Teen Pregnancy has Risks? Say it Ain't So!

[Anxious Girl]

Link: http://todayhealth.today.com/_news/2013 ... aign?lite=. Apparantly pro-birthers don't like facts. They don't realize that not every single teen wants to be pregnant, that not just their despicable propaganda poster with real babies claiming their aborted aren't the only 1s that have a right to be propped up, that teen dads most likely leave the mothers, and that teen moms don't always have a supportive family or a decent job to support themselves and their babies. They don't realize that life's not a fantasy. If some teens want to be pregnant; that's their choice. Their needs to be proper education for them if they want to become parents though; not unrealistic pro-birthers' so-called "educational pregnancy centers" and church counselors. No, just no.

Pro-birthers don't want to wake up from their fantasy and enter the real world.

[valsa]

I find this amusing because Planned Parenthood didn't like the campaign either, so I wonder how the "pro-life" people feel agreeing with PP for once :lol:

[EmiGirl]

There's a simple answer to teenage pregnancy. Teach them to use birth control and get them access to it.

[Sarahsahara]

There's a simple answer to teenage pregnancy. Teach them to use birth control and get them access to it.

Doesn't prevent pregnancy from rape or coercion. Should we pre-emptively force every teen girl to take the pill just in case she's raped?

[GeoBQn]

The text message system behind the ad campaign is even worse. When you text the number on the poster, it makes you play either the teen mom or teen dad in a bizarre role-playing game that provides plenty more shame and absolutely no information on how to prevent pregnancy.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/ ... ll-phones/

[Violet]

Doesn't prevent pregnancy from rape or coercion. Should we pre-emptively force every teen girl to take the pill just in case she's raped?

I don't think EmiGirl is saying that it will end all teen pregnancy - people still get pregnant even when using contraception properly (Lori on 16 & Pregnant was an example of this.) However by educating young people properly and giving them free access (well it's free in the UK at least) to it, will help to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.

[slickcat79]

I find this amusing because Planned Parenthood didn't like the campaign either, so I wonder how the "pro-life" people feel agreeing with PP for once :lol:

If the "Pro-Babies" FB group is any indication, they believe PP is against this campaign because they WANT teens to get pregnant so that PP can perform more of those amazingly profitable abortions :roll: Yes, really.

[EmiGirl]

I don't think EmiGirl is saying that it will end all teen pregnancy - people still get pregnant even when using contraception properly (Lori on 16 & Pregnant was an example of this.) However by educating young people properly and giving them free access (well it's free in the UK at least) to it, will help to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.

Thank you, Violet. That's exactly what I was trying to get across. There's always going to be teen/unplanned pregnancy. However I believe with proper education and at the very least cheap access, the rates would be drastically reduced.

[Mama Mia]

It's an absolutely horrible poster campaign. Substitute "black" or "latino" for "teen" in those hideous posters - how would that fly ?

[valsa]

If the "Pro-Babies" FB group is any indication, they believe PP is against this campaign because they WANT teens to get pregnant so that PP can perform more of those amazingly profitable abortions :roll: Yes, really.

Of course, it all makes sense now!

[Violet]

Thank you, Violet. That's exactly what I was trying to get across. There's always going to be teen/unplanned pregnancy. However I believe with proper education and at the very least cheap access, the rates would be drastically reduced.

Yeah, I don't know any figures for the UK, but based on my school of over 1000 pupils there were only a handful of teen pregnancies during the time that I was there (7 years.) Obviously it varies from school to school. I guess it complicates things that we have the NHS and the US doesn't, but the government cottoned onto the fact that it's cheaper to pay for contraception than it is to pay for babies! I mean I still think our sex education was crap (it was a CofE school, so there were heavy undertones of "sex before marriage is wrong." Also our sex education was taught by newly qualified teachers who weren't confortable teaching it.) - we still have a long way to go in that respect because sex is still a taboo subject but education is the key. We need to educate young people about healthy relationships and the importance of contraception.

Edited for riffles.

[Sarahsahara]

I don't think EmiGirl is saying that it will end all teen pregnancy - people still get pregnant even when using contraception properly (Lori on 16 & Pregnant was an example of this.) However by educating young people properly and giving them free access (well it's free in the UK at least) to it, will help to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.

