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Easy prevention of teenage pregnancy
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Recommended: Easy prevention of teenage pregnancy
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.
“Thirteen percent of all [United States] births are to teens, each year approximately one million U.S. teenagers become pregnant, about 40 percent of American women become pregnant before the age of 20 and about 78 percent of teenage pregnancies are unintended, accounting for
one-quarter of all accidental pregnancies per year” (Planned Parenthood). Teenagers do not know enough about sex and the consequences it may bring. Aside from becoming pregnant, it is very much possible to get sexually transmitted diseases, which may pass on to the baby. Some of these diseases, such as HIV, may be fatal. If they are not dangerous, at times they are untreatable. A person would be left with dealing with ...
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...ated in many towns and are accessible to people who choose to use birth control. Planned Parenthood also provides exams and other tests, such as a pregnancy test.
Action should be taken right this moment. There are ways to solve the teenage pregnancy problem. People also need to realize that if nothing is being done, the problem will not go away. By adding sex education classes and community programs, many lives could be improved, because having a child when one is a teen is not success.
Works Cited
Almanac of Policy Issues. 10 June 2002. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 4 Mar. 2005 .
Jones, Elise F., Jacqueline Darroch Forrest, Noreen Goldman, Stanley Henshaw, Richard Lincoln, Jeannie I. Rosoff, Charles F. Westoff, and Deirdre Wulf. Teenage Pregnancy in Industrialized Countries. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986.
Planned Parenthood. Dec. 1999. 4 Mar. 2005 .
Scott, Keith G. ed., Tiffany Field, ed., Euan G. Robertson, ed. Teenage Parents and Their Offspring. New York: Grune & Stratton, Inc., 1981.
Tender, Diana. Services to Teen Mothers in New York City. New York: Community Council Of Greater New York, 1982
Based on these statistics, teen pregnancy is obviously a large issue in this county. A possible solution to the issue would be that sex education could to be taught in junior and senior high schools and be taught by parents more often. By the time of sex education, a vast majority of students have already had sex. This may have played a part in Tony, from The Other Wes Moore, being a father at such a young age. The ultimately best solution to help stop teen pregnancy in this county alone is to provide a “sex clinic” to these teenagers. A safe sex clinic is a way of providing teenagers the facts of the real world and even offering various forms of birth control. As other solutions, parents need to have a sex talk with their children, and schools need to provide the option for a sex education more frequently. However, there is no way to mandate what parents teach to students, and it takes far too long to change a state's curriculum. That’s why, through this solution, the rate of teen births would show to decrease for the better.
Being a parent is very demanding and can be hard. The difficulties that come with an unplanned pregnancy in teens can have a profound effect on their life. Their physical, social, mental, and emotional health will all be affected by a sudden change in the course of their life. Teens impacted with an unplanned pregnancy will have to give up many things in order to be a parent. In addition, they will have to take on many more responsibilities that accompany pregnancy and parenthood. All in all, having an unplanned pregnancy and becoming a parent introduce many new responsibilities and difficulties.
Teen pregnancy is a major issue in society today. In 2010, an estimated 614,400 U.S. teenagers became pregnant, approximately 89,300 had miscarriages, and 157,500 had legal abortions. Teens are having unprotected sex without knowing the consequences of the choices that the are making. Teens believe that sex is something new that they can try, so they can be popular like their peers. These accusations are wrong, having unprotected sex has major consequences, and by having unprotected sex these teens could be changing their lives forever. Who is to fault for these teen pregnancies? Is in the parents fault, the teens fault or is it our communities fault all together? I believe providing more information and awareness about teen pregnancy in our schools and community will reduce the number of teen pregnancies.
According to the March of Dimes, "nearly thirteen percent of all births in the United States were teens ages fifteen to nineteen. Almost one million teenagers become pregnant each year and about 485,000 give birth (Teenage 1).
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.
The Feminist Women’s Health Center explain that teenagers who are sexually active who does not use any contraception has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within the first 12 months of being sexually active. Teens also become pregnant when contraceptive methods, such as birth control pills and condoms fail. In those groups of teens who become pregnant, more than one-third obtain an abortion, a forceful termination of the pregnancy through the removal of the embryo or fetus from the uterus. (Welton)
The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate of all developed countries. That’s pretty scary being compared to China and other developed countries with higher populations and still having the highest pregnancy rate. Schools need to start programs that encourage abstinence, and show or list the consequences of being sexually active. “They are not taught the importance of abstaining from sex nor, at the very least, the proper use of effective birth control and protection from sexually transmitted diseases” (Johnson). And the problem that occurs with this is that the parents or family that interact with the teenagers are no more educated than the teenager themselves.
In the US, teen pregnancy rates have been decreasing in the last decade even though current rates remain twice as high as those found in other industrialized nations (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1994). In spite of decreasing rates, among African American teenagers, the pregnancy rate is particularly high. In 1996, the pregnancy rate was 178.9 per thousand among African-American females aged 15 to 19 years, compared with a pregnancy rate of 82.6 among whites (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1999). Additionally, on the basis of the findings of the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, it was determined that African American females (48%) aged 15 to 17 were more likely than their white (34%) counterparts to have had sexual intercourse since menarche. On the basis of information provide by the National Center for Health Statistics (1997), African-American females aged 15 to 19 were more likely than their white peers to have had their first sexual experience (i.e., intercourse) without using effective contraception (24% versus 14%, respectively). Consequently, on the basis of such risky behavior, African American teenagers are at greater risk than their white peers for experiencing a pregnancy.
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.
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).
Teen pregnancy, it’s one of the growing problems in today’s society. Teens today have more problems than ever, and in many cases the parents mistake signs of the problems for mere puberty phase. Beginning problem, which often trigger the others, seem to be families. Deeply religious families are most often heavily strict, and that prevents the teenagers to be informed about real life and what are they getting into. When that kind of person gets in a situation where his or her peers are more experienced then them, the outcome is a pressure. During the puberty the teenagers, especially males, are having problems with controlling their needs. It is easy to get pregnant for today’s teenagers, because they face many unbearable problems.
While many teens that engage in pre-marital sex never become pregnant, some are not as fortunate. Teen pregnancy has become all too common in this day and age. Some teens think it will not happen to them and do not use necessary precautions to protect against it. There are several causes for teen pregnancy and the effects can be life changing.
Though the teen birth rate has declined to its lowest levels since data collection began, the United States still has the highest teen birth rate in the industrialized world. Roughly, one in four girls will become pregnant at least once by their 20th birthday. In addition, young people ages 15 to 24 represent 25 percent of the sexually active population, but acquire half of all new STIs.
In conclusion teen pregnancy has hard an effect on society, in many ways. Most teen pregnancies were not planned. CFOS says that about 65% of teen pregnancy's were not even discussed with their sexual partners. All of the other percentage of teen pregnancy's were not planned either, but it had been discussed with the teen's sexual partner at some point in time. Most teens began having sex without knowing the consequences. Teenagers need to take responsibility and remember to keep safe, because there are various ways to prevent teen pregnancy, for example abstinence, sex education, and various types of birth control; because these methods are available children should not be brought into this world mistakenly.
There are many reasons that teenagers become pregnant. Some of them want to have babies... but the fact of the matter is that 80% of teen pregnancies are unintentional (teenhelp.com). And in majority of those cases, it is from lack of knowledge in birth control, or even the general reality of what sex is. While some may state that it should be the parent 's job to educate their children about