As soon as I woke up today, I turned the TV on, there was this news program where the conductors were talking about teen pregnancy. They were having calls from real girls who became pregnant at a young age. It surprised me that Lourdes, who is now 46, called saying she had an abortion when she was 16, since then she hasn’t been able to have kids.
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. With new movies like “Juno” or TV shows like “Teen Mom” on MTV, teenage girls think that having a baby is easy, that everybody will help them, and that their life will be the same. TV and society are ok with teen pregnancy letting the teenagers do what they want thinking is right. But what if making the right or wrong decisions bring them bad consequences in the future?
Nancy Gibbs, on her essay, Give the Girls a Break, wonders if the visible leap in pregnancies reflects not necessarily more girls getting pregnant, but more kids deciding to have the baby rather than abort it. I think taking the decision to abort is a very hard decision to make. Most teenage girls do it because they are afraid of what people will think of them or because of their parents but some others don’t do it because they are scared of the procedures or because they have religious thoughts.
Since greater care is being given to the young people, improvements are already occurring. The level of education that teenagers receive is much higher than that of their parents, and the expectation that young people should obtain at least some secondary schooling is growing. This will help teenagers to be aware of what it comes with a pregnancy, so they can decide better and plan ahead.
Society, parents and schools should give more information and education about sex and birth control so women like Lourdes don’t end up with psychological and physical damage.
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