. Also I haven't heard of exceptions for rape or incest. These people have no option to use contraception, which fails far too often.
Also, I believe no person should be forced to be an unwilling biological life support system for another, certainly not for just a potential human, absolutely not children under any circumstances.


No, Shit Sherlock, it is not how it works in most of the world, certainly not in the developed world, are you under the impression that abortions only happen in America? Do you think people will accept sex only to procreate?
Access to multiple methods of terminating unwanted pregnancy are how it works across the world, because abstinence is insanely unrealistic and there's no even near perfect birth control without terminations when the main methods fail, which happens between .1% for the implant (the best, but with restrictions, and side effects and problems with having it implanted for 3 years) and >27% for the contraceptive sponge in women who've had a child ...typical methods like the pill fails 7%, condoms 13%, diaphragms 17%, many others in the >20% range. None of those numbers are acceptable when you're talking about an unwanted child without a secondary method with a 100% success rate.
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/contraception/index.htm

If women around the world didn't rely on secondary methods when primary ones fail, which they often do, they would only have sex for procreation and everyone would be exponentially more frustrated and angry. Not a reasonable or feasible solution.

Meh, just give up sex altogether. Nothing bad ever comes from that. Just look at Catholic vows of abstinence. Perfect example of best practices.

Your video, Taylor Tomlinson - Growing Up Religious & Abstinent, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

No, it's not really a no brainer. The few studies done, when other known factors are considered, showed that virgin marriages had <2% difference in satisfaction, probably within the margin of error....divorce rates are obviously skewed because most virgin couples are extremely religious, which accounts for lower divorce rates...it doesn't mean they have happy or successful marriages.
STDs and unwanted pregnancy are easily avoided with responsible safe sex...granted, most teens aren't very responsible.

Your reasoning is flawed...if Christians raise Christians, (and I assume you think the same goes for other religions) where do atheists come from? Also, you do know that children given abstinence only sex ed, usually Christians, have the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs, don't you? Very few follow church instructions once outside of church, that's why less than 5% of marriages are by virgins.

Many, if not most, that oppose places like Planned Parenthood, and oppose most methods of birth control, oppose it, because they think it encourages promiscuity. Sex is of course limited only to marriage in their world view, which is why heavy red states have abstinence only education... which tends to result in them having the highest teen and repeat teen pregnancy rates. And some would argue that the only function of sex is for procreation. The Bible even forbid pulling out (Gen. 38:8–10), though one could argue that was for one guy in particular. Anyhow, basically they see pregnancy as part of God's design and purpose for sex. The fact it has physical pleasures, is a gift from God for the married couple.

In the case of IUDs, they believe the old myth that the IUD causes abortions, that it lowers the chance that a fertilized egg will implant. The reality is that it doesn't at all, at least for modern, non-copper clad IUDs. Once upon a time, the old copper ones did have a very small impact on the chance a fertilized egg could implant, and even modern ones that have far less copper cladding on a wire around it, can have a very very small chance of decreasing implantation. But those ones aren't really used that often. Basically, the IUD is the most effective form of birth control, but it is opposed to stereotypes and lies. Modern IUDs work to prevent fertilization in the first place, via the hormones in them and design, if an egg is fertilized, it still has the same chance of implantation... however the chance of an egg being fertilized is very low, as sperm mobility is seriously hurt, and of course the woman's body lowers egg release too.

Plan B also doesn't stop implantation, or if it does, it is near modern copper clad wire IUDs (and more recent evidence shows it is likely even far less than that). It prevents the women's body from releasing an egg... if an egg is released already, it won't do any good. However, once again, facts don't matter to those on the right, and they promote it as a morning after abortion pill.

Of course, a healthy young woman, who's optimally fertile, only 30-40% of her fertilized eggs will implant, meaning that God Himself aborts about 60-70% of babies (since they define it as a full baby and human life at conception) in optimally fertile women. Now.. you have to add to that, natural miscarriages for other reasons... and the odds of having a baby really are against you naturally. (There are links to medical journals here: http://ask.metafilter.com/203529/What-of-fertilized-human-eggs-die and in this Healthcare Triage video about IUDs: https://videosift.com/video/IUDs-Are-Pretty-Great-So-Why-Arent-They-More-Popular)

Abstinence till Marriage is the dumbest concept I've ever heard of.

Told my kids get out there, be safe experiment but be safe. Find the right partner before marriage - of course waiting for the right age is recommended, adults need to not be so naive to think they will wait.

