Tag Archives: Contraception

News

New study finds that teens who lose their virginity are more likely to divorce

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The UK Daily Mail reports on a new study that shows that women who lose their virginity as teenagers are more likely to divorce. (H/T Dina, Mysterious C)

Excerpt:

Women who lost their virginity as young teenagers are more likely to divorce – especially if it was unwanted, according to new research.

The University of Iowa study shows that 31 per cent of women who had sex for the first time as teens divorced within five years, and 47 per cent within 10 years.

Among women who delayed sex until adulthood, 15 per cent divorced at five years, compared to 27 per cent at 10 years.

The findings were published in the April issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

Author Anthony Paik, associate professor of sociology in the university’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, examined the responses of 3,793 married and divorced women to the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.

The study showed, however, that if a young woman made the choice to lose her virginity as a teenager, there was no direct link to a marital split later in life.

If the sexual act took place before the age of 16 women were shown more likely to divorce, even if it was wanted.

Thirty-one percent of women who lost their virginity during adolescence had premarital sex with multiple partners, compared to 24 per cent of those who waited.

Twenty-nine percent experienced premarital conceptions, versus 15 percent who waited.

One in four women who had sex as a teen had a baby before they were married, compared to only one in ten who waited until adulthood.

Only one per cent of women surveyed said they chose to have sex at age 13 or younger, compared to five per cent at age 14 or 15, and 10 per cent at age 16 or 17.

Forty two per cent reported that their first sexual intercourse before age 18 that was not completely wanted.

Fifty eight per cent of the group waited until age 18 or older to have sex. Of those, 22 per cent said it was unwanted, compared to 21 per cent who said it was wanted.

Researchers concluded sex itself may not increase the probability of divorce, while factors such as a higher number of sexual partners, pregnancy, or out-of-wedlock birth increased the risk for some.

This dovetails nicely with the previous studies that Mysterious C sent me that showed that, for men and women, the more sexual partners you have before marriage, the more unstable your marriage will be. See the related posts for more. If you’re still a virgin, like me, (and I’m in my mid-thirties now, and I’m saving my first kiss for my engagement), then there is nothing wrong with you. If you want a stable marriage, then you don’t have sex before you’re married. There are tons of virgins out there, and there is a huge difference in the quality of romantic relationships when both parties exercise self-control with physical touching.

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Polemics

Which types of unions have the highest rates of divorce?

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A quiz for you, from Ruth Blog.

Question:

Same sex couples have had the legal right to form domestic partnerships in several European countries.  Denmark was the first to introduce registered partnerships, in 1989. Norway was second, in 1993, then Sweden in 1995. Data from 2 of these landmark countries, Norway and Sweden, as well as California,  have been studied enough to answer this question:

What types of unions have the highest rates of divorce?

  • Opposite sex married couples: men and women are so different, it is a wonder they ever stay married.
  • Male unions: men are naturally less committed, and less monogamous, so their partnerships don’t endure.
  • Female unions: women get so emotionally distraught over things. A union of two women, without any male counter-balancing their roller-coaster, is very unstable.

Hint: the answer is the same in all three countries!

And here’s the answer:

Female unions seem to have the highest divorce rates, followed by male unions, followed by opposite sex unions.

“For Sweden, the divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50% higher than the risk for heterosexual marriages, and that the divorce risk for female partnerships is nearly double that for men.”

“For Norway, divorce risks are 77% higher in lesbian partnerships than in those of gay men.”  (The Norwegian data did not include a comparison with opposite sex couples.)

In California, the data is collected a little differently. The study looks at couples who describe themselves as partners, whether same sex or opposite sex. The study asks the question, how likely is it that these couples live in the same household five years later. Male couples were only 30% as likely, while female couples were less that 25% as likely, as heterosexual married couples, to be residing in the same household for five years.

The only contradictory data I have found to this pattern is from the Netherlands. In the Dutch data, same sex couples have a 3.15 times greater dissolution rate than opposite sex cohabiting couples, and a 3.15 x 3.66 or 11.5 times greater dissolution rate than opposite married couples. But, female couples seem to be more stable than male couples.

