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Yeah. Though I'd like to make a small correction. I don't think condoms cause AIDS. I think condoms don't prevent HIV infection as well as it says it does.
JoC, you wrote, “I think condoms don't prevent HIV infection as well as it says it does.”
What are the amounts that lead you to this conclusion? What studies have you reviewed that show this?
I have my personal reasons. A close friend of mine got infected by HIV. He had only had sex with two other men. All his encounters involved the use of a good quality condom. He couldn't believe it when he got diagnosed.
Now, this is anecdotal and will not (and I think should not) convince anyone. Here's something to ponder though. Years ago, a drug was made as a PreP (Pre-exoposure profilaxis). It's a pill that an HIV-negative partner takes when having sex with his/her HIV positive partner to reduce the chances of infection. This PreP is recommended for use TOGETHER WITH the use of a condom. Which makes you think, if condoms are so effective, why use PreP at all? Another thing to ponder, what is the effectiveness rate the condoms themselves say they have? I have yet to see a 100% effective condom. If you have, please send the link here.
The idea here is condoms, even when used correctly, do NOT have a 100% efficiency. Abstinence, however, when used correctly (meaning no sexual contact) does have a 100% efficiency.
Have you seen people claiming that condoms are 100% effective? They're about 98% effective when used correctly, but with typical use are only about 85% effective according to Planned Parenthood. Using more than one form of protection is always wise. There are other ways of lowering risk during sexual interaction as well. I'm in no way blaming your friend for contracting HIV - that's so awful.
We take calculated risks every day, whether it's driving, crossing a street (I once got hit by a car while crossing a crosswalk) or eating food prepared by others. We take the best precautions we know how, which is why education about safer sex is so important. We make choices about when the risk is worth it. The answer isn't always to completely abstain from these behaviors.
JoC, in other words, you have no data, rather just one acquaintance’s situation upon which you have based your assertion?
Cyber, even condom companies don't claim 100% effectivity. Actually, no one is claiming 100% effectivity. So I don't get why I have to cite more data on this when no one is making that claim. Not me, not you, no one here, not even the condom companies.
JoC,
So, because it is not 100% effective you shouldn't use it at all. Sounds like a plan.
I'm saying that there is a 100% effective solution, when done correctly.
How well did abstinence work for you?
Well, when I was practicing abstinence, I was perfectly fine. It's when I stopped practicing abstinence that things went wrong. Thanks for asking.
JoC, you wrote, “Well, when I was practicing abstinence, I was perfectly fine. It's when I stopped practicing abstinence that things went wrong. Thanks for asking.”
I suspect that everyone who fires up AR on the inter web and starts reading or typing is ‘practicing abstinence.’ If not, then their sex partners might have a legitimate complaint.
Seriously, though, the point is that the attempt to rely on abstinence as a wholesale method of birth control (and std prevention) has shown itself to be a terribly ineffective method.
Research showed that abstinence teaching in America caused a massive increase in unwanted teen pregnancies and STD's, it was an unmitigated disaster. Sex education, frank and honest so that children are able to understand all the risks, and birth control and contraception are proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and the spread of STD's.
I'll need to see the numbers on that but birth control and contraception and have not actually lead to less abortions. Ironically, access to contraception hasn't reduced the spread of STD's, it has done more to spread it. For this, I'll put two links for you to read:
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-HIV-rate-significantly-higher-in-Thaila...
https://www.tldm.org/news12/statisticsprovecondomsineffectiveagainsthiv.htm
The second one shows the differences in how Thailand and the Philippines handled the HIV crisis many years ago. In 2009, condom use became widespread in the Philippines and that was when more and more people got infected. I agree though, correlation doesn't mean causation but if it's happened twice already to two countries, why are we hesitant to support this idea?
Also, on abortion, if nothing is wrong with it, why would you want to reduce abortions?
Any percentage of STD's and unwanted pregnancies stopped by a condom is an improvement on 0% by not using one.
It's axiomatic that abstinence is not going to happen, and abstinence training has been an unmitigated disaster in the US states where it was used, causing significantly higher rates of unwanted pregnancies, single mothers, and STD's.
