Teenagers Should Have Access to Birth Control

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Recommended: Importance of preventing teenage pregnancies

Imagine you are sitting in the doctor’s office awkwardly with your mom. The doctor comes in, checks you out and asks a few questions. You fear him asking “Are you sexually active?” Your mom is sitting across from you and you are afraid what she is going to think of you when you answer “Yes.” to the question. You want to do the right thing and get on birth control to be safe, but you know your mom will say no. Girls in the 21st century should have the right to protect themselves with any sort of birth control they choose without parents’ consent.
About 40 percent of sexually active teenagers admit to not using any form of protection (like a condom) during their last session. Behavior like this leads to higher risks of pregnancy or even worse. From the years 2007 to 2011 there was a 26% decline in teenage pregnancies between the ages of 15 to 19, the number was 435,436 pregnancies dropping to an all-time low of 329,797 nationwide in 2011, which is a 105,639 difference from 2007. This decline is mostly accounted for by using birth control. John Santelli says that “If most of the progress in reducing teen pregnancy rates is due to improved contraceptive use, national policy needs to catch up with those realities"(U.S Teen Pregnancy). Experts are highly encouraged by the recent decline, but they cannot stress enough that more needs to be done about getting birth control out to those in need of it. “It is clear here that one of the jobs at hand is to get back on track to where we were, and that is convincing more young people of the value of delaying sexual activity and convincing sexually active teens to use contraception consistently and carefully,” said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unpla...

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....com. Bloomberg, 18 Mar. 2009. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
"Parental Consent and Birth Control (sidebar)." Issues & Controversies On File: n. Pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 24 June 2005. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. .
"Update: Birth Control Policy." Issues & Controversies On File: N. Pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 17 Dec. 2006. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. .
"Update: Teen Pregnancy." Issues & Controversies On File: N. Pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 6 July 2007. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. .
"U.S. TEEN PREGNANCY RATES ARE DOWN PRIMARILY BECAUSE TEENS ARE USING CONTRACEPTIVES BETTER." U.S. Teen Pregnancy Rates Are Down Primarily Because Teens Are Using Contraceptives Better. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.

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