I. Introduction to the Problem (Abortion and Teenage Pregnancy)
“The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts--a child--as a competitor, an intrusion and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the dependent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners.” – Mother Theresa.
Somewhere in the world, right this second, there is a baby being born. Somewhere in this world, at this exact moment, there is also someone who is having unprotected sex, someone who is making a life and death decision about the consequences of their actions. The general population of the United States of America has been on a steady increase for quite some. Right now, the population is holding at 321,449, 800, according to the US Census Bureau (2013). Yet, there are more popular additions to the United States population growth in present day, than in the past. Teenage Pregnancy and Abortion have been increasing lately, yet, how much do these two controversial aspects to the population growth affect the population of the United States as a whole? And how much of that is going to affect us economically and individually? Is teenage pregnancy and abortions a big problem that threatens our population, the way that we see it? Well, the answer just might surprise you—it doesn’t.
II. Description of the Problem...
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“Birth Rates”. 2012. Center of Disease Control. Date Accessed: February 8, 2014. Website: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db89.pdf
Marcotte, Amanda. 2013. “The Demographics of Abortion: It’s Not What You Think. Date Accessed February 5th 2014. Website Available: http://prospect.org/article/demographics-abortion-its-not-what-you-think
"Mother Teresa Quotes". 2013. Brain Quotes. Date Accessed: January 28th 2014. Website Available: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mother_teresa.html
“The National Campaign”. 2012. Prevention of Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Date Accessed: February 6th 2014. Website Available: http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/
“USA Quick Facts.” 2013. US Census. Date Accessed: January 28th 2014. Website Available: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood by Kristen Luker, analyzes the historical and complex sociology of abortion. Luker focuses on three important factors: a historical overview of abortion, the pro-life and pro-choice views, and the direction the abortion debates are going (11, Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood p. 000). Abortion has always been seen as murder and with the idea that those who are already living have more rights. Back in the days, the laws didn’t give fetus personhood. Also, the laws against abortions weren’t strictly enforced upon anyone. In addition, abortion didn’t seem to be a huge problem, which explains why abortion was ignored in the past.
In the United States about 1.6 million pregnancies end in abortion. Women with incomes under eleven thousand are over three times more likely to abort than those with incomes above twenty-five thousand. Unmarried women are four to five times more likely to abort than married and the abortion rate has doubled for 18 and 19 year olds. Recently the U.S. rate dropped 6 percent overall but the rate of abortion among girls younger than 15 jumped 18 percent. The rate among minority teens cli...
In a 2006 study conducted by the CDC, it was reported that 53-56% of abortions were performed on white women between the ages of 20 and 29. Among the 46 states that provided data consistently during 1996--2006, a total of 835,134 abortions (98.7% of the total) were reported; the abortion rate was 16.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15--44 years, and the abortion ratio was 236 abortions per 1,000 live births. During the previous decade (1997--2006), reported abortion numbers, rates, and ratios decreased 5.7%, 8.8%, and 14.8%, respectively; most of these declines occurred before 2001. During the previous year (2005--2006), the total number of abortions increased 3.1%, and the abortion rate increased 3.2%; the abortion ratio was stable. (CDC, 2009)
Johnston, W. R. (2012, March 11). Abortion statistics and other data. Johnston's Archive. Retrieved February 18, 2012, from http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/
Abortion has been a huge issue in the United States ever since Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade was a supreme court case that allowed women to have an abortion because it was a woman 's right to her own privacy. After this supreme court case, they made restriction on abortion. According to Abortion Procedures During First, Second and Third Trimester (2016) , in some states women can’t have an abortion after her third trimester or when the baby can survive outside the womb. Even though we have restrictions towards abortion the amount of babies aborted are very high. According to Jones and Kooistra (2011), in the United States twenty-three out of one hundred pregnant women choose to have an abortion rather than to keep the baby. Abortions have become more and more common. We have become insensitive toward abortion and
This “Land of Opportunity” seems to be turning into a land of disrupting opportunity. Of all pregnancies in the U.S., about half are unintentional. Of these unintended pregnancies, 4 of 10 are aborted (“Abortions in America”). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that there were over 300,000 babies born to teenage girls in 2011 alone (“About Teen Pregnancy”). This data shows how Americans value, (or don’t value), the lives of their unborn children, and those of the teenages that have made a decision that will stick with them for the rest of their
A common complaint about today’s teenagers is that they don’t have strong morals. People see televisions shows like MTV’s 16 and Pregnant and assume that this is a common theme among teenagers in the United States. But the truth is just the opposite. According to a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, Teen pregnancy rates are at a 25-year low, and they’re continuing to fall. (Guttmacher). The Boston Globe observed that “In 2010, about 614,000 pregnancies occurred among teens ages 15 to 19…which is about half the 1.3 million pregnancies that occurred in 1990.” (Kotz) A drop off that large in such a relatively short span of time is remarkable. This essay will analyze this trend of declining teen pregnancy, and try to investigate its potential causes.
