Host:
BONNIE ERBE
GUESTS:
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS,
MARJORIE CLIFTON,
NICOLE KUROKAWA NEILY,
MANAL OMAR,
PATRICIA SOSA
FRIDAY, May 3, 2013
Transcript provided by
DC Transcription –
BONNIE ERBE: This week on To the Contrary, first, Plan B under fire again. Then, are millennial teens more materialistic than prior generations? Behind the headlines, sexuality and Islam.
(Musical break.)
MS. ERBE: Hello, I’m Bonnie Erbe. Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives. Up first, the Plan B battle continues.
Of all things, the prochoice Obama administration is challenging a federal court ruling that made emergency contraceptives available to women and girls of all ages. This decision came hours after the Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception to females 15 and older.
The legal challenge will not stop the FDA decision from taking effect, but it reignites the debate about young women having access to Plan B without the consent of a doctor or parent. Reproductive rights group, normally supportive of the president, criticized the move as politically motivated.
So Patricia Sosa, was this a decision based more on politics or health care?
PATRICIA SOSA: Well, it is a compromise. It’s clearly a compromise based both on the politics and on the health data and probably his personal concern that he doesn’t want girls under 15 because – to have access, so it’s both.
NICOLE KUROKAWA NEILY: Political. The judge found that the health concerns are unfounded, so this is just a purely politically motivated decision.
MARJORIE CLIFTON: I think it speaks to a large conversation that needs to happen around the mental health that it goes in hand with the FDA type decisions about physical health. Absolutely politics is involved, which is I think a greater conversation about what we need to be doing in these areas.
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS: You know, honestly, I think that President Obama has two young daughters around the same age and that probably had a lot to do with it. Would he want his daughters to be able to have access to something like Plan B, you know, without parental consent. And I really do think that probably had a lot to do with the decision.
MS. ERBE: But you know, this is also the first president ever to address a Planned Parenthood convention. Doesn’t it seem a little schizophrenic that he is largely a prochoice guy and that he would take this position?
MS. SOSA: I mean, I don’t think the position is so outrageous. I mean –
MS. ERBE: It’s not outrageous.
MS. SOSA: It’s allowing over-the-counter access to girls older than 15. He is asking for the court to state the order because he thinks that the court is intruding into regulatory proceedings. And the only difference, really, is three years between 15 and 12 because the order of the judge is basically, you know, older than 12. You’ve seen the equivalency of condoms, you know. When boys go and buy condoms, you don’t ask them how old they are, well, you shouldn’t be asking girls. But really, it’s a very progressive decision on this part and an –
MS. CHAMBERS: I’m going to defend President Obama on this one and on the Planned Parenthood thing. I know it’s shocking I’m going to defend President Obama. But you know, when she was talking to Planned Parenthood about women having the right to choose, he was not talking about children who are under the age of 15. That is two totally separate subjects. We discussed this when I was here, a few weeks ago, about how vehemently I’m against children being able to get this drug and I still stand by that.
MS. ERBE: At what age does a girl become a child or a girl become a woman? I mean, is there a market there that we should be going by?
MS. CHAMBERS: Sure and that it’s a gray area, but here’s what I’ll say. We look at other things that you have to have parental consent, where you have to be over the age of 18 to get. You know, we’re looking at liquor, cigarettes. I still have to go in and show an ID if I want to get decongestion. And so when you look at all those sorts of things and then you say, but girls under the age of 15, you know, children should be able to have access to that. That’s where I’m putting the boundary at.
MS. CLIFTON: What’s troubling here is the politicizing of this issue. And absolutely, there’s politics at play, but Republicans talk about, you know, overreach of government, and, you know, in this situation, you could call it overreach. And Democrats are revolting against the president putting, but at the same time want to care for our women. So I think what is needed here, in the same way that we do research on driving age and drinking age, and all these kinds of things, is more understanding of the implications that go beyond just the physical impact on a woman, but also the mental health aspect, where education is needed. And we need to be having a broader conversation instead of this politicized two-year –
MS. ERBE: OK, but what – tell me what aspect of mental health are you getting at here. I mean, to me, if a young woman, girl, child, whatever you want to call her, is old enough to get pregnant, I would think – or possibly be pregnant – let’s remember, Plan B doesn’t abort a pregnancy. It just stops a pregnancy from taking place. Then why isn’t she old enough to make the decision that I’m too young to have this child?
MS. CLIFTON: You could – yeah, you could argue that if you’re – you can make the decision to be sexually active, you should be able to make the decision to be able to handle and the decisions around that. But I think this speaks, again, to where sex education is needed, where we need to be more proactive about educating young women about, frankly, the emotional burden that comes with sexual activity at a young age.