We should be encouraging more people to use condoms and teaching them How to maximise the protection they offer. This is especially true in poorer countries where women are essentially slaves to their reproductive cycles, with no proper medical advice or contraceptive pills available. We should be handing condoms out free at every opportunity. Not trying to dissuade their use as the RCC has done, in some cases where HIV infection is already endemic, even on occasions infecting over half the population.
That amounts to criminal negligence on a massive scale. It's one thing to believe a condom will anger a deity and not use one yourself, but to tell this to poor illiterate people in countries ravaged by AIDS, where an abortion is not an option is as recklessly irresponsible as it is sadistically cruel.
"I think condoms don't prevent HIV infection as well as it says it does."
They work better than not using them, I'd say that was reason to encourage people to always use protection, not tell Catholics everywhere they will go to hell if they use them, as it is a sin.
@JoC
1. I did not say more accessible abortion = reduced crime rates. I agreed with you, that is a difficult connection to make, I merely pointed out that unwanted children are likely to lead more difficult lives.
2. Because when a group of cells is a "person" or not is a matter of OPINION. And since it is a matter of opinion, the only person's opinion that matters is the host of these cells, the one who is sharing her body with these cells, and upon whom these cells are completely reliant. The good news is, with amazing medical advances, an advanced NICU is capable of making those cells not wholly reliant upon the mother for life as early as 20-23 weeks. Which means if the NICU with all it's costs are available you can draw a line there, because it is no longer about a woman's right to her own body versus a developing person's right to live.
3. Other ethicals ways to preventing pregnancy before it occurs from rape? What? Every woman should be on something like the pill or IUD incase they get raped? What if the woman does not want to do that? You know those have side effects right? What if the woman is actively trying for babies at the time with her partner? Do you not see how messed up this is? Especially if you are in the camp of: conception = person? Which would make it so that a woman would have no choice but to carry a baby to term even if she was raped horribly? How would you feel if your wife, or sister or mother got raped horribly and had to have that kid? What if the guy does not get caught and the guy does it again a year later? Do you want to take care of your wife through pregnancy? Pay the expenses of birth? Raise the child as your own and all the expenses? What if you wanted your own kid with your wife at the time? Even if the criminal got caught, it would be you and your wife that would have to pay all the expenses and take all the sacrifice. All because you think a blastocyst or zygote = a human baby when it clearly is not, at best you can argue it is a potential for a human.
What if a woman was kidnapped and raped repeatedly and not released/rescued until weeks after the rape? Has to carry the baby to term?
4. Day after pill is something a woman gets "the day after" the sex if she suspects she may be pregnant, that either the contraceptive may have failed or oops there was unprotected sex. The Plan "B" pill can prevent pregnancy by doing one of three things:
1)Temporarily stops the release of an egg from the ovary
2)Prevents fertilization
3)Prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus
I actually think most "pro life people" may say they draw the line at conception, but in reality, when it comes down to it, do not. I imagine a majority of pro-life women would take plan B, even it means a possibility of a "after conception fertilized egg" gets killed. Also remember 30-60 percent of all fertilized eggs never make it to healthy birth anyways in nature. (Or if you want to say your god, then it is simply your god changes its mind a lot and murders the "baby." Your god's abortion death count (based on how you define human life?) 10's of billions. Every fertile woman on the planet could get an abortion every 6 months and never even come close to the abortion count your "god" has.
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2. This is where we have a difference. When a "group of cells" is or is not a person is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of FACT. The FACT is at the point of conception, what we have is a new organism, that is human, that is NOT its mother or father, and is growing and trying to survive. What we have is a human being at the every earliest stages of its development.
3. I'd agree with you that rape is horrible. It's no joke. But will an abortion erase the rape? As hard as it is to say, abortion will not erase the rape. And if the fetus is a human being and a child of the woman, all abortion is really doing is allowing the woman to be complicit in the murder of her child. I do not see how that will help her with being raped.
4. "3)Prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus" this is actually the abortifacient effect I was talking about.
