Micaela Marini Higgs is a senior at Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas. As a Youth Leadership Council member for Texas Freedom Network in conjunction with Advocates for Youth, Micaela focuses primarily on reproductive rights and promoting comprehensive sex education.

There are a lot of things that I wish weren't the way they are. I wish DADT wasn’t even a matter of debate, but an already retired idea that everyone could look at and judge as the homophobic and terrible measure it was. I wish that our news headlines weren't filled with stories about young gay, lesbian, and queer teens committing suicide after prolonged years of bullying. I wish that I didn't have to teach people that condoms are in fact necessary to prevent diseases and unplanned pregnancies, and instead that this information was taught in schools at appropriate ages so that people could utilize and apply this information in their lives.

So it's always nice when something positive happens, and that's one of the reasons that I love the "It Gets Better" videos hundreds of people are posting on the internet. Their message acknowledges that there are struggles when it comes to living through bigotry and undeserved hate and mistreatment, but they also communicate a simple and important message - that no one should feel that they are not worthy of living, especially as a result of being tormented and teased for simply being born the way they were.

I just watched Pixar's new "It Gets Better" video clip and it reminded me that there is hope and there are people out there who care just as much as I do about these issues. I find comfort in its message and I hope that others will too.

Micaela Marini Higgs is a senior at Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas. As a Youth Leadership Council member for Texas Freedom Network in conjunction with Advocates for Youth, Micaela focuses primarily on reproductive rights and promoting comprehensive sex education.



It was in a Boston hospital after extensive testing where Aaron Gouveia and his wife found out that the baby she was expecting, their second child together, suffered from Sirenomelia. An extremely rare congenital deformity that effects 1 in every 100,000 pregnancies Sirenomelia is also known as "Mermaid Syndrome" and results to both legs being fused together. Beyond that, the couple was told by doctors that there was no chance of their baby's survival since they would develop neither a bladder or kidneys.

With zero chance of their child's survival, the couple decided to get an abortion.

Outside the clinic they were yelled at by protestors, one woman holding an image of Jesus as they screamed and shamed the women walking in. In response, Gouveia walked out and confronted them, camera phone in hand, telling them that they had no right to judge or shame or yell at people going through the worst day of their lives.

For me he also brings up an interesting point when the women ask him if he knows how many women commit suicide after having an abortion and he comments that their shaming and humiliation of these women during a fragile and terrible time probably contributes to that number.

As a supporter of a woman's choice I applaud this man for standing up and exercising his free speech equally, asking questions even though one of the women refuses to make statements on camera after screaming for hours at women entering the clinic. My friends and even teachers have watched this video and also agreed they find his actions rather extraordinary.

 Can people be driven to suicide? Every couple of months a story seems to pop up about a kid who suffered the constant torment of bullies shooting or hanging themselves, and for many the story of Phoebe Prince and others still serve as scary examples of cyber-bullying.

Recently this question was asked again when Tyler Clementi, a freshman college student, jumped off a bridge after his roommate and another student secretly taped him having sex with another man and posted the videos on the internet. His roommate bragged about taping Clementi having sex by posting, “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay,” and “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again,” and other similar comments on his twitter account.

Beyond the question of why two people would find it necessary to secretly tape and then make the recording of a private moment publicly available, most people are concerned with what sort of punishment these students will receive for their actions. In the state of New Jersey it’s a fourth-degree crime to collect images that show nudity or sexual content without the consent of the subject, and it is also a third-degree crime to transmit the relevant content. If the guilty students were to be convicted for third-degree offenses they could face up to 5 years in jail. Their school has also assured the public that they have disciplinary plans for both students, stressing that they do not take Clementi’s death lightly. Whether these punishments are fair or not depends on personal opinion and if you think that people can be driven to commit suicide if their conditions are so treacherous due to being tormented and habitually mistreated.