I'm not disagreeing with increasing access or education. It's just that we criticize fundies for living with an unrealistically simple worldview where prayer and abstinence prevent teenage pregnancy. And we shouldn't allow ourselves to believe that simply making birth control more accessible will prevent teen pregnancy either. That's a similarly naive plan. It's a start, but it's hardly a solution. More unbiased education, support, and access is great, but all teen pregnancies won't be prevented even if we hand out free condoms and pills on the street.

Birth control is great, and it's good at preventing pregnancies from sex you're planning to have. But it requires foresight. You need to be regularly taking the pill for it to be effective without skipping doses or taking antibiotics. If you rely on condoms you need to be carrying them when sex happens, and you need a partner who will use them, for example. Teenagers aren't always known for planning ahead. If you're raped, pregnancy can result, etc. I just think there's a more nuanced discussion here.

[Jinger Jar]

Simply providing free birth control does nothing to address teen boys who seek to get as young women pregnant as they can and gain status with each child who is born to them. I have, that I know of, seven teen fathers in my classes. Two have children with more than one young woman. Last year I taught a high school senior who was the father of six children under four. These are young men of very high status among their friends and their peers, young women find them desirable, and I've not heard one of them say that their families were angry or disappointed in them for getting someone pregnant.

And then there are the communities that encourage and expect teenagers to marry and have children. They hold courtship ceremonies in public parks and civic centers that are attended by a hundred or so families with teens. In these communities, someone who isn't married and a parent by the time they're 17 or 18 is pitied. They can and do openly scoff at the suggestion of birth control. (And as an aside, some of them create families that make the Duggars and other Quiverfull couples look like rank amateurs. I have a friend who's from one such family. She's 50. Her oldest brother is 60-ish, and her youngest sister is in her early 20s. All from the same parents. True story.)

Birth control only works for people who want to avoid pregnancy.

[sugarloaf]

Any reason why pregnancy is a bad idea that comes down to the mother not being mentally able to or not having appropriate resources isn't good enough, don't you know. God will provide. Therefore more teenagers should be having babies because their bodies are so perfectly made for it.

(excuse me while I go disinfect my filthy mouth )

[mg78]

Simply providing free birth control does nothing to address teen boys who seek to get as young women pregnant as they can and gain status with each child who is born to them. I have, that I know of, seven teen fathers in my classes. Two have children with more than one young woman. Last year I taught a high school senior who was the father of six children under four. These are young men of very high status among their friends and their peers, young women find them desirable, and I've not heard one of them say that their families were angry or disappointed in them.

Birth control only works for people who want to avoid pregnancy.

That is a very interesting point that I would have never thought about. Do they cared about the children they fathered or pay any child support?

[Rosa]

Even though no one thing will prevent all teen pregnancy, both reality-based sex ed and access to contraception do a lot to lower the rate.

Also, teens are making decisions about pregnancy already. Maybe not always the decisions we would like them to make, and definitely not always autonomous decisions that adults don't have any control over, but the teen birth rate follows employment rates just like older women's birth rate does.

p.s. that ad is fucking hideous. The risk factor for not graduating is poverty, not teen parenthood. They are just correlated.

[Rosa]

Also the quote from Milwaukee is ridiculous. The teen pregnancy rate is down everywhere, not just in places with these kinds of campaigns.

[Syd+Marky]

It seems as if most people think education & providing birth control will stop so many teen pregnancies-and I agree that it will-but only with the proper,&most thourough eucation can we hope to help teens that dont want to get pregnant.I didnt want to be a teenmom.I was on BC before I ever had sex-I had sex-ed in health class& an open relationship with my mother.I thought I knew what I needed to know to avoid pregnancy.But when I was 18,starting my senior year of HS the same Dr who prescribed my BC had to give me antibiotics.Dr neglected to tell me or my mom that they could make my BC not work.I got pregnant with my daughter during a time when I would have been using a back-up method,had I had a thourough education about the BC I was given access to

[Rosa]

You're right, Syd+Marky, and that's one that catches lots of women, of all ages.

