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Today I will be talking about the way the authors and creators of a television commercial and newspaper article influence us to their opinion by writing the way they do. The topic that I am studying is Teenage Pregnancy. This topic is always going to be in the media for different reasons, and occasionally you hear about a story of a young girl getting pregnant due to un-safe sex. There will always be issues with this subject within society because so many people have different opinions and views of this topic and weather or not it right or wrong.
Different texts, stories, documentaries and videos all display teenage pregnancy as wrong and irresponsible because the parents of the baby are either in financial difficultly, socially disadvantaged or are simply too undeveloped to carry and hold a baby. For my two texts I am comparing a newspaper article from the Daily Telegraph written by Clare Masters and a video I found on you-tube originally from the website “hey-babe”. The video was created from the company “hey-babe” and was found and released late in 2009. The article is from December 14 back in 2008.
The video and newspaper article are quite very much the same because they both lead to the same conclusion, the viewer ends up thinking about themselves and other people. The footage and article give both views from each party, the doctor and health reporter and the view from a teenager.
As well as having one main text, the newspaper article, I have two supporting texts and they are both from doctor’s websites. I am using them to help support my main text and assist me with extra information. The editorial piece of writing; from the Daily Telegraph use’s strict rhetorical techniques because it is a newspaper article and needs to be persuasive and opinionative. Rhetorical techniques are used make a piece of writing effective and more in depth and there are different ways of doing this. This article uses a great deal of evidence and example because it provides statistics and a personal case and issue that affected one person’s life. The article mainly talks about the risks with teenage pregnancy, it’s not just harmful for the mother and father, and it also can have affect to the mental side of a teenage girl. The risks are greater for a pregnant underage girl and it is almost guaranteed that there will be serious birth complications to the new born and mother.
Have you ever met someone who acted just as teens are stereotyped? Not many people have because they do not exist. Real teens are poorly portrayed in the media and are the complete opposite of their stereotypes. Books and TV shows make teens out to be wild or crazy, irresponsible and out of control. One hardly ever hears about teen-heroes. Instead, newspapers and magazines are plastered with stories of teens and crime. And while looking at commercial billboards and other related media, the regular teen seems to be sex-crazed and image-obsessed.
Studies show that within the last seven years there has been a dramatic drop in the number of teen pregnancies. Teen pregnancy is best known as, the act of getting pregnant between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Teen pregnancy does not come with much of a history. In the past, (mostly in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s) it was common for girls to be married between the ages of fourteen and sixteen and give birth not long after. Some girls were having babies as young as thirteen and fourteen years old! During the times that young girls would bear children and be married so young, college and education was not an important factor. As a young girl you learned how to take care of your house, farm, laundry, crops, animals, husband, and children. The father was your main source of income. Obviously things in our time are very different. Over the years a growing importance for education and making a living on your own has become crucial to many women. It was no longer important to have children so soon, but to learn to be a strong, educated, and independent woman. Even now as time has gone by, the image of being a pregnant teenage girl has been glorified solely by media. It becomes less important to get an education so you can get a good job and be able to raise a child and give them a good life, and more important to get pregnant and get a chance to be worshiped nationally on t.v. for being pregnant and making all of your money through fame.
America has one of the largest pregnancy rates in teens in the whole world (“Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media”). Pregnant teens have to make many hard choices. They must decided to keep the baby or not., and to continue on with school. or not. Teens moms can lose everything they’ve worked for after one bad decision. Sex is in teens lives because of media influence.
In today’s media it is almost impossible to find a show that does not contain some sort of explicit sexual material. Over 70% of television shows include some sort of sexual content (http://lubbockonline.com/stories/111005/nat_111005043.shtml). Adolescents are starting to engage in sexual activities at earlier ages and they do not understand that the media does not accurately portray the risks and dangers associated with having sex. With this adolescents are also becoming more interested and curious to learn about sex and their bodies. The rise of access to the internet and ease of access to pornographic videos at home has been linked to the decline in sexual crimes (http://mises.org/daily/3080). With all of the positives and negative linked to sex and the media it is extremely hard to decide whether it is good or bad for society.
Carrying banners and posters, University students climbed aboard a bus. Five hours after they left they arrived in Washington, DC, where they joined the March for Life demonstration against abortion. After hearing prominent pro-life leaders speak at the Ellipse near the White House, the rally-goers marched up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court building, origin of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision.
There are various reasons as to why this is such a large social problem. There is not a clear answer as to why teens are going out and having sex at such young ages except for the fact that they are just curious or are trying to rebel. Becoming pregnant is an unanticipated consequence for most teens because they did not think it would happen to them. In reality, there are countless teen pregnancies each year. “In 2002, 757,000 pregnancies occurred among females aged 15-19” (Hedman, Larsen, Bohnenblust, 2008). The media also contributes to the blow up of teen pregnancy. There are news stories, 20/20 studies, and even shows that follow the lives of pregnant teens. T.V. shows such as 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom try teaching viewers what troubles a teen mother faces. The realism of these shows can be misleading and can give other teens false truths about what a teen motherhood is really like.
