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Teen pregnancy is down 40% in Colorado, and the reason is unbelievably simple: birth control.

A small change can make a very big impact.

Over the past several years, teen pregnancies and abortions in Colorado have been on a sharp decline.

The New York Times highlighted the state's success story, in which the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 40% and abortion rate among teens dropped by an astounding 42%.


Data from Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.

Why the sudden drop? It's simple, really: The state made long-acting birth control free to those who wanted it.

Since 2008, Colorado has enabled more than 30,000 individuals to obtain long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), typically intrauterine devices (IUDs) thanks to a state program called the Colorado Family Planning Initiative.

Photo by Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, IUDs are one of the most effective forms of reversible birth control, with a failure rate less than 1%.

It should come as no surprise that when you make extremely effective contraceptives available to women who don't currently want to have children, unplanned pregnancies and abortions decline.

Sounds like a win-win scenario for just about everyone in the political spectrum, right?

Whatever your opinion on abortion rights, I think most people would agree they'd rather not need one. By their very nature, unplanned pregnancies are, well, unplanned. In reducing the number of unintended pregnancies, this program was able to chip away at the number of women needing access to abortion services.

Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.

But what about the cost of providing free birth control? There's some good news on that front, as well.

Fewer unplanned pregnancies also means fewer parents who aren't financially able to care for a child; as a result, the state and federal government actually save money as the number of people in need of aid programs declines. A Guttmacher study determined that for every dollar spent on family planning programs, the government saves $7.09 on other programs. Which means Colorado's program pays for itself and then some.

The state estimates that just between 2010 and 2012, anywhere between 4,300 and 9,700 unintended pregnancies were avoided, saving the state somewhere between $49 million and $111 million in Medicaid funds.

Making birth control accessible is just one way to reduce unintended pregnancies.

Colorado's program was effective, but it's not the only way proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies. One method that's been shown to reduce teen pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases is simply being armed with the knowledge that comes along with comprehensive sex education.

Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.

Studies show that abstinence-only education is not an effective way to reduce teen pregnancy.

As of July 2015, just 18 states and the District of Columbia require that sex education courses provide information about contraception. 37 states require that these courses cover abstinence (with 25 of those states mandating that courses stress the importance of abstinence).

Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images.

Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs haven't been shown to drastically affect the age at which students become sexually active. In fact, studies show that students who only received abstinence sex education were more likely to not use contraceptives and were more likely to end up with unintended pregnancies and STDs.

Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images.

All things considered, preventing unintended pregnancies is simple.

It's as easy as arming people with knowledge (comprehensive sex ed) and resources (contraceptives) to stave off unintended pregnancies. As we've seen, denying these resources to teens and adults proves to have a much more painful, expensive social and financial cost. Reducing those pregnancies will take a mix of both knowledge and resources.

As Colorado waits to find out the fate of its wildly successful program, it's helpful to look back on how simple the solution can be and why it's worth investing money and effort toward an effective public good. We should all be able to get behind that idea.

Pop Culture

'Wicked' author says one line in 'The Wizard of Oz' inspired Elphaba and Glinda's backstory

Gregory Maguire says he "fell down to the ground" laughing when the idea hit him.

Public domain

The two witches in "The Wizard of Oz" clearly had a history together.

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book or listened to a piece of music and wondered, "How did they come up with that idea?" The creative process is so enigmatic even artists themselves don't always know where their ideas come from, so It's a treat when we get to hear the genesis of a brilliant idea straight from the horse's mouth. If you've watched "Wicked" and wondered where the idea for the friendship between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and Glinda (the Good Witch) came from, the author of the book has shared the precise moment it came to him.

The hit movie "Wicked" is based on the 20-year-old hit stage musical, which is based on the novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" written by Gregory Maguire. While the musical is a simplified version of the 1995 book, the basic storyline—the origin story of the two witches from "The Wizard of Oz"—lies at the heart of both. In an interview with BBC, Maguire explained how Elphaba and Glinda's friendship popped into his head.

 

Maguire was visiting Beatrix Potter's farm in Cumbria, England, and thinking about "The Wizard of Oz," which he had loved as a child and thought could be an interesting basis for a story about evil.

