That's a valid point. One could also make the same case for obesity. But
both issues are a little more complex than that.
In the US, teenagers are not given access to contraception because parents
have pressured school boards to teach abstinence only. This has not worked,
indeed teen pregnancies and STDs are on the rise.

In the Third World, condoms are quite frequently not available. In addition,
you are fighting against cultures where large families have provided
security and stability for generations. The whole concept of contraception
is foreign to them. A little closer to home, Catholicism still preaches no
contraception. And around us in our every day life we are confronted with
the media using sex to sell everything.

Obesity is the same thing. Perhaps people have failing will power. But how
much will power must one person have to survive the onslaught of cheap,
tasty and fattening junk food - an onslaught generated by a multi-billion
dollar industry?

Our responsibility exists in the choices we have allowed society to make. We
have allowed these choices by the way we vote. How much effort we put into
fighting for issues that affect us (directly and indirectly) determines how
our global society is shaped. The world is the way it is because of the
choices we have made.

I'll say one thing for the conservative christian right - they know how to
get their way. If you don't like the things that they have done, if you
don't think that abstinence is the answer, if you don't think censorship is
the answer, if you think companies should be held accountable for the
products they sell, then you have to fight back. Noisily. Annoyingly.

You can choose to not fight back - rationalizing it as 'rising above'. Well,
it's a great sentiment, but not one that will be particularly helpful when
your religion is outlawed. Getting your reward in the next world (if you
belief there is some kind of punishment/reward system) is another way to
ignore or de-prioritize the problems of the world. Although I'm not sure
what kind of reward one gets for apathy.

We are all connected - I think we can agree on that. Ruffle a few feathers
here, and you may bring a change in the wind in Africa. Do nothing, and
nothing that you want to happen will happen. But the responsibility - and
the liability - is your. And mine.

Many people have latched onto the concept of "Personal Responibility" in
recent years, because it sounds like it is 'The Right Thing to Do'. Heck, I
did too, I admit it, I drank the Kool-Aid like everyone else, until I began
to see the effects of this new mantra.

Everyone makes their own choices, so they are responsible for them and
no-one else, right? True, but that is not where your responsibilities end. I
agree that we all have personal responsibility for our choices, when choices
are available. But we are also responsible for the choices the next
generation can make.

We reap what we sow. If we provide poor quality education to our children,
they will not make good choices. A child in south central LA needs better
career choices than drug dealer or hoodlum. Sure, he can stay in school. But
if the teachers are just there to do crowd control, and all the school board
cares about is not getting sued by the parents, and hardly anything is being
taught, is he really going to make a choice to stay in that environment when
he can make a living on the street?

Some children will make good choices about sex. Some are even self motivated
enough to study on their own regardless of what the schools teach. The
majority are not, because they are teenagers and cannot think more than 5
seconds into the future. We know that, we have always known that, we were
like that too.

Don't have sex if you don't have contraception? Don't eat a Big Mac because
it's bad for you? Why should we expect kids to believe or care about these
things, when they don't have the life experience to understand the effects
in even abstract terms? We are not teaching teenagers cause and effect. We
are not teaching them critical thinking skills. Strange as it may seem,
those of us that are lucky to have them were not born with them - they were
taught to us by our parents and our schools.

Personal Responsibility is not a free pass that you can use to wave and
point at someone else and say 'you made your bed, now lie in it'. But that
is how it has been used. I don't care what other people do because I'm
taking 'Personal Responsibility' for my life. It is that apathy and
selfishness that has got us where we are now.

Personal Responsibility means actually taking personal responsibility for
the messed up state of our planet, country and communities and doing
something about it.

Make good choices now, so the next generation can make better ones.