Anger and heated debate have long fueled the controversy over abortion. Whether pro-life or pro-choice, both sides of the argument are convinced of the righteousness of their beliefs. There is, however, some confusion surrounding the term “pro-choice” – it does not directly pertain to the spread and use of abortion, but rather, “pro-choicers” advocate the continued legalization of abortion in order to make the choice available and to ensure that women’s fundamental rights are not subjugated. The stance that abortion should be available has its roots in economic concerns, psychological evidence, moral dilemmas, and the Constitution.
Historial abortion statistics, United States 21 NOV 2010. n. pag. Johnstonsarchive. Web. 3 Dec 2010. .
Children having children, this is an all too familiar phrase that has become a popular adage among people in today’s society. But as popular as this phrase maybe, it does not even begin to scratch the surface that lies beneath the complex issues of teenage pregnancy. There are many adverse concerns that encompass teen pregnancy, to which society has even developed its own views upon. Concerns that develop from adolescent pregnancy can have negative impacts for teenage parents, children, and even society. According to Furstenberg, “In 1995, in his State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton singled out teenage childbearing as “our most serious social problem”. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.), “In 2012, there were 29.4 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or to simply put it an estimated 305,420 babies were born to females within this age group, which ninety eight percent of these births had taken place outside of wedlock” (See Table 1). Even though there has been a decrease in the number of teen pregnancies over the years, the number in the U.S. still ranks the highest when compared to other developed countries in the world (Deborah, n.d.). Communities everywhere need to come together to develop strategies that focuses on reducing teen pregnancies in the United States.
Teen pregnancy is no little problem! The numbers of teen pregnancies have begun to grow and are beginning to become a fairly large problem. Teen pregnancy is a situation that changes the lives of teens, teen’s parents, and families for the rest of the teen’s life. Teens do not fully understand the risks of intercourse and the amount that lives of teens will change after having children. To lower the percentage of teen pregnancies, society must encourage parental involvement, education, and available health programs.
Abortion has been an ongoing controversy for many years, especially in today’s society. According to anthropologists, within at least the last 4,000 years, abortion has been a part of virtually every society (Pollitt 16). One in five women will exceed their childbearing years, without birthing a child (Pollitt 16). For hundreds of years, including during the writing of the Constitution, abortion was considered to be legal under the common law, with the exception of aborting late in the pregnancy (Muller 69). According to Guttmacher institute, approximately one third of women will have one or more abortions by the time she reaches the menopausal stage in her life (nytimes 1). There are various reasons that explain these statistics, but motherhood
Some people would be surprised to hear that every 30 seconds a family decides to abort their child; every hour 120 families choose to abort their baby; there have been a total of 56.5 million abortions in the U.S between the years on 1973-2013. Statistics show that many families are deciding to abort their children because they claim that they either aren’t ready to have a child, the child will interfere with their work, or schooling, or that they don’t have enough money to support their child,so they decide to abort the baby. But, another problem that the U.S has been leading into, is deciding to have an abortion as late
Abortion has always been a very controversial issue. This can be due to the fact that people have different beliefs that are emphasized by their own religion and set of moral values. Many people believe that abortion is wrong, but they believe that is it only wrong under certain circumstances. This could be true, but is it more right to kill for a specific reason than to just do it because you made an irresponsible decision? Because of the wide spectrum of religion and various moral beliefs, there will never be a right or wrong answer to abortion.
In society today, teens are taught by the television and the media that pre-marital sex is not a bad thing. This problem is leading to many teenage pregnancies, that then lead to abortion. All over the world teens are faced with many challenges in their everyday lives. Sex is being portrayed as extremely appealing in the media, but what they don't show is the pregnancies and the unborn child that never asked to be created in the first place that is being discarded. Abortion is in no way acceptable, it is murder of an unborn child.