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Robot Babies Not Effective Birth Control, Australian Study Finds (sky.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Girls given imitation babies to look after in an effort to deter teenage pregnancy could actually be more likely to get pregnant, according to a study. Researchers in Australia found 8% of girls who used the dolls were expecting by the age of 20, compared with 4% of those who did not. The number of girls having at least one abortion was also higher among girls given the dolls: 9% compared to 6%. 'Baby Think It Over' dolls were used in a Virtual Infant Parenting (VIP) programme which began in 57 schools in Western Australia in 2003. During the three-year study, published in The Lancet, 1267 girls aged 13 to 15 used the simulators -- which need to be fed and changed, while 1567 learned the normal health curriculum. The idea originated in the United States and is used in 89 countries. Researchers from the Telethon Kids Institute in Western Australia are now warning that such programmes may be a waste of public money.
I find robots very effective at birth control. I've not managed to get one pregnant yet.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Robot Babies Not Effective Birth Control, Australian Study Finds
Depends on where you install them.
It would be nice if the conservatives started admitting that birth control is effective birth control.
Until the dolls literally spray genuine, authentic baby shit and vomit on you in the middle of the night, they are going to be inadequate to the task of dissuading girls from wanting to make babies.
If you can't actually fill them with a truly realistic substitute for unwanted infant fluids, they're worthless.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Schools should stick to Reading, Writing and Math, and drop the stupid social experiments that usually cause more problems than they solve.
If we do that, where else can we attain such valuable data that benefits society?
Not to mention more efficient?
Handing out condoms and showing how to use them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm a centrist. I believe in birth control and sex ed for all children.
However, before today's results, I would have thought the robot baby IN ADDITION to sex ed and teaching about birth control was a good idea. I've not read the nitty-gritty of Australia's tests. (Are the robot baby girls getting less Sex Ed teaching) so I won't rule out Robot Babies as a viable option- it certainly shouldn't replace learning.
I'd be interested in knowing WHY the robot babies failed. Do the girls consider the experience "not that bad". Do they think "I've done it with a robot, I can handle my own child". Or is it simply that they didn't receive as good sex ed teaching as the control group?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I think she was about 15 yo when this was assigned as homework in public school (in N Carolina, USA). She's from an affluent household and always said, I'll never have kids. After? Now she is looking forward to having children, someday. She's a Sr in H.S. now and picking her universities for next year. An all around great young lady.
I have seen the "baby effect" in action. When a women shows other women a new baby, it can cause the other women to have a stronger desire to have that experience (of holding a newborn) again. I don't see this leading to a sudden number of new pregnancies in said social group, but it does seem to heighten maternal instincts.
Just like smelling food may increase one's hunger, perhaps stimuli that elicits a similar instinct in women also has the effect of increasing desire to have a real child.
Just a speculation that crossed my mind.
Your reading, writing, and math list is pretty dated unless you are talking about the lower portion of grade school. A purely practical program needs to include science, engineering, and computer programming. Without those things a school curriculum would be pretty useless today. About the only thing you'd be qualified for would be pumping gas or management.
I have seen teen parents have a child... then just when I think they will not do that again... they get pregnant again.
Seems that some things just cant't be stopped in all cases.
That being said, I'm sure it helps; I have twins. Do I want a third child... ehhhh, maybe after some further therapy I'll consider it. :)
We must make these robot babies uglier, more colicky, & stinkier.
The one impact that robot babies don't have is financial. They might take up a lot of your time, but they don't take your money as well.
Sounds plausible doesn't it? Show the young lady exactly what it is like to have a child, but without them having one. That should scare them into not wanting children, right?
However, when I read about this I thought "Aren't they risking priming and further activating all of the reproductive programming that women (and men) are subject to at that age?" I mean really, haven't we noticed yet that reproduction is a dirty trick that our biology plays on us? The drive to procreate is definitely not rational, in light of population pressure, economic well being, and lost opportunities swallowed up in the time it takes to raise young. But in spite of this it persists at a rate that is greater than necessary to sustain the species. What does that tell you? It tells me that reproductive motivations have root access to the wetware OS and are using that access to control the system subtly and pervasively.
