The Battle Against Teen Pregnancy

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As the end of my senior year came to a close this past spring my friends and I were talking about all the teen moms that have either dropped out of our school or have had a baby a little bit after graduating. We started counting, not thinking it would be that high. We stopped counting once we hit twenty out of four-hundred girls (MCHS). If we kept counting instead of twenty percent it would be greater for Marine City High School, which is one of many high schools in the area. One girl in particular dropped out to have her baby and was pregnant with her second child, and she herself was only seventeen years old. This is when I got to thinking we need to have some way to control this. Our health class only taught abstinence because they were afraid of offending some of the parents or students in the school district. As a community we need to have our local schools teach safe sex as well as abstinence to stop the epidemic of “babies having babies.”
In order to understand why the rates are so high, look at the causes. There are two main causes; glamorization on television and in the media; and lack of knowledge. Together these things can create a chaotic mixture and cause a teen pregnancy. The causes are equally important in severity. Each one has other consequences then those that are obvious.
First, the glamorization on television and in the media. Three television programs that come to mind are “Teen Mom,” “High School Moms,” and “The Secret Life of an American Teenager.” “Teen Mom” is the after story of “Sixteen and Pregnant” it shows teen parents, more specifically the moms and how they are raising their children. At least once a month the cover story to a magazine would be about one of the teen moms. So every t...

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...ty, and Nonresident Father Involvement Among Unmarried Parents." PMC. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, Feb. 2012. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. .
"Teen Pregnancy." Teen Pregnancy. Stay Teen, Apr. 2012. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. .
"TeensHealth." About Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs). Teens Health, June 2010. Web. 07 Oct. 2012. .
"What Is Anemia?" - NHLBI, NIH. N.p., 18 May 2012. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. .
Writers, Staff. "12 Studied Effects of Teenage Pregnancy." 12 Studied Effects of Teenage Pregnancy. Medical Billing AndCoding, 3 June 2012. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. .

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