y interesting. They both deal with giving birth control to teenagers in middle school and high school environments. I will be critiquing the aforementioned essays in order to give my thoughts to the respective authors and exchange ideas on an important and compelling topic. The first post, “Given bad options, birth control the right call for these kids,” is authored by Froma Harrop of the Seattle Times and taken from the blog, “RedV.” In this piece, the writer talks about the hard decisions that arise when thirteen year old children are being impregnated at elementary schools in the United States. The second post is by Marc Moore from the blog, “The Van Der Galiën Gazette,” and is titled “Should Schools Dispense Birth Control?” In this essay the merits of giving birth control to young teenagers are questioned as are the rights of the schools to prevent parents form making important decisions such as should their child be given a contraceptive. My comments can be found by clicking on the links contained in this paragraph or by simply reading them as they are presented below:“Given bad options, birth control the right call for these kids”
I thought that you wrote on an interesting and provocative topic. You present your ideas in a clear manner through the use of strong language which helps to articulate your opinions. However, I think that perhaps the style was a little to casual for such serious subject matter. For instance, you open the post with “Thirteen-year-olds come to school very pregnant.” This seems to be attempting humor in a situation that does not merit such whimsical language. I was also unable to find your stance on giving adolescents birth control. You argue for both sides fairly well, but never actually come out and say whether you agree with one side or the other. At the end of the post you say, “There are no easy answers here, are there?” That is true, but what is the point of writing the post if not to inform others of your opinion and your reasons for supporting whatever side you choose? I believe that you make the issue too b
lack and white. You introduce the topic by saying that the options are giving the teens birth control or sending the girl to a school for wayward children. I understand that this was meant to be a joke, but it still leads to an oversimplification of the choices available to an impregnated young girl.“Should Schools Dispense Birth Control?”
I enjoyed the lively and entertaining style that was used in writing your post. It made this piece both fun to read and easily understandable. However, you may want to consider being a little more respectful. You open with “Demonstrating that a lot of Americans aren’t too bright . . .” which I must say I find to be offensive. You go on to compare having sex to eating candy which doesn’t seem to make much sense. You also state that “It’s one thing to say that teens should have relatively easy access to birth control . . . but quite another for nearly 1/3 of Americans to say that parents have no right to manage that decision for their kids.” So, you are saying that giving contraceptives to these adolescents is taking the decision away from the parents. But do you think that the girls who are getting impregnated ask their parents’ permission first? No, they simply go out and have unprotected sex because they are either too scared to ask their parents to buy them a condom or were told that sex is wrong and not given a condom when they asked for one. It really isn’t the parent’s decision since they cannot keep their children from having sex unless they never let them out of the house. So why not be safe and give these teenagers access to birth control. I think that you need to realize that there are not just two sides to this argument. It is not as clear cut as you seem to imagine and I suggest you take a closer look at the issue and refrain from putting your views on Americans in your posts.