MS. ERBE: And that makes perfect sense, but tell – a little bit more about what you’re talking about emotionally, what should the emotional survey be that you want to see before you decide whether this is a good move or not?
MS. CHAMBERS: I think about making – and frankly, I think this conversation need to come in even to the abortion debate and others as well, in terms of, you know, it’s not a black and white regulation. We need to look more broadly at these issues of women’s health instead of throwing it into this political court of what age. So I don’t know what the clear cut decision is, but I think that we need to broaden the conversation. We need to broaden the research. Again, looking at the number of single mothers in this concentrated area of 62 percent of single mothers being the 20 to 24 range, where education is needed for our girls.
MS. NEILY: I mean, I think if you need the law to draw a line and to help you parent, you have bigger problems at home – (laughter) – quite honestly. This is not an abortifacient. As you said, if there are children who are having sex, we don’t want teen mothers. We don’t want teen abortions. So this is something that we should be addressing. And the course of the whole election was about the war on women. If Republicans didn’t want you pay for others birth control, he equated that to denying access. And then he turns around and denies access. And that to me is a problem.
MS. SOSA: Denying access to whom? He’s not denying access. He’s the opposite. He’s opening access. You know, he is – maybe the problem is between –
MS. ERBE: But wait a second. Wait a second. Let’s roll it back here a minute. The FDA said anyone, any woman of any age, any girl of any age, however you want to call it should have access to this because there’s no doubt, there’s no health downside for taking what is essentially an overdose of birth control pills. That’s what prevents the pregnancy from implanting.
So if you’re saying that he compromised, how – that’s not a medical compromise because the scientific panel said it’s OK for girls of any age to have access to it.
MS. SOSA: Bonnie, I’m not questioning the fact that it’s a political compromise. I know it’s a political compromise in a very polarized environment. And I – you know, in some ways, I would say, well, you’re compromising on the only side that you’re on is your own political base and not the Right because the Right is not going to want you to do this anyhow.
(Cross talk.)
MS. ERBE: But explain for me what the calculus was here on Obama’s part because, on the one hand, he’s not going to win any conservative votes for the Democratic Party by stopping access at below 15, right, so –
MS. CLIFTON: It is completely inconsistent. I mean, there’s no question about it because there is the FDA countering what he’s saying. So the question for me is who is putting the pressure on them to move the age and why are they doing it in that way, because, again, how do we make this a holistic conversation, one that is actually productive, instead of this nitpicking over details that clearly is political in some parts.
MS. ERBE: Last word.
MS. CHAMBERS: I don’t think it’s nitpicking over details. I think there is a huge difference between 17 and 15. I also think there is a huge difference between 15 and 12 or 10 or 11. The argument about them being children, I’m sorry, I really do have to go back to that. You all say that, you know, if they’re old enough to be sexually active, they should be old enough to get this. I think, you know, there is a lot of instances in which they may not have chosen to be sexually active, and that’s where my concern comes in about them having access to this drug, sweeping it under the rug, and not discussing it with a parent, which is where parental consent comes in.
MS. ERBE: All right. Let us know where you think. Please follow me on Twitter @BonnieErbe or @TotheContrary.
From emergency contraception to materialistic millennials?
Today’s teenagers are lazier and more materialistic than baby boomers were, that according to a new study. Compared to boomers, millennials place more importance on owning such things as big houses and shiny new cars. Yet, they’re also the generation least willing to work hard or long hours.
Teens may feel this way because the society they grew up in gave them a sense of entitlement, and that may be the fault of the boomer generation.
So Marjorie Clifton, in this over-materialized, overdeveloped, over-advertized, overpopulated world, you have a young daughter. How are you going to raise her not to be materialistic? How do you fight back against all those influences?
MS. CLIFTON: Well, I think it’s parents – it’s challenging. And I think one of the things that we’re seeing when we look at data attribute to the different generations is that it very much is indicative of the time, sort of what’s happening in the outer atmosphere. And it’s – you know, the parents at this table – I assume to be parents at the table – know it is very challenging because you sometimes are working counterculture. Now, I’m oldest of five children. And my brother is a millennial, my youngest brother. And I’m generation X. And I can tell you the disparity between the attitudes, the values, the ways that we act, even raised in the same household from – and an eight-year difference – is completely different.