"I thought 'alright, what do we know about 'The Wizard of Oz' from our memories,'" he said. "We have the house falling on the witch. What do we know about that witch? All we know about that witch is that she has feet. So I began to think about Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West…

 glinda, elphaba, wicked,  In "Wicked," the two Oz witches met as students at Shiz University.  Giphy GIF by Wicked 

"There is one scene in the 1939 film where Billie Burke [Glinda the Good Witch] comes down looking all pink and fluffy, and Margaret Hamilton [the Wicked Witch of the West] is all crawed and crabbed and she says something like, 'I might have known you'd be behind this, Glinda!' This was my memory, and I thought, now why is she using Glinda's first name? They have known each other. Maybe they've known each other for a long time. Maybe they went to college together. And I fell down onto the ground in the Lake District laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together."

In "Wicked," Glinda and the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, meet as students at Shiz University, a school of wizardry. They get placed as roommates, loathe each other at first, but eventually become best friends. The story grows a lot more complicated from there (and the novel goes darker than the stage play), but it's the character development of the two witches and their relationship with one another that force us to examine our ideas about good and evil.

  - YouTube  youtu.be  

 

Maguire also shared with the Denver Center for Performing Arts what had inspired him to use the "Wizard of Oz" characters in the first place.

"I was living in London in the early 1990’s during the start of the Gulf War. I was interested to see how my own blood temperature chilled at reading a headline in the usually cautious British newspaper, the Times of London: 'Sadaam Hussein: The New Hitler?' I caught myself ready to have a fully formed political opinion about the Gulf War and the necessity of action against Sadaam Hussein on the basis of how that headline made me feel. The use of the word Hitler – what a word! What it evokes! When a few months later several young schoolboys kidnapped and killed a toddler, the British press paid much attention to the nature of the crime. I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad. I considered briefly writing a novel about Hitler but discarded the notion due to my general discomfort with the reality of those times. But when I realized that nobody had ever written about the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious, the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought I had experienced a small moment of inspiration. Everybody in America knows who the Wicked Witch of the West is, but nobody really knows anything about her. There is more to her than meets the eye."

 wizard of oz, wicked witch of the west The Wicked Witch of the West has a story of her own.  Giphy  

Authors and artists—and their ideas—help hold a mirror up to humanity for us to see and reflect on who we are, and "Wicked" is one of those stories that makes us take a hard look at what we're seeing in that mirror. Thanks, Gregory Maguire, for launching us on a collective journey that not only entertains but has the potential to change how we see one another.

This story originally appeared last year.

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Teen foils hotel-room intruders by using a valuable trick she learned from her cop stepdad

In a stressful situation, she remembered his life-saving advice.

via Josie Bowers / TikTok

Josie Bowers, a 19-year-old woman from Canada, shared the story of how she thwarted an intruder when she was 15. The viral TikTok video is a harrowing tale and a valuable lesson for everyone to learn. Josie was staying with her family at the Ocean City Hilton in Ocean City, Maryland, when the incident occurred.

She went to her hotel room alone to take a shower while her family was on the beach. After getting out of the shower, she was alarmed when she noticed a long wire with a hook at the end wiggling its way out of the crack at the bottom of the front door. The hook was waving around, trying to catch the handle to open the door. It's amazing that no one in the hallway noticed the incredibly suspicious activity.

The intruders eventually caught the handle with the wire and pulled it down to enter the room. Without hesitation, Josie slammed the door shut and put on the deadbolt. "My main thought was holy sh*t, I'm in a towel right now and someone is about to break in and get me," she said on TikTok. "So the door opens a crack, and I just slammed it back shut and put the deadbolt on."

After the door was shut on the intruders, they pretended to work for the hotel. "So they tell me your keycard is broken and we need to get into the room and fix your keypad for you," she continued. "And so I open the door a tad bit, to see if it was a worker. It clearly wasn't, they were in jeans and a T-shirt. Hilton keeps it pretty classy, not the attire."

@josiebowers10

Reply to @emmade1rey #part2

Josie then remembered a trick that her stepfather, who's a police officer, once told her: Never let people know you're alone.

"I yelled 'Hey dad, there's someone here to fix the door.' As soon as they thought that I wasn't alone – and potentially my dad was there – they ran, they were gone," she said. A lot of people freeze in such a stressful situation but Josie was able to remember her stepfather's advice and it made all the difference.