Can confirm sexual abstinence

First up, bring back the old quoting system!

"I'm of the opinion that both Hillary and Trump would make bad presidents."

Agreed.

"That being said, I don't really believe the narrative that Trump would be the worse of the two; the "apocalyptic" one to elect. Trump is incompetent and chaotic. Hillary is greasy and corrupt."

Which one has campaigned for a law that flagrantly violates the first amendment? Which one has called an entire demographic of US citizens rapists and murderers?

" I think the system (which is actually pretty well designed at its core..."

The American political system is a complete clusterfuck. You have a two party monopoly, the electoral college is a disaster and then there's Citizens United.

"The DNC had a chance to put in another option that would have easily had as much support from core Democrats as Hillary, but also would have energized younger voters AND been a very attractive option for Republicans who don't buy in to Trump (of which there are many). But instead, they left their fingers on the scales and tipped things in favor of Hillary."

Completely agree. Instead of the excitement of a Bernie running, you have the "ugh, Hillary, I guess" attitude.

"So, I'll vote for one of the 3rd party candidates (I like Stein's stance on Snowden, so probably her) or write in the option that crooked DNC and Hillary denied us. Either of those actions is de-facto more likely to result in President Trump, and I acknowledge that. But like I said, I'm OK with that -- I honestly believe Hillary would be worse, and the main thing is that me and other people like me have to send a message to both parties that they need to present us with more reasonable candidates if they expect us to have any degree of the "party loyalty" that both sides expected / enjoyed in the past. This election cycle shows that they are taking that for granted -- so screw 'em."

And here we have the major issue. I have NO IDEA how people think electing Trump will somehow bring down the system. "Screw 'em"?? As in the dems and the gop? It won't bother them in the slightest.

But it will bother Mexicans, Muslims, LGBT people and em.... damnit, there was another demographic that the Republicans want to fuck over.... oh yeah... women.

Forget Trump. As much of an unconscionable arsehole as he is, look at the GOP platform for 2016:
- tax cuts for the rich
- repeal environmental protections
- an anti-abortion amendment
- oppose stem cell research
- prop up the electoral college
- ignore climate change agreements
- repeal obamacare
- abolish net neutrality
- oppose same-sex marriage
- abstinence-based sex education
- increase military spending
- the ridiculous and wasteful border wall

and finally, appoint a new Supreme Court Judge to push all this through. And THAT is the real reason Trump can't be allowed to be President. Say what you want about Hillary, but at least she won't choose a complete loon for the supreme court. Trump might pick David Duke, for all we know.

you are once again mistaken. only approximately 10% of non-human animals are obligate carnivores. common sense tells you that it cannot be a high number as it would not be sustainable otherwise.

factory farmed or not, other sentient beings suffer and die for no other reason than a momentary taste sensation. unlike the Masai (of whom i have never heard of but am taking your word) all you have to do to greatly lessen the harm you do to others is to buy different products in the grocery store.

speaking of science, here is what a very wise man had to say on this subject:

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”—Albert Einstein

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”—Albert Einstein

“Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of mankind.”—Albert Einstein

“If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.” -Albert Einstein

I look at ultrasounds too. While I understand the sentiment of wanting to show that it's not just a lump of tissue, and it's certainly not a lie, it is also completely unnecessary. The government forcing you to do this is a violation of your rights.

Also, withdrawal of support is not the same as murdering. Even if you believe a fetus is alive and deserves the same protections as any human being, a woman should still have the rights for an abortion. The ethical arguments is thus:

If in some hypothetical situation, an adult human such as yourself, became completely dependent on my body to survive, your right to life does not trump my rights to my body. You cannot force yourself to leech off of my body for the next 9 months. I have the right to refuse you and let you die. It may not be a nice thing to do, and should be avoided whenever possible, but it is my right.

It is strange to me when conservatives who support small government and individual rights (including those who support laws like stand your ground, which lets you kill another human being), does not understand this concept.

Also promoting abstinence has been proven to be ineffective compared to education about birth control.

@VoodooV

I guess you don't look at Ultrasounds. I see them every day.

GOV just want the mother to see that it is not a lump of tissue,which it isn't. A picture is worth a thousand words and watching a life in real time in a womb is not telling a lie to a patient.

I agree these are just roadblocks to slow down the murdering.

A better solution to this quagmire is to promote abstinence.