Do you know what else is bad for relationships? Premarital sex and cohabitation. And that’s not my opinion, those are the facts. (See the studies below) Either we are going to get serious about constraining our selfish behavior to protect children from instability, or worse, or children are going to suffer. When adults substitute their own selfish ideologies for God’s design for marriage, children suffer.

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News

Republican governors in Florida and Texas to sign ultrasound bills

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Unborn baby scheming about ultrasound legislation
Unborn baby scheming about ultrasound legislation

Republicans in the Texas House and Senate have voted in favor of a bill requiring an ultrasound before every abortion. Republican Governor Rick Perry will sign the ultrasound bill.

Excerpt:

A bill that allows women a chance to see an ultrasound of their unborn baby before an abortion is now headed to Governor Rick Perry, who plans to sign the pro-life measure into law.

After the Texas Senate signed off on the legislation, the state House, on a 94-41 vote, voted to concur on the Senate changes to HB 15, the sonogram bill. Now the state will become the latest to give women the kind of information about the development of their unborn child the normally don’t receive at abortion clinics — information that may prompt many to choose abortion alternatives.

The Senate passed the bill on second reading on a 21-10 vote and all hostile, pro-abortion amendments by Sens. Wendy Davis, Jose Rodriguez, and Leticia Van de Putte were defeated.

[…]For women who reside in counties with more than 60,000 people (more than 92% of women seeking abortions), the sonogram must be performed at least 24 hours before the abortion, and the consultation must be given in person. For women who reside in smaller counties or more than 100 miles from an abortion provider (less than 8% of women seeking abortions), the sonogram may be performed at least two hours before the abortion and the 24-hour private consultation may be done by phone.

[…]When used in pregnancy centers, ultrasounds convince more than 80 percent of women considering an abortion to keep their baby or consider adoption.

Republicans in the Florida legislature sent an ultrasound bill to Republican governor Rick Scott, but they also send a parental consent bill.

Excerpt:

Florida senators on Thursday voted to send two pro-life bills to the state governor, including a bill that would mandate that women be given an opportunity to view an ultrasound and hear a description of their unborn child before having the child killed through an abortion.

The ultrasound bill (HB 1127) passed easily, 24-15. Its passage was a significant victory for pro-life advocates in the state, given that a similar bill was vetoed last year by then-Gov. Charlie Crist.

However, with pro-life Governor Rick Scott now in office, there is little chance of the bill meeting a similar fate this time around.

The state senate also passed on Thursday a bill (HB 1247) that would tighten up the state’s parental consent law, making it more difficult for minors to get a judicial bypass to avoid having to tell their parents. That bill passed 26-12.

“You can’t give a child an aspirin in school without permission. You can’t do any kind of medication, but we can secretly take the child off and have an abortion?” said Sen. Steve Oelrich, R-Gainesville, according to the Associated Press. “We should support it with all our hearts and souls if parental responsibility means anything to us.”

Since the election of Gov. Scott, as well as strong pro-life Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate in last November’s election, the state of Florida has drawn attention for the sheer volume of pro-life legislation that is making its way through the legislature.

Late last month Florida legislators had passed a number of other pro-life bills, including a constitutional amendment that would ban public funding for abortion and prevent the state courts from interpreting a right to privacy to include abortion.

Abortion is all about making money – it’s a business. The more regulations you can introduce to reduce the profit margin, the fewer abortionists will want to get into the business. That will raise the prices of abortions and send a signal to abortion consumers about the costly outcomes of careless sex. As a society, we care about whether people are responsible with sex – they should be ready to deal with any children that are produced because children are people too. Why should society have people engaging in recreational activities that can kill another person and then lower the costs of their taking that risk? It makes no sense. Unborn babies are people too, and we don’t make it easier for people to be reckless about sex and put the lives of other people at risk. We don’t make it easier for people to engage in recreational activities that can get other people killed.

Parental consent laws are also proven to reduce the number of abortions. Ideally, you want young people to understand the facts about contraception failure rates and to know that their parents will be involved in the abortion decision. It’s better for young people to understand the normal outcomes of sex (babies) before they decide to do it, so that children will only come along when adults have decided that they are prepared to accommodate them. The natural outcome of sex is a baby, and people should understand that society is serious about protecting babies and giving them what they need.