Teen pregnancy the social issue

Teenage pregnancy is becoming an important social issue in our culture. Nearly half of the teens in the United States have had sex at least once between the ages of 15 and 19. A teen that is sexually active and does not use contraceptive methods, has a “90% chance of becoming pregnant in the first year of having sex” according to guttmacher.org. That is a scary factor to think after the first time you have sex you can get pregnant within a year.

I found this image on :http://http//www.topnews.in/health/files/pregnancy.jpg

Each year about 750,000 teenagers between 15 and 19 get pregnant. Teen pregnancy rates are higher in the United States and are eight times as high as Japan’s rates. Some questions I wonder about are How come our rates are so high and what are we doing to deal with this problem. Also why aren’t teenagers more careful when they do have sex.

This is a social issue that can be helped by providing them with education about contraceptive methods, STD’s and education. This is an important issue to discuss because there is a lot at risk for teens that become pregnant. For example it makes it harder for the mother to finish school on time and for the most part teenagers are still developing. How is a teenager financially ready to support a child when they are still in high school. I don’t think they are emotionally ready either and I think it is important to get the message out about teen pregnancy and the outcomes it leads to. For a teenager becoming a mother at such a young age it leads to “affects the health and well being for the next 20 to 40 years” according to cnn.

I do agree that the media does have a potential role in this epidemic but it is not the entire cause for it. Somethings that teens see on tv they might want to be like or do. During the last election Sarah Palin’s daughter was a teenager who was pregnant and to me it seemed like the family was ok with it like it was an everyday thing. To have a girl in the spot light like that is unacceptable and I don’t think it sends an appropriate messages to the youth’s of America. The parents need to be more aware of what their children are doing and send a positive message to their kids.