Given their reaction, it's pretty clear that the intruders must have followed her up from the beach or had some inside information to know that she was alone. They didn't want anything to do with her father. "So I think I'm very smart for this one, my stepdad is a police officer, he taught me never to let people know you're alone. I yelled 'Hey dad, there's someone here to fix the door.' As soon as they thought that I wasn't alone, and potentially my dad was there. They ran, they were gone," she said.

@josiebowers10

Reply to @lionacreates #part3 #oceancity

The TikTokker shared the video to show others what they should do in a similar situation and to remind them to never let anyone know they are alone.

"I'm glad I had this experience so I can teach people about it. Obviously, I'm safe but it could have ended up a lot worse," she said. "Be safe, you can get door stoppers, always put on the deadbolt."


This article originally appeared four years ago.

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Dad shares the hilarious conversations he has with 5-year-old daughter and folks are cracking up

"Why do people congratulate you when Mom is making the baby?

via James Breakwell/X

All parents have had similar convos with thier kiddos.

Raising kids is tough, but there's a lot of laughs along the way. Especially when actual conversations start, as kids begin trying to make sense out of the world around them, ask questions, and test mommy and daddy's resolve.

Back in 2018, comedy writer and children's book author James Breakwell, with four daughters who were all under the age of eight at the time, shared their hilarious conversations on X. From these tweets, it looks like comedy runs in the family. Here's a sampling of some Breakwell's funniest kid-inspired tweets.

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

While Breakwell's 7-year-old wasn't as heavily featured, when she was quoted, the sarcasm was palpable. Which makes sense, considering that kiddos begin understanding this mechanism around that age.

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

Kids really do say the darnedest things, and we love them for it. It one of the many, many ways then bring so much joy to the world. It almost makes up for the headaches and sleepless nights, doesn't it.

This article originally appeared seven years ago.

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Man uses 'garbage' shoes to explain troubling economic trend for middle-class Americans

"These shoes are just the tip of the iceberg."

Photo credit: Canva

Remember things being built to last?

Americans are well aware of shrinkflation, where food companies reduce the sizes of their products while the price remains the same at the grocery store. You see this in fast food restaurants when you pick up a burger and feel like your hand has grown a few inches, and at the supermarket when you buy a box of cookies, it weighs less than it did a few weeks ago. Companies use this strategy when they think you’ll be less likely to notice a dip in quantity than a hike in the price.

We see something similar in the world of retail, particularly fast fashion. Fast fashion offers cheaper garments made from low-quality materials that last about as long as the trend does, so people can throw them away and buy the next hot thing. This can be a real problem because fast fashion harms the environment and leads to exploitative labor practices. And the tough part is—even for the most conscious of consumer, it's hard to escape from.

Here's a prime example of what this looks like in the real world. A few months ago, a TikTokker named Tom (@SideMoneyTom), popular for making videos about consumer products, went viral for a video where he called out shoe manufacturers for dropping their quality while keeping prices high. “So many of you guys want to shoot the messenger, but look, it's not my fault shoes are made out of Styrofoam and oil now,” Tom says in a TikTok with over 528,000 views. “It's literally every shoe you look at now. It's not even just the cheap ones. I can find hundred dollar plus pairs of shoes all day long with glue squeezing out of their Styrofoam cracks.”

 
 @sidemoneytom Replying to @Oscar Magaña shoes are done #fyp #shoes #foryou ♬ original sound - SideMoneyTom 
 
 

Tom notes that recently, shoes have been made with foam soles instead of rubber. Both have pros and cons. Foam is a little more comfortable, but rubber lasts a lot longer. Rubber shoes keep shape and support over time and are much more durable. Conversely, foam shoes compress over time, losing their support and comfort. When companies sell cheaper shoes that wear out more quickly, they make much more money because you must keep replacing them.

In the video, Tom adds that many companies that used to have shoes made with rubber heels, such as Carhartt and Timberland, have switched to foam. This is an interesting choice for brands that pride themselves on selling durable products.

Cora Harrington, a writer and lingerie expert, says that companies aren't entirely to blame. Americans don’t want to pay higher prices. “People don’t exactly want to pay more for all that stuff,” Harrington told Vox. "So what has to happen if everything is more expensive and the customers still want to pay the same price, something has to be cut and that’s often going to be the quality of the garment.”

“There is an entire generation of consumers at this point that doesn’t actually know what high-quality clothing feels like and looks like,” Harrington continues. “It gets easier, I think, for consumers to just not know any better.”