"I imagine a majority of pro-life women would take plan B, even it means a possibility of a "after conception fertilized egg" gets killed."
- I don't doubt you on this. But if they knew this was the action of the plan B pill, truly pro-life women would stop taking it.
"Also remember 30-60 percent of all fertilized eggs never make it to healthy birth anyways in nature."
- Also, 100% of all fertilized eggs will die. This doesn't give us the right to kill anyone we want.
Lucky for you, JoC, you’ll never have to face an unwanted pregnancy.
Why do you think that just because I'm a man, I'll never face an unwanted pregnancy? What if I get a girl pregnant and I don't want the baby. I'm still responsible for the child even if the pregnancy is unwanted. Usually, to make a child, you need two people. If a girl has an unwanted pregnancy, the man has one too.
Notice that couples, when they announce they're having a baby, they say, "We're pregnant." NOT "She's pregnant."
Also, invalidating my opinion because of my sex... isn't that the definition of sexist?
I’ll reword it, you’ll never have to be pregnant against your will.
No pithy comeback, JoC?
Okay. I'll grant you that. But why would that matter though? Is my opinion really worth less when talking about life just because I'm a man?
That is a loaded question and you’re smart enough to know that.
My point was that you, bringing up my sex had absolutely nothing to do with the arguments presented. You're correct in that I can't be forcibly impregnated by anyone but why should that matter at all? I seems to me you're trying to invalidate my argument on the basis of sex.
You said, “I do not see how that will help her with being raped.” Bingo! You do not and CANNOT EVER be in a position to understand it like a woman with an unwanted pregnancy. Therefore, your sex does indeed have something to do with the weight of your argument. And it matters. It matters because you are casting judgement on something you cannot fully understand. And you’re doing so on something as flimsy as an opinion about what you think constitutes a life. As much as you seem to want them to be, women are not axlotl tanks.
Educate me then how killing the unborn baby in her womb will somehow unrape this hypothetical woman.
Again, my sex doesn't dilute my opinion as I know for a fact that an abortion will not undo the rape that was already done. And I need not be a woman to know this.
"Educate me then how killing the unborn baby in her womb will somehow unrape this hypothetical woman."
Is that misrepresentation deliberate? Do you think a woman who has been raped, and becomes pregnant will be more or less traumatised if a man decides she must go through childbirth against here will? What of the baby when it is born, if it ever learns it was fathered by a rapist that will cause yet more unimaginable trauma. Does avoiding unnecessary suffering not feature in your morality at all?
"Again, my sex doesn't dilute my opinion as I know for a fact that an abortion will not undo the rape that was already done. And I need not be a woman to know this."
You need not be a woman to try and empathise, but your every word is showing how woefully unable you are to do so.
"What of the baby when it is born, if it ever learns it was fathered by a rapist that will cause yet more unimaginable trauma."
You're talking out your arse. I know people who have been in that situation and it did not bother them in the least. I know of women who have been raped and suffered no psychological damage at all. There are women who actually ENJOY being raped.
You think you have the answers to everything, you don't know shit. When someone with a better argument comes along you resort to petty insults and lies.
@shiningone
Uh, up until now this was all casual talk, now you are starting to worry me.
"There are women who actually ENJOY being raped."
That is scary that you think that. First off look up the word rape, You will find stuff like: "against their will" "unwanted" etc. If a woman enjoys forced sex that is no longer rape.
Second, and more importantly, it is pretty scary to me when you say statements like "you don't know shit" (implying you do know shit in comparison) and then talk about how you think some women enjoy being raped and others that have been raped suffer no psychological damage at all.
This sort of rationalization I have heard before, by people that rape women. I am not saying you are a rapist, but your statements here are rather scary in their similarity.
The good news is, I realize now there is no reason for me to debate with you anymore on this topic. Based on your last post I do not really feel a need to talk to someone like you at all, if I knew you in person I would advise any woman that was looking to date you to stay well clear simply quoting what you wrote.
And the reality is here in the US it seems to be the current law makers and public opinion is increasingly turning closer to my line of thinking (woman have rights to their own bodies) then your line of thinking as evidenced by the recent new york law.
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