I read this story because I love animal stories. Seriously, the best email I get every day is my LOLCats one.

Reading this article about a lost dog being found with a two-week old baby cuddled next to it warms my heart. Look how kind animals can be…and how cruel human beings can be. Makes me nearly as sad as it does happy.

However, the thing that really struck me about the story was this simple line. The Director of Health for the District in Ghana where the baby was found, said this:

Azure noted that she couldn’t say what had led to the baby’s desertion by his mother, but speculated that the parents were teenagers, and took the opportunity to caution locals against unprotected sex.

Simply cautioned people against having unprotected sex. Especially teenagers since they are the suspected parents.

There was no lecturing about the benefits of abstinence. No arguments over whether birth control should be given to teens. No disparaging remarks about a female “slut” needing birth control. No religious accusations about the sinfulness of birth control Just simple advice: use birth control.

Why are we taking such big steps backwards in our country? Ladies, why are we letting it happen? You know we don’t have to stand by and let the men take care of us. We can vote. Women fought for that right already. Our foremothers set us up for a better life than they had.

Yet, the past two years have been a political hell for women. When November rolls around, what will you be thinking? Will you be voting for the candidates who have the best interest of women? Or will you continue to support old men who believe women are barely better than cattle, are sluts for enjoying sex, or aren’t worth being paid the same as men?

It’s in our hands. It’s in our hands.

I know abortion and birth control have become hot issues once again. Let me just say this: despite what you personally believe in, do you really want to make life harder for your daughters and granddaughters? If your daughter comes to you raped or with a problem pregnancy, do you want her to suffer the indignities that are being put into place?

Do you want your teenagers playing birth control roulette? Male or female? Two people are having sex, two people need to take responsibility. Is a condom or a pill, really so terrible if it prevents an unwanted pregnancy?

Or are these problems the problems of poor people? Indigent people? Immigrant people?

Unfortunately, no. They are the problems of our whole society. We aren’t a country with a surplus of unwanted children because we are doing something right. We are doing something wrong.

And who we elect come November can make the problem worse…or make it better. Let’s take the morality out of sex and look at it as the natural bodily function that it is. Because people–young and old!–will continue having sex. Whether or not you tell them it’s bad, evil, or wrong. Because it isn’t. It’s sex.

It’s a bodily function that carries great responsibility because the consequences are so high. Let’s make the reponsibility easy to access, easy to use.

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