And you know, you could argue – some of – you know – his friends’ behaviors and things are a little bit more on the entitled and their values are a little bit different. But you know what, he was raised in a boom time. It was during that, you know, high-tech boom, businesses were on the rise. Whereas, I can remember the crash in the ’80s within the oil businesses and when everyone’s houses were underwater. So I think that changes the values. Now, as parents, I think it means how do we sort of protect, how do we instill a work ethic. But something millennials are doing to change the 21st century workforce, in general, is changing the value of work-life balance. And I think they’re criticized a lot for that, but, frankly, it’s something that even the Gen-X and boomers can embrace in terms of this need and this value of time with friends.
MS. SOSA: I have to make a comment about this issue. As a boomer with two millennial kids, and the challenges – you know, the technology impact tremendously. You know, what is to press a button and get everything you want. I mean, just like this. So of course you’re going to feel entitled. And at the same time, they have to work so hard, you know, I see my kids, you know –
MS. ERBE: Competition to get into college is so much worse.
MS. SOSA: – competition is tremendous, tremendous and the expectations academically and in every aspect in terms of competition for these kids is tremendous.
At the same time, I’m going to make an observation, something that I’m having a really hard time. My son is 17. I would like my son to work. But you know what, he cannot do a pay per hour because adults have it. He cannot work even at McDonald’s because adults have those jobs. So I want my kids to work and I cannot find a entry level job for them. So it’s a very challenging situation.
MS. CHAMBERS: Yes, as a millennial, I can definitely say it’s. I am a millennial sitting at the table. That’s a very challenging situation. You know, the jobs numbers came out today. And for the youth jobless rate, it’s an effective rate of 16 percent. So even those who want to work, it’s very difficult for them. But I don’t like to call them millennials, by the way. I like to call them the iGen, not just for iPads, just because it does seem like a me, me, me generation.
On the flipside of that, though, I don’t think this generation is particularly more materialistic than past generations. It’s just a different type of materialism. I think –
MS. ERBE: Different type how? That’s interesting.
MS. CHAMBERS: If you look back 100 years, what did people 100 years ago really wanted and how did they determined wealth? You had a –
MS. ERBE: A horse and buggy? (Laughter.)
MS. CHAMBERS: No, no. You had a big nice house. You – cars were just coming around, so you had a car. And you had fancy clothes. Those are still the same things that I think Americans and millennials value in terms of what makes you richer, the things that they want.
MS. ERBE: Yeah, but I will – I want to say that the level of advertising has gone crazy. A couple of years ago, I started going in this pizza joint for dinner with my husband once a week. The ads chase you into the bathroom. (Laughter.) I mean, there’re ads – when you close the bathroom door, there’s an ad there.
I grew up in Manhattan. You look at pictures of Times Square in 1970 and what it looks like now. There’re 10 million times as many ads in Times Square, which always had tons of advertising, as there was 45 years ago. I mean, the whole world, it’s disgusting. (Laughter.) It’s crammed with advertising.
MS. NEILY: There’s advertising and there’s also – I mean, going back to your point about the times we live in, what was the big political message of the election? The life of Julia. And so we can depend on Social Security. We can depend on federal programs to get us to – to loan us small businesses. We can depend on Medicaid. We can depend on Medicare. And so people – I think we’re sending a message that people don’t need to be responsible for their own lives. And that to me is a very scary thing.
MS. ERBE: So wait, that’s interesting. But Patricia raised a fascinating point about, you know, pushing a button, getting whatever you want from directions to buying a product, to whatever. Which do you think is a bigger influence? The one you just raised or that?
MS. NEILY: I mean, I’m a libertarian. Of course I think the government is a bigger problem. (Laughter.)
MS. CLIFTON: Yeah, but I would argue, I don’t know many people who go, you know what I want? I want to be on welfare for the rest of my life and relying on other people. I think it is a very much a generation of like self-empowerment, go out and make it happen. And what they’re running into is this, which I’ve even heard rates of up to 24 percent of young people without jobs. And that’s a real problem.
MS. SOSA: It’s a bad combination of very easy access to absolutely everything, from information to material things, and very hard to find a job in order to make the money, in order to get those things. So you’re getting them from –
(Cross talk.)
MS. NEILY: – fairytales these days. I mean, it’s a Zuckerberg. It’s Google. It’s these kids who are 30, who can wear hoodies and have made billions of dollars by the time they’re 30. And so there is an expectation that I don’t have to put in a lot of work and I can get an enormous payday.
MS. ERBE: All right –
MS. NEILY: I’ve had terrible interns, uh. (Laughter.)
MS. ERBE: We are out of time and thank you, Marjorie Clifton, for joining this portion of the show.
Behind the headline, “Sex and the Citadel” is the title of journalist Shereen El Feki controversial new book. In it she explores the complicated relationship among sexuality, Islam, and Arab culture.