Thursday, June 25, 2009

Paying teenage girls not to get pregnant?

I think this qualifies as the biggest WTF of my life.

I happened to stumble upon this news while watching the trustiest news station ever, CP24. Now here's what's going on:

GREENSBORO -- A buck-a-day -- that's the incentive being offered to young girls to keep them from getting pregnant... Brown said she hopes the program, which pays $1 each day to 12-to-18-year-old girls, will keep them from getting pregnant. In addition to remaining pregnancy-free, the girls must also attend weekly meetings. The program is funded by a four-year grant from the state... Under the program, $7 is deposited into an interest-bearing college fund that the girls can collect once they graduate high school. Some recent graduates earned more than $2,000 and are an inspiration to those still in the program... If a girl drops out or gets pregnant, her money is divided among the other girls still in the program.

This is ridiculous. You're giving someone an incentive for not doing something? What ever happened to hard-earned money? Hell, if I wasn't so pissed off by that I'd be glad to get money for something that wouldn't happen to me. You know why? Because I don't want it to. It's all about choice.

What gets me even more is the fact that a girl's money is divided among the others if she drops out or gets pregnant. There are no words that can be put to what's going on in my mind at the moment.

Let's try to compare it to this: It's like rewarding overweight kids for not having cake for the day. You can't really say that all overweight children will have cake. Some may choose to have cake. Others may hate cake and will avoid it at all costs. But why give money to overweight children for not eating cake? That's not solving the problem, it's just needless rewarding.

All I'm saying is this: That's definitely not the way to solve the problem.

 
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