Teen Pregnancy

There is no question that teen pregnancy is a worldwide issue in today’s society. Every year thousands of young, unprepared teenage girls face the decision whether to become a mother or to give their baby up for adoption for a better life. Some mothers choose to give their baby up because they feel as if they could not give the baby what is needed to have a good life. If you have ever heard of the show “16 and Pregnant” both sides of the situation have happened. Some girls on the show choose to be a mother and others choose to give their baby up for adoption, because they feel it is what is best for their child. The big question is

There has long been a debate as to whether violence in films influence teen violent behaviors (Worth). Although there has been extensive research documenting the correlation between violence in movies and violence in children, researchers only just beginning to study the link between sex in film and adolescents being sexually active and unwanted teen pregnancies. Since. One subject that has seen an evolving public view and federal policy on is teen pregnancy. Because both public opinion and federal policy has been split as to what the best approach to dealing with this issue may be, many teenagers seem to receive their information regarding sex from the media (movies, television programs, video games, and the internet). Due to the amount of

Coercive sexuality is an important factor in American Pie movie. In this movie, audiences can see different pictures of teenagers trying to experiences sexual intercourse for the first time in their lives (Zide, Perry, and Weitz, 1999). And the more aggressive they are, people can see coercive sexuality involved in different scenes. Coercive sexual behavior among students has been an area of concern to society. At the time when human sexuality topic becomes so popular in teenagers’ world, those students in the movies let people understand more about their points of views about sexuality. The question that I want to address in this paper is: Do we as a

Teenagers are told about the horrors of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, but honestly how many teenagers know anything about those diseases. Sex is this mysterious thing that somehow is so terrible for teenagers but is so common. Americans don’t really talk about sex unless to say how bad it is for teenagers and how teens should wait because it’s just too complicated. No one really teaches about sex and it is supposed to be something teens avoid but how do teens avoid something without any knowledge on how to do so? There are things in The Brave New World that are similar and some that are nothing like our society today.

When it comes to the topic of do TV shows like “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” promote or discourage teenage pregnancy, most of us will readily agree that it in fact does promote teenage pregnancy. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of how does this promote teenage pregnancy. Whereas some are convinced that it promotes teenage pregnancy through the fame some of the young couples have achieved, others maintain that it in fact discourages teenage pregnancy by showing the struggles and reality of having a child at such a young age. I agree that the show “16 and Pregnant” promotes teenage pregnancy because a new Indiana University research study confirms it.

Adolescent pregnancies remain a concern in public health worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) has indicated that annually about 16 million girls between 15 and 19 give birth. Indeed, in many countries policies and programs are developed and implemented for the prevention of teen pregnancy and reduction of risks and consequences it might cause. Furthermore, that a teenager becomes pregnant poses a risk to her health, her life and the fetus life. This situation also brings complications at psychological, family and social level. Being a young mother can affect education. Teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of high school. In fact, the correlation between early motherhood and

Sex is a predominant part of life, and that is not changing anytime soon. A common response to this is to dismiss the conversation. Instead of overlooking the problem like the majority of individuals, an inquiry into what is being taught/shown to youth is needed. Strasburger, the author of “Adolescents, Sex, and the Media: Ooooo, Baby, Baby—a Q & A” notes:

If teens aren’t getting sex education from their parents, they turn to their friends or the media. Much of the information they get from their friends is incorrect or incomplete. Friends often get their information from other friends or the media. The last thing parents or teens want to is to get the wrong information. “Although the media is full of sex and sexuality, it is mostly depicted in the most sensational and superficial sense. Realistic portrayals of relationships and sexuality are rare. More often, issues around sex and sexuality appear either without any context or without any emotional or relationship component. Moreover, the risks of sexual activity are often hyped beyond the point teens will believe.”

(1) has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains of abstaining from sexual activity; (2) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children; (3) teaches that abstinence is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, STDs, and associated health problems; (4) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship within marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity; (5) teaches that sexual activity outside of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects; (6) teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society; (7) teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability to sexual advances; and (8) teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sex. (“Does Abstinence-Only Education Work?”)

I suppose no one ever really expects things to happen to them until they actually happen. At least, that’s how I viewed things until I got pregnant with my first and only child at fifteen years old. It’s almost exactly the way they portray it in Hollywood movies and television shows and books. Although, unlike those books and shows, I never lost any friends from this experience. I will say that people are much more understanding nowadays. Still, no one is ever really ready to be a mom, especially at fifteen.

n the mainstream news, young mothers have received surplus attention due to the large scale viewers of MTV’s shows Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant. Fox News, leaning far right on the political spectrum commented about the extensive publizity. When the stars from these reality shows made front page on US Weekly and People’s magazine Fox News posted an article in response,“ Tabloids Glamorizing Teen Pregnancy By Putting Teen Moms on Covers.” Young teens who became pregnant and now a part of mainstream culture sex is the highlighted deviance described in this article. Fox News argues that we shouldn’t praise these girls for their actions because, they are irresponsible parents that were just looking for a way to make quick money. That, this

In the year 2009, there were 98 babies born to mothers who were 17 years old and younger at Rockdale Medical Center, according to Rockdale Newton Citizen’s newspaper (Parker 2011). Teen pregnancy has been a problem in our society since the year of 2009. Teen pregnancy is still a widely known problem in our society, even though the problem is on the hush. Teen pregnancies affects both female teenagers and male teenager. Teen pregnancies should not be a continuous problem in our society which is already small. There are many ways this community problem will be fixed and will also remove the distraught in all of the families.

In J.K. Rowling’s famous book series Harry Potter, incoming students are sorted into different houses based on their characteristics. One house in particular, Slytherin, contains students with those traits of determination and loyalty. My mother had a rough upbringing; her parents, although loving, seldom abused alcohol, and in her teenage years, she became a mother to a man who eventually cheated on her. However, my mother was determined to give her daughters a better life, and so she did. Eventually, she met my father and had me.

The best way to promote teenage sexual health is to create a supportive environment with a wealth of accurate, holistic information. If students do not receive accurate information about sexual health from reliable institutions such as schools, they will find such information, albeit inaccurate, elsewhere. Adolescents often rely upon peers and mass media for sexual information (Igras et al. 558), which poses problems because peers are equally uninformed and the media presents distorted or inaccurate portrayals of sexual activity. Like abstinence programs, television, movies, and the Internet perpetuate gender stereotypes, but by demonstrating how the genders are supposed to act in sexual situations rather than teaching about it (Kittleson and Howard-Barr 73). Additionally, the media includes abundant sexual references without the necessary health information to back them up. The average teenager encounters over 14,000 sexual references each year, but only 1 in 85 discuss serious matters such as “abstinence, contraception, or marriage” (Kittleson and Howard-Barr 73). Abstinence only education programs and the media may be on opposite ends of the spectrum as far as attitudes toward sex, but are both equally uninformative because they

Most people begin to have sex in their teenaged years (Carlson & Tanner 2006). Out of all industrialized nations, the United States has the highest teenage pregnancy and birth rate (Gibson 2010). Educating youth about sex is very essential to not only preventing STDs, STIs, and HIV but also in preventing unwanted teenage pregnancies (Gibson 2010). Many teenagers are engaging in sexual activity beginning as early as 6th grade (Somers & Surmann 2005). Many teenagers do not carefully or consistently use a contraceptive which increases their chances of becoming pregnant (Kirby 2007). Have we failed our youth by not