The Moaning After Pill

http://news.yahoo.com/debate-over-morning-pill-15-olds-152402863.html

NOW AVAILABLE WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES!

     Okay before I begin this rant, let me make a basic statement or two.  I am against abortion except when it involves the health of the mother or in cases of Rape and Incest.  I realize that this probably makes me very unpopular with a lot of people, but meh so what else is new.  I am also okay with the so-called Morning After Pill.  A lot of you will probably say that makes me a hypocrite, but to me it all boils down to exactly when does a bunch of rapidly dividing cells go from being "Whee, let's divide and multiply like its 1999" to becoming a person?
     People argue that life begins at conception and in a purely technical sense, they are correct.  Once Old Mr. Squiggles meets up with his date and makes happy time, the product of their union is indeed alive.  (Course I could also point out that both the sperm and egg are alive before that so technically live begins before conception.)  No, to me the argument should be, "When does awareness begin?"  After all viruses are alive and multiply, but not many people cry out when they are wiped out in the billions.
     Which revolves back to my support of the Morning After Pill.  Sorry, folks but even two days after conception, that mass of cells inside the lady are no more self aware than the aforementioned viruses.  So if a magic pill can stop some woman who had a little bit too much to drink the night before or who made a bad decision from carrying a kid that they do not want then I am all for it.  If you think that makes me a hypocrite, well I have been called much worse and would be happy to argue the points with you.
     Now having said that rather long winded pre-rant, let us get onto the meat of this rant.  WTF is the idea of letting children have access to a drug that essentially takes away the biggest consequence of having sex?  If our government has their way (Obama is against this BTW, God Bless him), the morning after pill will be available over the counter to children as young as 14-15 years of age.  So Kids can't buy cold medicine, but don't worry!  If little Jenny goes out and gets knocked up the night before she can buy a pill to fix it!
     Folks, I know that Teenagers have sex.  Hells, they had it back when I was a Teenager.  (Well when we weren't running from dinosaurs.)  I won't even say it is more common today than in my time, because I knew a lot of kids who did it.  (Yes I was one of them, deal with it.)  We will never stop this from happening despite what a lot of people wish.  Unless we find someway to magically neuter everyone till they reach the age of 21, it will keep happening pretty much forever.  That is just (pardon the pun) the facts of life.
     The main difference I see these days is responsibility.  Daddy always told my brother and I (Me?  Always mix those two up.) that if we planned on having sex, we had to deal with the consequences.  He said if we got a girl pregnant, then we had to take of the girl and the kid.  He told us that if we didn't want that we either had to not have sex or take precautions.  He even bought me my first condoms.  (As an anecdotal aside here, I am reminded of the night when my Brother was in a nasty car wreck on the old One Way Bridge outside of our home town of Goshen.  When Daddy and I went to the hospital to pick him up, the nurse gave Daddy my Brother's things and Daddy kind of grinned when he saw the string of condoms.)
     IMNSHO, the MA Pill does away with another of the consequences of children experimenting with sex.  Nothing is going to stop the kids who are determined to have sex no matter what, but a lot of kids are terrified of experimenting with sex because they might make a baby or get punished when their parents find out that someone is pregnant.  It is kind of like a MAD for teenagers.  (Mutually Assured Destruction for those who didn't grow up during the Cold War.)  They resist temptation because they know that either outcome is going to completely screw them over.  (Again pun intended.)
     I am okay with a frightened teenage girl taking the pill.  However, I am not okay with an underage teenage girl being able to get one of the pills and pop it anytime she decides to make the beast with two backs.  This does not discourage underage sex and does not encourage responsible actions.  In fact, it encourages irresponsible actions because if the pill can keep you from getting pregnant (BTW it is not 100% effective) then there is nothing keeping you from doing it over and over again.
     Like I said, we cannot (as much as we might like) stop underage sex.  It simply ain't going to happen.  However, if we keep taking away the consequences of doing it, the situation is only going to get worse.  It is time we stopped inventing new excuses and started taking responsibility.

End of rant