Little grownups.

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: PARTING THOUGHTS - Sexual awareness of young women

WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be a child in the Western world in 2013? The ideal of the innocent, protected Little child, allowed to play, grow, and gradually learn to exert reason, has been a banner waved proudly. Charities for children in poverty-stricken countries highlight the dearth of a real childhood to touch Westerners' cholesterol-clogged heartstrings. Children should be treasured, well-fed, and educated, with time to play, create, and learn the skills of their cultures. They are not little adults, nor are they subhumans--two errors of times past.

Much of Western Europe has incorporated the innocent savage motif with a sexual libertine pattern. The wild, natural child has a right to explore wild, natural sexuality. The basis seems to be a rather democratic, laissez-faire attitude: why should grownups have all the fun? The result is strange to this parent: the age of consent in Europe is as low as 13. Thus, no doubt, the shoulder shrugging over the Roman Polanski scandal.

Americans are shocked at the idea that a 13-year-old could consent to sexual activity with an adult. On the other hand, the U.S. now has in place the right of females of any age to purchase, over the counter and without question, Plan B One Step, a dose of hormones powerful enough to stimulate a cascade effect through the endocrine system, resulting in a purging of the contents of the uterus. (Moreover, there are school districts that dispense this medication to students without their parents' knowledge.)

This process occurs naturally, approximately monthly, in fecund females. The hormonal rhythms are complex. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, estradiol, and follicle stimulating hormones all are orchestrated in an ebb and flow that affects not just ovulation and menstruation, but sleep, appetite, mood, water retention, gastro-intestinal functioning, and many other bodily systems. Plan B's purpose is to disrupt and short-circuit this process in order to prevent the possible implantation of a zygote. A zygote is the very earliest stages of human development: after the sperm has punctured the egg, the half-strands of DNA have merged into a unique human blueprint, and cell multiplication has begun. It is very popular, among pro-choice persons to refer to this stage as a "fertilized egg," as if an ovum idly was wandering around the fallopian tube with the human version of Miracle Gro clinging to its membrane. The zygote is the early human person: it will pass through phases...