Adolescent pregnancy is a crisis that inadvertently affects all. It is not only a burden to the young woman and her family, but it also has a consequential impact on society. Reducing the number of adolescent pregnancies would promote child well-being and decrease child poverty statistics (“National Data”). Increasing the number of comprehensive sex education courses would help young people learn how to better protect themselves against premature pregnancy and STDs, and in turn curtail the number of teenage pregnancies.
The Facts
Among industrialized countries, the United States has the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy. The rate of teen pregnancy in the U.S. is twice that of Great Britain and four times that of Germany and France. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy study, adolescent childbearing in 2006 alone cost U.S. taxpayers $9.1 billion (Hoffman).
Statistics illustrate the alarming number of female adolescents walking around with oversized stomachs. Three in ten girls in the United States becomes impregnated at least once by the age of twenty (“National Data”). One in three teen mothers obtain a high school diploma and only 1.5 percent have a college degree (“National Data”).
Infants born to adolescent mothers have a greater risk for premature birth, mental retardation ,abuse, neglect and are less likely to acquire adequate healthcare, than those who were born to a mother over the age of twenty (Hoffman). Daughters of adolescent mothers are also more prone to becoming teenage mothers themselves, while sons of teen mothers are more likely to participate in deviant acts.
The Reality Series
MTV Networks decided to document the controversial subject of teen pregnancy in the docume...
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...and Unplanned Pregnancy. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy , 30 Oct. 2006. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. .
Landry, David J. , Jacqueline E. Darroch, Susheela Singh, and Jenny Higgins. "Factors Associates with Content of Sex Education in U.S. Public Secondary Schools." Perspecitves on Sexual Reproductive Health 35.6 (2007): 261-262. Print.
Maci from 16 and Pregnant. 2009. Photograph. Chattanooga,TN. Gurl.com. Ed. MTV Networks. Alloy Media, LLC, 11 June 2009. Web. 11 May 2011. .
"National Data| The National Campaign." The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy , n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. .
Auteri, Steph. “How the Push for Abstinence Until Marriage Has Affected Teen Pregnancy Rates” Sexually Smarter. Planned Parenthood of Central and Greate...
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).
John Santelli says that “If most of the progress in reducing teen pregnancy rates is due to improved contraceptive use, national policy needs to catch up with those realities"(U.S. Teen Pregnancy). Experts are highly encouraged by the recent decline, but they cannot stress enough that more needs to be done about getting birth control out to those in need of it. “It is clear here that one of the jobs at hand is to get back on track to where we were, and that is convincing more young people of the value of delaying sexual activity and convincing sexually active teens to use contraception consistently and carefully,” said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy in Washington.... ... middle of paper ...
The sex education curriculum is included in school to aid adolescents in gaining knowledge about their body’s human reproductive system, preventing them from sexually transmitted diseases/infections and informing them about contraceptives to avoid teenage or unwanted pregnancies. Sex education in the United States is taught in two main forms: comprehensive and abstinence-only. Comprehensive sex education covers abstinence as a positive choice, but also teaches the benefits of contraception and the avoidance of sexually transmitted diseases. Abstinence-only sex education emphasizes abstinence from sex prior to marriage and rejects methods such as contraception. Prochoiceamerica.org stated that most...
As teen pregnancy/STD rates are still high and the lack of well-informed sex education there is, comprehensive sex education classes should be required for all students to at least be informed when it comes to sex. The National Campaign to End Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy did a study based on supplying schools with a comprehensive sex ed class. The results had shown that two thirds of the 48 programs that were given has down results showed that two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive sex ed programs studied had positive effects.
Teen pregnancy is a very important issue in the United States, where the adolescent birth rate had been dropping steadily from a high of “61.8 births
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “Teen Pregnancy.” 2011. < http://www.stayteen.org/teen-pregnancy >
Later in life the child of the adolescent mother could have mental disabilities and developmental problems. The mothers are also less likely to touch, smile, vocalize to their children, and be less sensitive causing the mother to become less accepting of the infants behavior ("Care of adolescent parents and their children," 2001, p. 430). Young fathers of the children have the risk of decreased
In order for us to fully understand how this is possible, we must first discuss some of the problems surrounding young women and unplanned pregnancies. Second, we’ll explore why the US continues to have the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the
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.
Teenage pregnancy has always been present in society. There is research stating that about half the women, born between 1900- 1910, who were interviewed were non-virginal at marriage (17 Ravoira). This contradicts some thoughts that premarital sexual behavior is something new. There was another study done in 1953, it found that one fifth of all first births to women were conceived before marriage (17 Ravoira). Even before our modern openness in discussing sexual behavior and acceptance that it does occur, it was quite routine. In earlier society, the incidence of teenage pregnancy was a moral problem. This was because people looked at the child as filius nullius (nobody's child), or illegitimate and the mother as bad, immoral, over- sexed, etc. (18 Ravoira). The child was being blamed for mearly being born, this is unfair to the child who had no fault in the matter (18 Ravoira). The real problem that was seen was the fact that the children were born out-of-wedlock. People seemed to have real difficulty accepting that the baby is still a baby no matter what conditions it was born under.
Although teen pregnancy rates dropped significantly in the USA over the past decade, rates remain higher than in many other developed countries (Ventura et al., 2001; Flanigan, 2001). Almost 900,000 teenage girls still become pregnant each year in the USA and significant racial/ethnic disparities exist (Ventura et al., 2001). Given the adverse economic and health consequences stemming from teen pregnancy, including low birth weight and economic hardship, no one is claiming that the battle is won. Instead, experts are debating what motivated the decreases in sexual activity and increases in the use of contraceptives at first intercourse, and strategizing ways to continue the positive trends. Possible explanations for the good news include economic prosperity, more informed and cautious attitudes about sex, improved use of contraceptives, and funding of new teen pregnancy prevention efforts through welfare reform (Darroch and Singh, 1999; Flanigan, 2001).
Top countries with highest teenage pregnancies include USA. United States has highest teenage pregnancy rate according to 2013 statistics of 52.1 per 1000 of female’s population age group of around 15-19. Almost that makes 89% of pregnancies outside of the marriage. This is unsupportive act and the OAH’s Pregnancy Assistant Fund is avoiding repeat teenage pregnancies in States and also tribes.
Teenage pregnancy has become a major issue in society over the past years. More girls are becoming sexually active at younger ages which sometimes result in unplanned pregnancies. Although the rates of teen pregnancy have declined significantly over the past decades, the United States still has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world. According to DoSomething.org, three in ten American girls will get pregnant at least once before age 20. That’s almost 650,000 teen pregnancies each year. In order to lower the rates in the United States, it is important to first understand the causes and effects of teen pregnancy.
Teenage pregnancy has become a national epidemic, partly because more and more teenagers who give birth decide to keep and raise their children. There is a great cost to individuals, families and society when children have children of their own. Adolescents lack knowledge of access to conventional methods of preventing pregnancy, as they may be afraid to seek such information or be ignorant on the effects and consequences of falling pregnant; keeping the baby; terminating their pregnancy; contraction of viruses and even diseases.