The one piece of education I think would help teens specifically - and maybe this is a bias from where i grew up, where an awful lot of teen girls "didn't believe in" abortion based on totally wrong "facts" about it, like that all women who get abortions experience horrible regret forever, and that the dumpster behind PP is full of dismembered babies - is for grown women who had abortions to be more open about it.

[yewchapel]

It would be great if teen pregnancy rates went down. But as things stand, a lot of teenage mothers are bloody great parents and really don't need the shame and stigma that they get.

[Rosa]

The teen birth rate has been declining for decades in the US, and it declined even faster once the recession started around 2008. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db89.htm

Highlights from that CDC page:

The U.S. teen birth rate declined 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, reaching a historic low at 34.3 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19; the rate dropped 44 percent from 1991 through 2010.

Teen childbearing has been generally on a long-term decline in the United States since the late 1950s

The birth rate for U.S. teenagers fell 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, to 34.3 [per 1000 women], the lowest level ever reported in the seven decades for which a consistent series of rates is available

[Full enough quiver]

I think the ads are terrible. Why do we need to guilt and shame any mother, teen or not? As long as she isn't starving, beating, or molesting her kids, who cares how old she was when she conceived? When my daughter was little, she was in day care twice a week while I went to school. One of the teachers was always talking about her sister who was waiting to adopt. Well, one day she came right out and asked me if I would give up my daughter to her sister?!? Wtf?!?! Who does that?!? I told the director, and the teacher was disciplined(even as a teen I took no shit from anyone). But I hate the assumption that all teens cannot be good parents. I know some teens who would be better parents than women twice their age. And cetainly better than the fundies we snark on here. How about we educate kids about the realities of parenthood(without guilt or shame),offer support to those that want to be parents(because teens are gonna do what they're gonna do), and make birth control accessible and affordable to those that don't want to be parents.

[valsa]

Why do we need to guilt and shame any mother, teen or not?

I don't think the ads are directed towards teens who are already parents.

[darkplumaged]

And then there are the communities that encourage and expect teenagers to marry and have children. They hold courtship ceremonies in public parks and civic centers that are attended by a hundred or so families with teens. In these communities, someone who isn't married and a parent by the time they're 17 or 18 is pitied. They can and do openly scoff at the suggestion of birth control. (And as an aside, some of them create families that make the Duggars and other Quiverfull couples look like rank amateurs. I have a friend who's from one such family. She's 50. Her oldest brother is 60-ish, and her youngest sister is in her early 20s. All from the same parents. True story.)

I have to ask: is this happening in the US? This is fascinating--I've never heard of an American subculture that currently encourages marriage and parenthood by 17 or 18. Some subcultures do not appear to discourage teen parenthood, but teen marriage isn't explicitly encouraged or prevalent in those groups. Even the superconservative dominionists we talk about usually don't get married until they're in their 20s.

[Mama Mia]

I think the ads are terrible. Why do we need to guilt and shame any mother, teen or not? As long as she isn't starving, beating, or molesting her kids, who cares how old she was when she conceived? When my daughter was little, she was in day care twice a week while I went to school. One of the teachers was always talking about her sister who was waiting to adopt. Well, one day she came right out and asked me if I would give up my daughter to her sister?!? Wtf?!?! Who does that?!? I told the director, and the teacher was disciplined(even as a teen I took no shit from anyone). But I hate the assumption that all teens cannot be good parents. I know some teens who would be better parents than women twice their age. And cetainly better than the fundies we snark on here. How about we educate kids about the realities of parenthood(without guilt or shame),offer support to those that want to be parents(because teens are gonna do what they're gonna do), and make birth control accessible and affordable to those that don't want to be parents.

That is truly hideous ! I'm so sorry you had to deal with that, and I'm glad the teacher was disciplined -although I think fired would have been more appropriate.

Just today on my fb feed I had one friend who was a teen mom announce that her child was just accepted to a top-tier University, and another whose child who was in the paper for being a super great sports player for his high school - something she encouraged by enrolling him in sports leagues, going to games and endless practices etc.