controversial Issue

The greatest controversial issue on teen pregnancy is whether to abort the baby or not. Abortion is such a controversial issue not only in public views but aswell in religious views. The catholic church consider abortion murder. We believe that a baby is a human being no matter how many months or weeks pregnant the mother might be. Also our belief is that if you have no money to support a child or to young it is better if you have the child and give it up for adoption. However Kenneth Cauthen thinks that "Pro-life advocates ought to promote effective birth control methods. Pro-choice advocates ought to encourage sexually responsible behavior, including abstinence. What if they joined hands in a common crusade against unwanted pregnancies?"
the reason that people support abortion is because they belive the baby develops after three months, whitch means they are not killing the baby. They also think abortion is ok because that way the government saves money. Another reason they support abortion is because they feel its the mothers choice whether or not to abort.
My belief is that abortion is murder and that if a girl feels old enough to be sexualy active they should also feel old enough to have the baby. They need to deal with the consequences of their actions.

Survey

For this survey i asked students around our school question that i myself was wondering and these were their answers....

~Do u believe that teen pregnancy is an issue?


Ariane Montez- "It always has been."

Crisol Tellez- "Yes i think it is! I know lots of girls that got pregnant."

Daisy Tena- "Yes"



~Why do u think teen get pregnant?


Crisol tellez- "Cuz they are having 2 much sex and they need 2 stop and they dont know how or
where 2 get protection."

Ariane Montez- "Cus of boredom or laziness. Cus sometimes pregnancy happens cus ppl r lazy 2 put on condoms or watevr."

Maritza Casas- "Because girls are dumb and they believe any thing a guy tells them."

Rebecca Dolores-" I don't know maybe cuz they 4get 2 use protection or maybe cuz they r in love that they don't care"



~Why do think teens have sexual intercourse?

Carlos Valdez- "In my opinion i think that they become sexually active because of exposure of sexual content in the Internet or TV"

Estephania Moron-"Cuz they have no good values from home"

Kathy Williams-" Your hormones start erupting during adolescents so you have a physical desire even though you know its not right, but then you get pressure by friends, and the media is attacking teens by music, movies, and TV by showing a lot of sexual activity so that makes your sexual desire stronger. most teens want to do what they see on TV."

what consequences do the babies of the teenage mothers face?

We all know that teenage mothers face various problems during and after pregnancy, but what problems do the babies face? A child being born from a teen mother can have many problems growing up.

Teen pregnancy is bad for the child because children that are born to teen mothers suffer from higher rates of low birth weight and other related health problems. "The proportion of babies with low birth weights born to teens is 21 percent higher than the proportion for mothers age 20-24. Low birth weight raises the probabilities of infant death, blindness, deafness, chronic respiratory problems, mental retardation, mental illness, and cerebral palsy. In addition, low birth weight doubles the chances that a child will later be diagnosed as having dyslexia, hyperactivity, or another disability." Therefor not only is the teen mother going to go through health problems but the child will too.

Another disadvantage that children born to teen mothers have are that they don't often have sufficient health care. Since the mothers aren't prepared to have a baby at such a young age it becomes difficult for them to cover medical expenses. even though the children already have a higher probability to get sick it is estimated that in his or hers first 14 years the average child of a teen mother visits a physician and other medical providers an average of 3.8 times a year, as to a child born to older parents will visit 4.3 times a year. And when they do visit medical providers more of the expenses that they make are paid by others in society. A recent study suggested that the medical expenses paid by society would be much less if teens would wait until they are older to have their child.

Also Children born to teen mothers are not likely to be raised correctly. This is because their mothers and often their fathers are too young to overcome the job of being a parent. The mothers themselves are still growing and developing so it makes it difficult for them to provide the kind of environment that children need for adequate development. There are certain "things" that parents need to do, for example a recent research demonstrated the importance of sensitive parenting and early cognitive stimulation for brain development. So since the mothers are so young they aren't able to provide these certain "things" that the child needs to grow up which then leads to poor parenting.

Also these children often become victims to abuse and/ or neglect. This is because most of the mothers that get pregnant aren't ready physically and mentally and didn't plan on getting pregnant so therefor they don't want the child which leads to leaving them up for adoption or at a fosters home. The mothers usually become frustrated with the responsibilities of parenthood so that's how child abuse begins. For example some teen mothers are used to having fun, going out with their friends and having everything the easy way. However a baby changes your life completely, so when their baby starts crying and they can't get him or her to quiet down they become frustrated because they don't know what to do so they abuse the child.

So not only do teen parents face difficult situations or problems but the babies that are born do as well.

Reflection

I can honestly say that when i chose this topic i chose it because this is something important to me and because i thought i knew something about it but, there are so many facts and interesting things that young teens don't know and that i didn't even know about pregnancy. So far i have learned plenty of stuff that i didn't know about teenage pregnancy however nothing has struck out to me so much as when my cousin told me step by step what happened to her when she had her baby. She explained everything so detailed that she scared the crap out of me! i never realized how ignorant i truly am on this topic and now I'm really glad i chose this topic because I'm really looking forward to learning everything i can on teenage pregnancy.

