Teen Pregnancy
Before we venture into the controversial aspects of teen pregnancy, I think that it is imortant to answer a vital question brought up by one of our classmates. This question addresses how teen pregnancy has evolved and how times have changed to bring upon such a serious issue. To begin answering this question we must take a look back in time to the roles of women and men in our society. Teen pregnancy is not just a rare virus that has recently sprung up and will someday dissapear due to some type of cure. Adolescent pregnancy has plagued our country for over three centuries, but it is only more recently that we have noticed its growth and severe impact on many aspects of society.
The social change that lead to this visibility is not only based on a change in sexual behaviors, but it also is based on a change in the nature of adolescence. These changes begin with the decling of the average age of menarche. The average age for menarche in girls ten years ago was 14.2; this age has dropped by two years since then. The average age for menarche today is 12.2. This statistic suggests that since girls are capable of having children at younger ages they are also more apt to have sex at a younger age.
The social changes that effect these statistics deal with the raising of the average age of marriage, standard attitudes towards marriage as a sacred institution, and economic shifts which have led to a need for longer educational careers. These changes have produced pockets of urban poverty where education is often not valued or taken seriously.
Unfortunatly, the need for higher education is reflected in the fact that only at levels after high school has enrollment increased in recent years, and only in the late teens are whites more likely than blacks to enroll in an educational institution. Due to the demands of the economy many young people are dependent on their parents for a longer peroid of time which has left some groups without access to the economic options that allow them to prepare for the future.
Some of the reasons for the increased age in marriage stem from the changing roles of women in our society. Women are now more than ever participating in a mans work world, and dealing with such problems as maintaining their homes, the cost of childrearing, and the importance of an education.
As Estrich demonstrates, the law on rape has major flaws. The law exposes traditions and attitudes that surround women and sex. It condones the idea that sex contains male aggression and female passivity. The law uses three different criteria to label an act of sex as rape: mens rea, force, and consent. Estrich feels that these features demonstrate sexist attitudes within the law. Our legal system abandon’s mens rea which is Latin for “guilty state of the mind.” It is the perpetrator’s ability to understand force and non-consent. A woman must demonstrate resistance. The man can escape by stating he did not realize the woman was not consenting. So, the court turns to the woman to see if she provided proper evidence that she did not consent to the sex.
with his mother. In "The Man Who Was Almost A Man", we see a male
bringing the dead to life. I am going to look at two examples of each
The committee makes several recommendations in regards to changing the laws and legislations surrounding the incrimination of homosexuals for what had previously been considered sodomy. The basic premise being that “homosexual behaviour betwe...
...ows that the person does not consent to the intercourse or is reckless as to whether that person consents to it’ – Sexual Offences Act 1956 c. 69 (Regnal. 4_and_5_Eliz_2)
Lynch, Michael W. “Enforcing ‘Statutory Rape ‘?.” Public Interest 132 (1998): 3. Points of View
Schopf, S. (1995). "Megan's Law": Community Notification and the Constitution. Columbia Universtiy School Journal of Law and Social Problems, 29
Teenage pregnancy is a problem for all involved. It truly puts a great strain on the young parents, especially the new teenage mother, and also on the new grandparents, who more often than not, end up help to raise the new baby while the young parents are at school, or while they are out enjoying being a teenager and socializing with their friends. The spread of this epidemic needs to be stopped before more young adults dreams are dashed by the responsibility of parenthood. Through strong parental guidance and support, appropriate media exposure and more readily available birth control, this issue can be brought under control.
“Sex offending is a somewhat unique crime, as it directly deals with one of society’s most taboo topics-sex and sexuality” ( Zilney & Zilney, 2009, p. iii).
There are many notions that must be understood prior to studying what influences the perpetration of rapes in prisons, for example, studying the context behind each scenario or case. However, there is one notion that is inevitable to disregard and that is, the consideration of ideals of punitive
After many years of prosecuting statutory rape laws, some people are being to question whether or not these laws when concerning non-violent “sex with a minor” are actually appropriate and effective in protecting the rights of minors. The people who support statutory rape laws would argue that in any relationship where one legal aged partner is significantly older than the other, the older of the two has a greater power advantage over the younger. Thus even if a person under the age of consent agrees to sexual activity, it is still considered lawfully to be rape, because that person is not mature enough to make a well thought-out decision. Adults fear that the younger person in the relationship may be unconsciously forced emotionally, if not physically, into engaging in sexual acts with their partner. According to the Taking Sides (Issue 17), “Statutory rape laws are designed, in part, to keep these types of unequal relationships from becoming human nature.”
Many issues have come up with the laws surrounding statutory rape. Although the laws are in place to help people, many people see them as unfair and they believe that there are changes that could be made to help improve these laws. A major problem with statutory rape laws is that each state has a different law. To help improve statutory rape laws, all states should work together to have a set of country-wide laws, so that the states all have the same laws. With a few minor improvements, the statutory rape laws would be problem free.
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.
Second time offenders of sex crimes such as rape should be castrated and emasculated slowly with a dull, rusty knife. The criminal should be revived every time he passes out from pain. This heinous crime deserves this much at the very least. After all, this person has violated another person and taken something away, a trust that can never be fully restored. The victims of these crimes never fully trust again.
The concept of comprehensive social intervention has been defined as the process of identifying social problems in an attempt to eradicate them. In looking at the broad range of social characteristics and the behavior associated with teen pregnancy, it is obvious that the emphases placed on the effort to recognize and alleviate teen pregnancy can be celebrated through the effectiveness of education, family planning, and abstinence. However, the attempt to analyze and deal with the cause-and-effect relationship with teen pregnancy is an attempt in understanding the social world itself. In 2006, statistics show that there was a significant increase in teen pregnancy after a decade long decrease. The potential for understanding this increase motivates us to look beyond simple explanations for cause-and-effect behavior and to look at what interactions may be occurring between variables that result in specific behaviors or social conditions. What is it that influences behavior? In looking at teen pregnancy in the realm of the family, it is evident that a large number of family structures have evolved, or perhaps devolved, into a variety of combinations which challenge responsible parents to consistently expose their children to the role models and the types of behaviors that are important for their children to emulate as they mature. People are molded by circumstances and experiences, all of which can positively or negatively influence our behavior.