You know, when Plan A doesn't cross anyone's mind...

I just heard a radio ad today for Plan B...or "emergency contraceptive" as they like to call it. it consists of two girls chatting away about not using condoms and the commercial ends in a nice slogan "after the fact, after the act."

now, i'll be the first to say that I have nothing at all againt Plan B. I'm not gonna bring a political argument into this but I'm pro-choice and happy to say it. What I do have a problem with is what Plan B is now being used for. I have had one, ONE, woman come to me, completely embarrassed to be buying it, explaining (not that I had asked) that he forgot to wear a condom yadda yadda.
I have had DOZENS of girls come in to buy it (or with a nice rx for it from the Planned Parenthood down the street) with no sense of the lesson here. I give out Plan B to welfare recipients who are not on any form of birth control. I gave a Plan B to a couple once where the boy exclaimed "wow $40? we got it for $20 at Planned Parenthood last time."

Last time. Meaning that this has happened more than once. Girls are currently using this as birth control, instead of practicing safe sex methods. because condoms "aren't cool." whatever. Plan B should be used exactly as its name implies: when Plan A fails.

There's no radio ad for condoms. Or for preventing STDs or how to practice safe sex. No ads telling you how many young people contract AIDS by not practicing safe sex. No ad the educates young minds about consequences of whoring around with the hottest guy in homeroom and having his baby at 16.

I'm all for Plan B for the RIGHT reasons. NOT as birth control. Sometimes I feel like throwing a 6-pack of Trojans in the bag at no cost in the hopes they'll get used. These scripts come with REFILLS. But never, NEVER do I see a Plan B script with an accompanying script for birth control. Or even condoms, cuz welfare (ahem, I and my fellow citizens with jobs) will pay for those too.

If you don't know how to take on the responsibility sex comes with, you shouldn't be having it.

We're one step away from radio ads explaining how to use a wire coat-hanger, people.

This subject really gets me fired up... so in closing let me give you some stats:

"Nearly four in 10 young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20. This totals nearly one million a year. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended."

"Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school, (only one-third receive a high school diploma) and more likely to end up on welfare (nearly 80 percent of unmarried teen mothers end up on welfare)." This means that not only am I paying for your uneducated ass, I'm paying for your goddamn kid's too.

"The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. Teen pregnancy costs the United States at least $7 billion annually." 7 fucking billion dollars.

" Every year 3 million teens--about 1 in 4 sexually active teens-get a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD)."

oh ho and my personal favorite: " Young Americans between the ages of 13 and 24 are still contracting HIV at the rate of 2 per hour." age fucking 13.



"The correct and consistent use of latex condoms during sexual intercourse- vaginal, anal, or oral-can greatly reduce a person’ s risk of acquiring or transmitting most STDs, including HIV infection, gonorrhea, chlamydia, trichomonas, human papilloma virus infection (HPV), and hepatitis B." straight from the FDA.

sorry to go all political on you, but dammit, when you see these girls in here (especially more than once) picking up Plan B that are so young, so obviously uneducated, a part of me dies a little inside. How many STDs or pregnancies could have been prevented by using Plan A.