Teenage girls often get pregnant and do not know the first step in becoming a mother. Normally, when a teenage girl gets pregnant, she is less likely to attend college according to “Women Issues” by Linda Lowen. Some mothers are not even sure who their baby’s father is and many babies get aborted. The majority of single teen mothers are living in poverty. “Almost all our teen mothers are low-income, poorly educated and low-skilled.” (CNN) One third of mothers actually have a college degree and 23.2% are unemployed. (www.singlemotherguide.com) People under the age of eighteen are still developing and are not ready to be
In this day and age the rate of teenagers who become pregnant has substantially increased. I myself am not one of them, but having a few friends who became pregnant at a very young age I've learned quite a bit about it. Now, I am not saying that teenage pregnancy is wrong or right. For some teenagers it could be a very joyful experience if they are mature enough to handle it. It can teach them lessons about life and responsibility. For the less mature teens though, it's a disaster. In that case, they shouldn't have been having sex in the first place if they weren't up to facing the consequences. Some may say, "How did this happen? We used protection?" Condoms and birth control are not 100% effective when it comes to avoiding pregnancy. Many of these methods have flaws which can result in becoming impregnated. Being a teenager with a child can be very hard. And in almost all cases, it is. A person has a new responsibility. A responsibility so large that other things in your life seem vaguely important in comparison. A person is responsible for a child, a human being, a life. We live in a tough world and we all have tough lives. Teenage pregnancy at times goes unrecognized because the birth rate is still high. Even though “The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) directly funds teen pregnancy prevention programs in nearly 2,234 communities [which is] about 47 percent of all communities across the country”, there is still a large number of teenage pregnancies occurring (Almanac of Policy Issues). One of the reasons teen pregnancy is so illusive to many people is that most teenagers by the age of sixteen have had sex; abstinence isn’t part of our vocabulary.
Americans take great pride in their leadership among nations. Such a distinction becomes embarrassing however when the title is claimed for the highest teenage pregnancy rate of any developed nation with nearly one million pregnancies each year. There has been extensive research on the phenomenon of teenage pregnancy which has yielded important information about pregnancy rates and risk factors. Researchers concur that pregnancy is a time of dramatic transition. A first time pregnancy propels the mother from the status of woman to mother. While these changes are noteworthy for the adult woman confronting pregnancy, their effect is frequently magnified when the expecting mother is an adolescent. Adolescent childbearing has become a prominent social issue because of the broad social and economic consequences (Harvy, 1995).
This semester has taught me a great deal about how to develop my rhetorical, persuasive, and reflective writing skills. In the rhetorical essay, I believe my skills revolving around analyzing evidence to support my claims were improved drastically. My rhetorical analysis introduced me to that a direct correlation between tone and what a writer is trying to prove must be present if an argument is going to be strong and effective. My persuasive essay forced me to focus on my tone and diction, as I chose to discuss a very controversial topic that is currently a major social issue within the United States as of today. Prior to writing this essay, I have never thoroughly considered how my audience might respond to my opinions and the evidence used
There are many different attributes to teenage pregnancy. The majority of teenagers do not realize the consequences of their actions. Taking that into consideration the influences of the teens are highly important during the pre teen stage all the way to adult hood. During the time of this impressionable stage many of the teens are having sex not because of love, but because it is a trend. The media is glamorizing teen pregnancy and leading to a cultural shift.
Teenage pregnancy develops physical anomalies, an abnormal social life for a teen, a decrease in education, and can cause an unstable life financially. Lack of parental care can cause physical problems for both the child and the mother. The mothers social life can also be affected by making them leave their friends behind as she cares for her newborn. Teen mothers are also more likely to drop out of high school due to complications in caring for their child. Stable jobs are typically harder to find with a lack of higher education and cause financial instability for the mother. From its peak in 1990, teen pregnancy rates have declined by 42% by 2008 (Healthyteennetwork.org) yet this is still higher than any first world country. Teen pregnancy is an ongoing battle and should be considered won when it is eradicated.
Being a teenager means that you are just starting life. Teenager’s role is to study, to play, to make friends and to enjoy the beautiful things in life. However, this joyful and happy life just needs a single mistake to be changed radically; this mistake is to become a teenage mother. For example, every four of 10 teenage girls in the United States get pregnant before the age of 20 (Hillis, Anda, Dube, Felitti & al, 2004). In Teenage Pregnancy a Theoretical Analysis of a Social Problem, Davis (1989) stated “In teenage pregnancy we have a problem about which everyone has an opinion, but apparently no one has a solution” (p. 20). More and more teenage girls are getting pregnant around the world and this significant
The problem with teenage pregnancy is it requires intervention from society. This debate is from the perspective of teens, and absent from the medical, ethical, and political views on teen pregnancy. According to Jewell, Tacchi, & Donovan, (2000), teen pregnancy is not a problem for teens themselves but more of a problem for society. The large numbers of unintended pregnancies are among unmarried teens.
Many younger women make babies every year in UK. In England alone, over 7,000 teenagers under the age of 16 are impregnated every year. Close to half of the teenagers go on to deliver-bouncing babies. Large section of the 7000 teenage girls is of age 15 as many were even younger (ONS, 2008). The research to be undertaking will delve deep into the causes and effects of teenage pregnancy in UK.