Teenage pregnancy is something that i believe is becoming more and more common each year which in my point of view is not a very good thing. I don't believe it's a good thing because most of the girls that get pregnant are still babies them self's, the way i see it is as if a baby is having a baby. it may not make sense but what i kind of want to say is that these girls are mentally and physically kids so how can a kid raise a kid? However not all girls are like that. I have seen and been with teenage girls who aren't all that responsible or mature but when they get pregnant they completely change. They become responsible young adults and work very hard to have a home and good future for their baby even if the father leaves them, and those are the girls that other teenage pregnancies should look up to and admire.

I've learned that you can't really speak about pregnancy or judge anyone until you've been there. There are so many things that we don't even know and yet we act like we've been there done that. I'm can't say that everyone's like that but most people are including myself. Like mentioned previously i never realized how ignorant i am on this topic until now. Speaking with teenage pregnancies has changed my views in so many ways. Yeah i knew it probably was a tough thing to go through but i never realized how difficult and painful it truly can be. The difficult part is not only having the baby but also raising it and dedicating so much time of your life to it. There are so many problems that these girls have to face and so many things that they have to give up for their baby that i have such enormous admiration towards the girls that don't give up and keep their chins up.

Quinceañera

Quinceañera is a movie about a 15 year old chicana named Magdalena who is having a quinceañera but,she faces many problems along the way. Magdalena's cousin Maria just had her quinceañera and it was what Magdalena dreamed of, stretch hummer limo, great music, lots of friends, and a gorgeous dress. However, her Quinceañera won't be as big as Maria's because her family isn't as wealthy as her aunt and uncle. She finds out that she won't be having a stretch hummer limo or a great party, but worst of all she won't be wearing a dress of her own instead her dad decided to ask Maria if she could lend her dress to magdalena. So then she goes to her aunt's house to try on her cousins dress but since she's a little bugger than her cousin they have to make the dress a little bigger. Magdalena's dad is the preacher at church so his expectations for his daughter are very high, but she has a boyfriend named Herman which her parents aren't aware of. To make matters worse she later finds out that she is pregnant! But she doesn't understand how because she swears she's a virgin. Magdalena has a pretty close relationship with her boyfriend and he seems to be comforting and understandable, even when he finds out that she's pregnant. However, when he suddenly stopped calling she decides to go look for at his house, but when his mother opens the door she informs her that Herman has left the state. Worse of all Herman's mom tells Magdalena to leave Herman alone and to stop perverting him and she doesn't believe that the baby she's having is Herman's.

When Magdalena tells her dad that she is pregnant he gets furious and she decides to run away to her great uncles house. There she finds support from her uncle and cousin who is also staying at her uncles house. Later on she finds out her uncle is gay and soon after that her uncle dies. Thankfully her cousin tells her that he'll take responsibility for her baby. At the end her father forgives her because she lets him know that she didn't have sex, what happened was that some of Herman's sperm landed near her and got her pregnant. Magdalena has a quinceañera even though she is pregnant and "lives happily ever after."

This movie relates to my topic because it shows all the problems a pregnant teen can face.

Library research

Most of the research i found wasn't really that helpful because the article was published in 1998 so the information wasn't that accurate. However there was some surprising information that I did not know about. For example i did not know that up to nine times as many teenagers give birth in the United States as in other industrialized countries. Another fact that made think was that back in 1998 American youths under the age of 15 were becoming sexually active, so if that was 9 years ago i wonder at what age youths become sexually active today??? I do wish i would have found some more recent articles on my topic, but this article did help me find out somethings i did not know before.

Y0U TUB3

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5ZKCA2azp8M (part 1) http://youtube.com/watch?v=fu_qqyiWgsg (part 2)

This video is very informational in several ways. Her story reveals the true details behind a pregnancy, details that plenty of young teenagers do not know. I like how she describes every step of her pregnancy with so much detail that she illustrates a picture in your head. At the end she provides some advice to all the young girls who are considering the fact of having a baby or who are having sexual intercourse, about how it completely changes your life. She says that she does adore her baby but that she does wish it would of happened later on in her life. Her situation was quite moving because she gave birth to her child knowing that she wouldn't have the fathers support considering the fact that he was in jail. I believe this video is such an educational video to so many young girls who are ignorant on this topic.

T33N@G3 PR3GN@NCY

Teenage pregnancy is a topic which everyone should be informed of. Plenty of teenagers at our own school have gotten themselves into a not so great situation by getting pregnant. My belief is that there might be a probability that many students are not well informed on sexual intercourse and how to prevent it. Plenty of students have sexual relations without being aware of the dramatic consequences which they can face. Almost all of the teenagers who have gotten pregnant haven't gotten pregnant because they wanted a child it is mostly because unprotected sex or an "accident." However this "accident" as they may call it is an enormous responsibility that changes your life completely, this why many teenagers turn to abortion as a solution to their "accident." I believe all teenagers should be well informed on what sexual intercourse can bring and ways to protect yourself from getting pregnant. as mentioned before getting pregnant is a huge responsibility. This topic relates to my life because many of my young family members have gotten pregnant without being ready mentally or physically.