The issue with this question is that it’s impossible to tell exactly what causes people to commit suicide because it’s such a complex subject. Yes, public humiliation, outing, and overall cruelty are legitimate issues to feel distressed and possibly in combination might cause someone to take their life, but many people point out and argue that previous issues could have aggravated the situation and that since the students didn’t literally shove Clementi off the bridge, they are not at all responsible for his death.

Though we’ll see what a jury decides, I personally hope that this young man’s tragic death, which was at least partially influenced by the cruelty of his peers, is recognized and those who perpetuated his death receive some form of punishment.

Condoms are pretty important, and for the most part extremely effective. The success rate of condoms hinges though on if they're used properly. Don't put on two or they'll tear, make sure you aren't using anything that destroys the latex, make sure they're the right size.

As someone who never received sex education in school, it's sometimes hard for me to figure out if the awkward coaches and teachers depicted in movies and television shows ring true to the experiences of actual teenagers. Did the coach really have to mumble through a whole generalized speech about the birds and the bees? Are such ineffective and awkward and dysfunctional ways of teaching health really in practice?

I managed to successfully never receive any sex education other than what my parents and friends told me (my parents explained about a lot and I credit them for that). This was a great mix of moving around to different schools and sometimes homeschooling, and also the fact that my high school decided to give all incoming freshman the required health credit by pairing it with biology. In biology class we dissected fetal pigs and talked about Darwin and made little bracelets with glass tubes with our DNA. We never talked about sex or condoms or sexually transmitted diseases, and though reproduction was obviously alluded to, it was never mentioned in the way that it affected humans.

Now incoming freshman are required to actually take the class. Since I don't know anyone in the class and I personally haven't been in it, I can't really comment much on how its taught or what it focuses on. What I do know though is that recently they reviewed the subject of sex.

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This past week birth control pills turned 50 years old, spurring a number of retrospectives on their impact and evolution. As a teenage girl reading through these articles reminds me just how revolutionary these miracle pills were, tiny tablets that allowed women to better control their chances of pregnancy, as well as giving them new freedoms that they’d never experienced before.

What I see now as a small pill to pop at ten every night, women in the 1960’s saw as something new and radical and amazing. While the pill has received opposition from popes and churches, individuals and groups, its impact and importance have shaped modern society. The pill has allowed people to make more choices on when they begin having families, arguably creating a greater amount of good parents, people who made the conscious decision to have children, instead of leaving people with accidental pregnancies and children they didn’t particularly want or weren’t prepared for. It has given women peace of mind, it had regulated periods, it has allowed hormones to be balanced and security to be felt. With this momentous ability to choose, women were truly given the opportunity to be pro-choice and to take control over their own bodies and lives.

The issue of birth control is still one that survives today though. Despite the fact that my friends and I understand the implications of such pills and realize their existence and the fact that they are necessary in order to feel safe and protected, there are many barriers still in our way. For instance, certain insurances do not cover birth control. A handful of insurances that don’t cover birth control do cover Viagra though, as it is obviously more medically necessary than protection from pregnancy. Some parents refuse to let their daughters get prescriptions for the pill, fearing that it will only be an encouragement for them to have sex. The emergence of the pill is often correlated to the sexual revolution and fluidity of the late 1960’s, and though it is partially responsible for it, allowing women to engage in behavior unrestricted by fears of pregnancy, I personally feel that today the pill doesn’t attract and promote promiscuity.

There are issues with the pill’s past. It was originally tested on uninformed subjects when the effects were not fully known or understood. It has had inherent flaws and side effects that have forced certain brands to be pulled off of the market because of health and safety implications for women taking it. As with all medications, some small groups of people find that the costs are greater than the benefits, and there are always some costs. But these issues exist in every medicine we take, and many drugs are important to our health, and as an average and healthy American girl, I can strongly say that the most important one that I take comes in a foil rectangle with a tiny pill for every day.