Personally, I am surprised it isn't more effective at driving up pregnancy rates than it is.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The bottom line is that the "conservatives" advocating abstinence training are actually right. The only actual way to reduce teen pregnancy is to encourage them to stop fucking so much.
That's like saying the most effective way to stop the tide coming in is to stand on the beach and tell the tide not to come in. I mean it works perfectly when it works.
But much like the tide won't stop when you tell it to, there is nothing you can say to teenagers to stop them fucking.
Back to your stats, condoms are pretty effective when used correctly--98%, not 82%. When used badly they have high failure rates. The CDC data indicates that you should be telling teenagers how to use condoms properly.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Change the root password. :)
That's what psychedelics and disassociatives are for.
Straight off a Google search result quoting a CNN article:
To raise a child born in 2013 to the age of 18, it will cost a middle-income couple just over $245,000, according to newly released estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture."
Yeah, that's a big of money!
1) Expecting young humans to be rational
2) Expecting humans of any age to be rational about one of the most powerful hardwired instincts: reproduction.
Girls that are going to give in to their hormone-driven instincts are going to do so no matter what you do, unless you physically or medically restrain them somehow. Giving girls in that category babydolls like they did just 'trains' them to take care of the infants they'll eventually have too soon anyway, it doesn't deter them; more likely it just softens the impact of the reality of having a child to take care of.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
You have figures for all the other methods. What are the figures for "encouraging them to stop fucking so much"?
The figures quoted say otherwise. True, the worst contraceptive you mention is successful with 72% of users across a year never having a problem, however the pill is successful for 91% of users (over a year), and the CDC includes reversible birth control measures that are more than 99% effective in the chart you mention.
It's also worth mentioning that the failures aren't necessarily a function of the devices themselves so much as user error. Condoms usually "fail" not because they break or anything else obvious, but because people who rely upon them frequently decide to chance not using them. Almost all versions of the pill can be rendered useless if combined with certain drugs - notably many antibiotics - and are more than 99% effective if used properly.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I think that would be more like running /etc/password through a shredder and expecting to still logon without issue.
Also, AC et al, STFU with this identify-portion-of-political-spectrum BS and talk about pros and cons of specific policies.
Requiem for the American Dream
That's unfair, the underage pregnancy problem apparently existed already whereas the some-company-doesn't-have-lots-of-public-sector-cash has likely been fixed.
Potentially, various other corollary issues involving politicians lacking holiday homes have been at least partially remedied.
Requiem for the American Dream
Enjoy living in your cave.
Giving boys robot girlfriends might have worked better :)
'Cause in modern society children are much, much, much, much better off if they are born to parents that have built up some emotional, personal and financial stability.
When we were evolving, that was not the case - your stability mostly came from living within a small tribe that helped you when you needed it. Far more critical back then was for the mother to be healthy enough and fast-healing enough to handle a pregnancy.
Now we have modern medicine to take care of the "need to be healthy" part, but we no longer have the tribe to help take care of you and your new family. So now the outcome is better if the parents are older.
anything else that qualifies them to be parents
Not strictly true. They have young healthy fertile bodies.
Historically that's counted for far more than wisdom, common sense or other skills.
The consequences for males is less, because society starts off by saying boys have nothing to say in the matter of birth control and abortion. When you start the conversation by excluding the other parent as irrelevant, you should at least understand that part of that is how you frame other aspects of the same event.
This isn't a commentary on Abortion at all, but rather the framing of "my body my right" logic that then gets changed after 9 months.
For instance, Family court is one area where Men are at a complete disadvantage. Not that anyone cares.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If they had to put up with one of these things and they still go out and get knocked up, presumably at least part of the reason why is that they feel the task was rewarding and they feel confident in their ability to handle it. Sounds like a win, to me.
In the 19th Century, a group of women who were anti-alcohol bc their husbands spend their paychecks at the bar instead of bringing it straight home first invented organized sports as something else to do. They were so successful at it they went on to found the Women's Christian Temperance Union to ban alcohol in bars and everywhere else completely. This passed into our constitution, of course, but had to be repealed later, as it did not increase the relief from boredom.