Teen Pregnancy

Imagine finding out for the first time that you are pregnant, that you are carrying another life within your body. This should be a moment of joy and happiness, shouldn't it? Well, for about one million teenage girls, it's a nightmare.

The United States has the highest rates of teenage pregnancies compared to other countries of similar status, with just under one-third of all girls becoming pregnant in their teenage years.

With numbers like these, it's hard to believe that pregnancy rates are actually decreasing, that even more teenage girls were worrying about the birth of their child rather than graduating from high school or applying to colleges. Their future plans and goals halted, permanently.

Did you know that more than two-thirds of all teenage girls who have had a child will not graduate from high school? Imagine how many unwed teenage mothers are forced to work low-paying jobs in order to support their children, just on the brink of living in poverty. And to add to this burden, around twenty-five per cent of pregnant teenage girls will have another child within two years.

And yet, we don’t see this side of teenage pregnancy. The media glamorizes celebrities like Jamie Lynn, the younger sister of Britney Spears, who became pregnant at the age of sixteen. The tabloids and magazines showed the baby photos, mother and child out shopping or doing errands, but they did not show or explain the fear she must have felt when she found out that she was carrying a child, the fear of having to tell her parents that she was going to become a mother at such a young age. When did the tabloids show the morning sickness, the backaches, the hours of agonizing pain while in labor? Are the difficulties of raising a child at such a young age ever shown? Shows like 16 and Pregnant try to show these difficulties and problems, but they are overshadowed by the fascination and appeal of the children. How are teenage girls able to make the conscious decision to fervently prevent themselves from becoming pregnant when the difficulties of raising a child are not shown as they truly are, raw without any hope of disappearing?

Yes, you could argue that there are plenty of other avenues for a girl faced with this problem. There are always couples hoping to adopt children, and abortion is always an answer if it’s what you want. But sometimes, you can’t make those types of choices. Sometimes you can’t look into the eyes of the tiny child lying in your arms and allow someone else to take them home. And sometimes, you can’t live with the regret of terminating the pregnancy. For some, the only choice is to live with the consequences, however unintended or unintentional.

But the sad part is that some of these girls don’t protect themselves. They fall prey to the baseless objections to safe sex their boyfriends or partners tell them. Then they are left with the child, the responsibilities, the financial problems, the regrets of unfulfilled dreams, and more often than not, they are left without the father.

Some teenage mothers even end up suffering from depression later on in life because they were never able to fulfill their potential; they were never able to finish school, and experience the normal life of a young woman growing up and becoming an adult in the world. And in rare cases, this depression led to the drastic decision to commit suicide.

So let this be a lesson to you girls: protect yourselves, and don’t put yourself in a position where you will have to make decisions no young woman should ever be faced with.