Database Short Assignment - Source Evaluation

Minors are not mature enough to decide whether to have an abortion without adult guidance. Involving parents protects the physical and psychological well-being of young women, lowers the abortion rate, and helps teenagers who suffer from sexual abuse.

Even minors have a right to medical privacy. Involving parents unconstitutionally burdens young women who should be able to make their own decisions regarding unwanted pregnancies. Such requirements put girls with abusive parents at risk of retribution.

Defunding Planned Parenthood would leave many low-income women without access to essential reproductive health care. The majority of its services are meant to prevent unintended pregnancies and provide sex education and preventive medicine, not abortions. Funding family planning services actually reduce the number of abortions.

As the largest provider of abortions in the United States, Planned Parenthood does not deserve taxpayers' money. Government funds would be better allocated to health clinics that do not provide abortions, and Congress should act to protect the unborn. Planned Parenthood personnel have demonstrated a callous disregard for fetal life.

Abstinence is the only completely effective method of preventing pregnancy. Teaching teens about birth control sends them the message that it is acceptable to have sex, which ultimately makes it more likely they will have unsafe sex. Abstinence builds character in teens, who are unprepared for the psychological and emotional effects of having sex at a young age.

Expecting abstinence-only education to help drive down teen pregnancy rates is unrealistic. Educating teenagers about the use of birth control is the best way to protect their long-term health, and such comprehensive sex-education programs have successfully lowered teen pregnancy rates. Educating students about safe sex will also help stem the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Providing birth control coverage will make it easier and more affordable for women to obtain the method of birth control that is most effective and appropriate for them, resulting in fewer unintended pregnancies and abortions. Having fewer unintended pregnancies will save, not cost, U.S. taxpayers money and will have other positive benefits on U.S. society as a whole. Some birth control medications can also be used to treat serious illnesses, so their efficacy goes beyond family planning. Employers with moral or religious objections to birth control should not be exempt from the policy, as exempting them would effectively enable them to make a choice about contraceptive use for their female employees.

Providing such coverage will not reduce the number of abortions in the United States. Furthermore, women already have access to birth control, and the policy will cost taxpayers money. It also threatens U.S. society, since it could lead to greater sexual permissiveness. Birth control should not be covered as a means of preventive health care, because pregnancy is not a disease but a natural state and thus should not be regarded as an illness to be "prevented." In addition, some types of birth control may work by causing abortions, so religious and other employers objecting to contraceptives and abortion on moral grounds should be exempt from the policy.

Single-sex schooling helps eliminate gender stereotypes that keep students from excelling in particular subjects and removes distractions associated with being in the presence of the opposite sex. It also allows teachers to tailor their lessons especially for students of each gender.

When boys and girls learn separately, the education they receive is more likely to be unequal. Students should also have the opportunity to interact with members of the opposite gender, which can help them overcome stereotypical perceptions about gender later on.

Birth control has been a major reason that teen pregnancies have declined in recent years. Expecting abstinence to work on its own is an unrealistic approach. The fact that birth control is more available in other wealthy countries is why the teen pregnancy rate in those countries is much lower than in the United States.

Abstinence is the only completely effective method of preventing pregnancy. Teaching teens about birth control sends them the message that it is acceptable for them to have sex, so long as they use protection, which leaves them vulnerable to the psychological effects of having sex at such a young age.