Teenage Pregnancy and Mandatory Birth Control
Teenage pregnancy has become significant public strategy matter as it has been defined as a communal problem rather than an individual distress. Teenage pregnancy is common where by every year approximately one million girls become pregnant. Of these pregnancies however, only a small percentage are intended, which leads to abortions, some miscarry and a great percentage bears children. A great number of these teenagers are unmarried and are giving birth for the first time (Klepinger, Daniel, Shelly Lunderberg and Robert Plotnick, 1995).
All along, the issue of teenage pregnancy has been controversial topic in most cases which include the national politics and the welfare reforms, the educational institutes and the public health movement as well as the religious institutes. Therefore, there is need to come up with policy implications for the teenage mothers and their young ones.
Teenage mothers and their offspring frequently end up living in poverty and depending on organizational welfare (Kristin Luker, 1997). The expenses that come due to having a new child lead to lack of income for these adolescent mothers whom in return affect the social-economic status of the teenage-headed families. Teenage childbearing can bound educational achievement, cut the number of skilled workers, and lower socio-economic standards and the entire quality of life. Globally, it is gradually more significant that teenagers have access to education, as it is apparent that women with higher educational achievement often suspend childbearing to their later years (Wanda S. Pillow, 2004).
In addition, even as good reimbursement have gown down, teenage pregnancies and births go on, which is an implication that welfare remuneration are not a motivation for bearing children at an early age for most young women. It therefore, the ignorance of these factors that has made the teenage mothers to be target of much unworthy condemnation and blame in the society (http://www http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/n/nxd10/adparent2.htm#Mastrocola
The Public health practitioners’ outlook teen pregnancy as a Public health problem that is avoidable. The assumption they take is that the teenagers behave in such a manner due to the fact that they have their own interests and hence have bad habits that regard the birth control methods. Therefore, there is need to solve the teenage pregnancy issue through education, awareness, and provision of birth control methods for teenagers. These include the use of condoms, use of Norplant that is effective for five years (http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/fb_teen_sex.html). This is a surgically implanted contraceptive that is known to be effective and efficient to prevent pregnancy.
The teenagers can also be advised to use pills that are taken depending on the prescriptions that are given by the doctor in charge. Those that are pregnant can also do abortions as a way of birth control so as to avoid subjecting the mother and the child to unhealthy living conditions. These would in return reduce the number of these teenage pregnancies and the entire subjection of the teenage-led families into poverty (Benjamin J. Sadock, Virginia A. Sadock, 2007). The teenagers will therefore have a chance to finish their schooling and therefore get good jobs that would help them bring up better families when they are mature and ready to bear children.
It is also important to support the teenagers who are already pregnant or have children. This is because; sex education and the provision of contraceptives are not useful to a teenage mother who is living in poverty with a new baby (Marian Rengel, 2000).
In conclusion therefore, in order to come up with a solution for teenage pregnancy, sex education, honesty, and awareness are the major topics that should be included in the school curriculum (http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/hsp/teenp/intro.htm). They also need to access the birth control methods freely that are safe, effective and affordable. Young girls who are at high-risk of getting the pregnancy would have great benefits from self-esteem programs and extra school help.
A National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
Benjamin J. Sadock, Virginia A. Sadock, (2007). Kaplan Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry:
Behavioral Science/Clinical. Lippicolt Williams & Wilkins, ISBN 078177327x.
Facts in Brief: Teen Sex and Pregnancy, 1999.
Wanda S. Pillow (2004). Unfit Subjects: Educational Policy and The Teen Mother. Routledge, ISBN 0415944929.
Issues in Brief; Risks and Realities of Early Childbearing Worldwide
Klepinger, Daniel, Shelly Lunderberg and Robert Plotnick. (1995). “Adolescent Fertility and the Educational Attainment of Young Women.” Family Planning Perspectives.
Poverty and Teenage Pregnancy.
Kristin Luker (1997). Dubious Conceptions: The politics of Teenage. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674217039.
Marian Rengel (2000). Encyclopedia of Birth Control. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 1573562556.
Randy Alcorm (2000). ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments. Multnomah Publishers. ISBN 1576737519.