Valgex
Why do you think all these physical or mental disorders just started coming up in the past 70 years?
Like Niko said, physical and mental disorders are nothing new. They've been around a heck of a lot longer than 70 years.
Some disorders are less common now because we have cured them, or learned how to treat them, or learned how to prevent them. Others are more common because some babies survive now when they might not have survived a few hundred years ago because the medical technology just wasn't there.
But either way, health problems were certainly there.
Valgex
I think something should be done to control human population, but in a humane way of course. I was told they can disable both male and female's ability to reproduce starting at the age they are born and re-enable it when they are 18, perhaps they should start with this?
I agree that something needs to be done.
A few hundred years ago, teen pregnancy was actually the norm. Girls got married when they were about 12 to 14 years old. Even 60 years ago, most girls were getting married right out of high school, which meant a lot of them were pregnant before they were 20.
But things are different now. We're making childhood longer and longer for many reasons. Part of that is because the average lifespan is longer, so we can afford to stretch childhood out. Another part of that is the fact that college is getting more affordable, more expected, and more necessary. Another part of it is the fact that we now know that a person's body is not fully developed even when it looks fully developed. Teens are more vulnerable to things like HPV because the cervix does not fully form until adulthood. The part of the brain that helps us make logical decisions doesn't fully develop until adulthood either. So teens are more likely to engage in risky behavior while pregnant. And babies born to teens have more health problems.
So it's becoming increasingly important for us to delay parenthood. It'd be great if we could flip a switch and make people only become fertile when they're 21. But we can't do that. A lot of birth control methods need to be used every time, taken daily, or taken weekly. So that's still relying on everyone to be responsible. Depo is an injection taken every three months, but it has some horrendous and irreversible side effects, and the FDA does not recommend it for teens and young women. There's tubal ligation and vasectomy, but they can't always be reversed. So we don't really have any options that are very long term, very safe, and very reversible.
So the best we can do right now is probably up the sex education. It's inexcusable that some schools do not teach sex ed. Others schools have that one day of sex ed during health class, and that's often just a discussion of STDs. It's inexcusable that some people have sex without knowing anything about birth control and fertility. I think sex ed should be a class on its own, and it should be required, possibly even every year. Topics covered should include STDs, STD tests, fertility, menstrual cycles, the birthing process, breastfeeding, pap smears, cervical cancer, self exams, human anatomy, birth control, and more.
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