Hey everyone :]

Recently the Texas Freedom Network held an event in Houston, Texas at a local restaurant where we screened the documentary "Abstinence comes to Albuquerque" and then had a discussion about our beliefs and experiences regarding sex education.

Here's a short video for all of you who might have missed it :]

Over the holiday break I’ve been catching up on things like sleep and television shows. Recently I’ve started watching a series called Dexter, and while I absolutely love the show it reminds me of a point my mother and I have often discussed.

Television generally favors and supports stereotypes, an exaggerated mirror to a society’s values and beliefs. Though the stories that we’re told through our screens are often glamorized or barely based in fact, they serve as a classroom to the millions of viewers who tune in and are influenced by their messages. Kids learn about cursing and sex often way before their parents’ broach the subject, and things like condoms are often overlooked while characters glamorously hook up at crazy parties. The possibility of negative effects that TV has creates a dilemma, and while its total effect on society would be interesting (and long) to analyze, that’s not the subject I primarily want to discuss. Instead I’d like to focus a little more on the representation of women on TV, primarily when they’re shot without clothing.

While network television is generally a little more modest, the hookers or slutty girls wearing little but at least something, on lots of cable channels boobs are no big deal. I’m not against nudity; I personally don’t feel that such a large taboo should be placed on sexuality, so the sometimes uncomfortable sex scenes aren’t what bother me. What bothers me is the fact that so far on Dexter I have seen a fully naked escort strangled, a dead woman laying out on a table wearing nothing, and plenty of sex scenes where the woman jiggles and bears all, the man on top or underneath her magically covered and decent.

Guys just don’t get naked for the camera like women do, apparently the scenes are written to require only the female stripping down to convey the message. Showing audiences every angle of a woman’s naked body isn’t a big deal, but the camera even momentarily grazing a man’s naked behind is rare. Why are men afforded more modesty then their female counterparts? The impression I get is that a naked man on someone’s television screen would be ‘crossing the line’, ‘too much’, ‘purely distasteful’, while a naked woman, while insulting and too graphic for some, is less of a serious offense.

I suppose an argument for the higher number of shots of naked women on TV is because women that have more parts that need covering. Admittingly, I have seen a great number of bare-chested males on television and in movies, but it hardly means the same thing. But even beyond the chest, I’ve seen way more shots of areas below the belt for women than I ever have for men, and though they’re generally only quick flashes across the screen they’re still often visible and oddly contrasted against their conveniently covered partners.

While I don’t particularly want to see a guy’s junk flaunted across the screen, it’s definitely odd that women are the only ones who seem to be expected to fully strip down. The almost pornographic scenes and shots of women’s bodies on TV shows and in movies often feels like too much to me personally, like its creators have ignored the storytelling aspect and instead reserved it as an effort to market their product for its sex appeal. But these graphic images of women alongside that of their male peers, whose back and shoulders are all we see, sends an odd message. Yes, we’re marketing sex with out female actresses, but no, exploiting our male actors like that would just be crossing the line.

Hello fellow advocates!

I’m a member of the Texas Freedom Network, which focuses primarily on promoting comprehensive or abstinence-plus sex education in Texas. We schedule numerous events throughout the year to promote our cause, and I’m holding one on January 23rd in Houston.

We’ll be screening Abstinence Comes to Albuquerque and then holding a discussion about its message and any comments or contributions we have regarding abstinence education. Appetizers and deserts will be provided, as well as postcard petitions for anyone interested in assisting in the further promotion of comprehensive sex education in Texas.

I look forward to seeing and hearing from anyone who can make it, and hope that everyone who attends will walk away with a little more knowledge or perspective on the effects and issues regarding abstinence-only education.
See you there!

Micaela


Event Details

Location:
Ziggy’s Bar and Grill River Oaks
2202 W. Alabama @ Greenbriar
Houston, TX 770098

Time:
January 23rd
1PM – 4PM (probably won’t last until 4 but the room is booked that long just in case)