Tag Archives: Women

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

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The UK Daily Mail reports on a study that shows that women who lose their virginity as teenagers are more likely to divorce.

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.

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. Don’t let it go too far – you lose some of what love and marriage can be.

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NHS spends £1 million a week on repeat abortions

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

According to statistics, thousands of women are using the service to terminate unwanted foetuses; in some cases up to nine times.

The abortions are understood to cost up to £1,000 every time, with five out of every six repeat terminations being requested by a woman who is unmarried.

In 2010, 189,000 terminations took place, with more than 64,000 of them being performed on someone who had already undergone the procedure.

The statistics, revealed by the Department of Health in response to a Parliamentary question entered by Diane Abbott MP, have led some critics to accuse women of using the procedure as a form of contraception.

Josephine Quintavalle, from the Pro-Life Alliance, told the Daily Mail: ‘The number of repeat abortions is simply extraordinary.

“Abortion is an unpleasant and harrowing experience for women and to hear it is happening repeatedly makes your hair stand on end.

“These figures show that sadly, abortion is being seen by many as a form of contraception.

“But is this surprising when we live in a society which says it’s all right to have an abortion once.

“If it’s fine once, why not two, three or four times.”

It is understood repeat abortions currently account for around a thirds of all terminations.

The figures showed the majority of repeat abortions happened in London, with more than half of all of the procedures performed in Croydon being on women for the second time or more.

Around 9,500 women across the country were married, with a further 50,000 being single or living with a partner. In 2010, 85 women had an abortion for the eighth time.

In the UK, schools teach sex education to 5 year olds. So they have quite naturally had an explosion in the number of abortions, as well as the number of out-of-wedlock births.

The UK has generous welfare benefits for single mothers who have children out of wedlock.

Excerpt:

Single mother Tracey Turner, 26… currently receives £136.50 a week in benefits, which includes £42.50 income support and £94 child tax credit.

On top of this, her local council pays all of her £161-a-week rent and gives her a hefty discount on local rates.

A British pound is worth about $1.60 USD. 300 pounds a week x 52 weeks = 15500 pounds = about $25000 USD per year in benefits, not including the “hefty discount on local rates”. Local rates = local tax rates. This is not counting any other welfare programs that might be offered to those who choose to be sexually active before they have gotten a man to commit to provide for them for life. Why be accountable to a man when you can get free abortions and/or free welfare checks? Just pick the one you like best – who cares if can provide or not, as long as he’s good looking and fun. What could go wrong?

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Liberal Democrat David Blankenhorn: Protecting marriage protects children

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This is an article from 2008 that appeared in the liberal Los Angeles Times. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

I’m a liberal Democrat. And I do not favor same-sex marriage. Do those positions sound contradictory? To me, they fit together.

[…]Marriage as a human institution is constantly evolving, and many of its features vary across groups and cultures. But there is one constant. In all societies, marriage shapes the rights and obligations of parenthood. Among us humans, the scholars report, marriage is not primarily a license to have sex. Nor is it primarily a license to receive benefits or social recognition. It is primarily a license to have children.

In this sense, marriage is a gift that society bestows on its next generation. Marriage (and only marriage) unites the three core dimensions of parenthood — biological, social and legal — into one pro-child form: the married couple. Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. Marriage says to society as a whole: For every child born, there is a recognized mother and a father, accountable to the child and to each other.

[…]Marriage is society’s most pro-child institution. In 2002 — just moments before it became highly unfashionable to say so — a team of researchers from Child Trends, a nonpartisan research center, reported that “family structure clearly matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.”

All our scholarly instruments seem to agree: For healthy development, what a child needs more than anything else is the mother and father who together made the child, who love the child and love each other.

For these reasons, children have the right, insofar as society can make it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into this world. The foundational human rights document in the world today regarding children, the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically guarantees children this right. The last time I checked, liberals like me were supposed to be in favor of internationally recognized human rights, particularly concerning children, who are typically society’s most voiceless and vulnerable group. Or have I now said something I shouldn’t?

Every child being raised by gay or lesbian couples will be denied his birthright to both parents who made him. Every single one. Moreover, losing that right will not be a consequence of something that at least most of us view as tragic, such as a marriage that didn’t last, or an unexpected pregnancy where the father-to-be has no intention of sticking around. On the contrary, in the case of same-sex marriage and the children of those unions, it will be explained to everyone, including the children, that something wonderful has happened!

I am not a fan of David Blankenhorn at all, but he’s right on this point. This is the argument that motivates most pro-marriage activists, although we have others. I think it’s important for people to see that people who want to preserve the traditional definition of marriage are not anti-gay, they are pro-child. We want children to grow up with mothers and fathers who have every incentive to care for them.