Messages By: fluffyfat

Chuck reminds me of that old joke, "I have to have a virgin because I can't stand criticism."   Why else would a man want a young girl instead of a woman his own age?  It's so easy to impress a child.  Seventeen year old girls don't ask many questions or make comparisons.   

What a shame that Michelle feels she has made too many mistakes to start over.  I know a fifty year-old woman who is just now getting her nursing degree.   

Jeremy seems to have been the most mature person on the show today.  He is so right about staying in school.  Michelle could go home, get her diploma, train for a career and have a good life.   

Whether or not she loves Chuck really doesn't matter at this point.  Most of us fall in love several times in our life.  Sometimes it's appropriate for us to be with that person, sometimes we need to wait until a better time to be with them and sometimes we have to walk away and hope to fall in love with a more appropriate person the next time. 

I'm so tired of men being the villian and women the poor victim in these situations.  Would people be accusing the girl of having "unprotected sex" if she had not been taking the pill while Matt used a condom?  It's considered protected sex if one person is using a reliable form of birth control; and the pill is usually 99.9% effective. 

I agree with Matt.  He was misinformed if not out and out lied to by the girl about her chances of getting pregnant.   He was not given any choices down the line about abortion or adoption.  

It's the woman who has had all the choices, so if a she decides that she is going to have sex before marriage, not get an abortion if she gets pregnant, and not put the baby up for adoption then she should also decide to support that baby herself.  Otherwise, she just might want to [i]get married[/i] before she starts having sex.  Marriage is the tried and true, time honored method of finding out if a man is committed enough to a woman to bear his children. 

If it's HER BODY then why isn't it HER CHILD.?  Let her support the child by herself, since she's the only one who gets to decide whether to bring it into the world or whether to put it up for adoption. 

Why didn't he use a condom?  1.  Because she told him she couldn't have children.  2.  Because she told him she was on the pill.  3.  Because many men find them uncomfortable and desensitizing.  4.  Because condoms have to be used at the last minute when urgency and passions are running high. 

Women have a much wider selection of birth control choices.  The pill is much more reliable and can be used in the sober light of day.  Why don't we hold women at least as responsible as the men for a pregnancy, when they have devices like the IUD that can be obtained once and then  virtually forgotten about? 

Children deserve parents who want them.  What kind of mother wants her child to grow up with a father who is absent from the home and forced to pay child support against his will? 

Yes, "stuff" happens but oddly enough women in the 40's and 50's didn't get pregnant outside of marriage more than 3% of the time -- now it's about 40% of the time.  Men didn't change -- women did.  It's simple.  If you don't want to raise your children alone, don't have sex till you're married. 

I'm so glad Dr Phil had this show; it's provided us with a fascinating debate. 

Day after day, Maury Povitch's show features women who have gotten pregnant and don't even know who the father of their child is.  The show helps them track down the father so they can be forced to pay child support for the rest of their lives.  Invariably the men are treated like criminals and the women like innocent victims of the crime.  It was so good of Dr Phil to show us a different side of the issue and to remind us that it's the unwanted children who suffer.  How will these children feel when they get old enough to watch the videos and realize that their fathers had to be forced to accept them and that their mothers used them as pawns in s game of relationships and money? 

I don't think  people are going to return to the old standards of waiting for marriage to have sex.  I also don't think that doctors are going to come up with a type of birth control for men that is as reliable as the pill is for women.  Condoms are great as disease preventatives but the statistics for birth control through condoms are not very good.  Add to the ineffectiveness are the problems with something that has to be used at the last minute,  when both people are excited and quite possibly high or inebriated; then add the single biggest fault with condoms -- that most men don't like the feel -- and, taken altogether , men just don't have a great form of birth control. 

So why are we blaming the men more than the women when unwanted children arrive?  Why aren't these, sexually active, single women on the pill or the IUD?  If they feel they might have skipped a pill or had sex without planning then why aren't they getting to the pharmacy the next day for the morning after pill? 

Women certainly do have the most choices.  From the varieties of birth control , to whether or not to put the baby up for adoption,  it's the woman's choice right down the line.  The amount of unwed birth has climbed from about 3% in the 1950's to over 40% today and it's breaking the tax payer's backs; our economy was never meant to support other people's children to this extent.   I don't think the answer is in tracking down the fathers with paternity suits -- I think it's making  young women take responsibility for themselves. 

I'm a little shocked at all the animosity toward men here. "Use your hand!"   

" Keep your pants on!"  "Think with your brain."    All these things can be said to the woman, too.  Shouldn't she have kept her pants on or used her hand if she didn't want a child? 

I get tired of the "accidents happen" refrain, too.  Yes, accidents happen but people who ignore traffic laws have many more accidents than those who obey them.  Ladies, if you don't want to raise a child by yourself, if you think your future children deserve a secure home with married parents; then get on the pill, don't forget to take it and use a spermicidal foam before actual sexual encounters.  Your chance of an accident will be about one in a million. 

[quote]Until science or God makes a way for them to do so, they should grow up, keep it zipped and like an ADULT, realize that ANY sexual encounter can result in a baby.[/quote] 

Words that are just as true for women as they are for men.  If a woman doesn't have enough money to support a child on her own then she should keep her own pants zipped and wait until marriage to have sex.  That system worked for thousands of years. 

Let's look at this situation: 

• Two people agree to have sex.
• They decide on a type of birth control.  In this case they decided that the woman should take the pill; a far more reliable source of birth control than if they had decided that the man should use condoms.
• The woman gets pregnant.
• He wants abortion.  She doesn't.  Her choice wins.
• He wants adoption.  She doesn't.  Her choice wins.
• He wants to step out of the child's life (just as she could have done, if she had chosen adoption).  She wants him to financially support the child for eighteen years.  Her choice wins.

How is this equal rights?  It seems like simple fairness  that if an unmarried woman chooses to have sex,  get pregnant,  carry the baby, keep the baby and  raise the baby.  Then inherent in her choice is supporting  the baby herself.   

 If she had put the baby up for adoption would it be fair for the adoptive parents to garnish her wages for support and call her a dead beat mother?  Would all of you be saying she shouldn't have had sex if she didn't want to pay ?  Would you be calling her immature and selfish for not wanting to be in the baby's life?