 
 @sidemoneytom Replying to @donkles #shoes #fyp #sketchers #nike ♬ original sound - SideMoneyTom 
 
 

Many commenters have noticed the decline in shoe quality and praised Tom for pointing it out. "I am so happy I’m not the only one who is baffled by shoes being made of styrofoam and then being upcharged for them," one commenter wrote. "When shoes started being named some version of 'Air Light Cloud float,' my thought was it was because they went from quality rubber to cheap foam and less materials,” another commenter added.

Tom believes the decline in shoe quality is an example of a more significant trend affecting American consumers' products: quality is decreasing while prices remain the same. “The quality of everything is going to hell, and the prices are going up," Tom concludes his video. "The problem is, so many of us have just become used to it that we keep buying it, and we basically allow them to dumb down the quality of everything. Everything in our lives. These shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. Start thinking about it in your life. What are you gonna allow to be garbage quality?"

This article originally appeared in March.

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Golden Years

'Boomer panic' is a real phenomenon, and there's a heartbreaking reason for it

This isn't just young generations bashing the old.

Photo credit: Canva

Boomer panic is real.

In a video posted in September 2023, TikToker @myexistentialdread used the phrase “boomer panic” to explain how baby boomers (1946 to 1964) can quickly become unhinged when faced with the most minor problems. It all started when she visited a Lowe’s hardware store and encountered a boomer-aged woman working at the check-out stand.

“I had a dowel that didn’t have a price tag on it, whatever, so I ran back and took a photo of the price tag. And as I was walking back towards her, I was holding up my phone… because I had multiple dowels and that was the one that didn’t have the price tag on it,” she said in the video. “And she looks at me and she goes, ‘I don’t know which one that is,’ and she starts like, panicking.” The TikToker said that the woman was “screechy, panicking for no reason.”

 older woman upset, boomer reactions, boomer panic Older people can become frustrated over seemingly small things.Photo credit: Canva

Many people raised by boomers understood what she meant by "boomer panic." "Boomer panic is such a good phrase for this! Minor inconvenience straight to panic," the most popular commenter wrote. And while there was some unfortunate boomer-bashing in the comments, some younger people tried to explain why the older folks have such a hard time regulating their emotions: “From conversations with my mother, they weren’t allowed to make mistakes and were harshly punished if they did.” The TikToker responded, “A lot of people mentioned this, and it breaks my heart. I think you’re right,” Myexistentialdread responded.

A follow-up video by YourTango Editor Brian Sundholm tried to explain boomer panic in an empathetic way.

 

“Well, it's likely that there actually was a reason the woman started panicking about a seemingly meaningless problem,” Sundholm said. “Most of us nowadays know the importance of recognizing and feeling our emotions.” Sundholm then quoted therapist Mitzi Bachman, who says that when people bottle up their emotions and refuse to express them, it can result in an "unhinged" reaction.

TikToker Gabi Day shared a similar phenomenon she noticed with her boomer mom; she called the behavior “anxiety-at-you.”

Day’s boomer mother was “reactive,” “nervous,” and “anxious” throughout her childhood. Now, she is still on edge with Day’s children. “She's immediately like gasping and just really like exaggerated physical reactions, and then, of course, that kind of startles my kid,” Day said. “Again, I know that this comes from a place of care. It's just a lot,” she continued.

@itsgabiday

It comes from a place of love but it is exhausting 🫠😬 #millennialmomsoftiktok #boomergrandma #reparenting #gentleparenting

 

There is a significant difference in emotional intelligence and regulation between how boomers were raised and how younger generations, such as Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z, were brought up. Boomers grew up when they had to bottle up their feelings to show their resilience. This can lead to growing anger, frustration with situations and people, chronic stress, and anxiety—all conditions that can lead to panicky, unhinged behavior.

Ultimately, Sundholm says that we should sympathize with boomers who have difficulty regulating their emotions and see it as an example of the great strides subsequent generations have made in managing their mental health. “It may seem a little harsh to call something 'boomer panic,' but in the context of how many of them were raised, it makes a lot of sense,” Sundholm says. “It also underlines the importance of emotional regulation skills and teaching them to future generations. And maybe most important, having compassion for those who never had a chance to learn them.”

 older person's hands holding a younger person's hands, compassion for elderly Having compassion for older generations can go a long way.Photo credit: Canva

This article originally appeared in March.

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