Pregnancy Prevention and Why Is it Important?

                    Young girls all around the world are more and more idolizing teen Pregnancy.  With 16 & Pregnant, Teen Mom, and other teen pregnancy shows girls from all over are starting to have children at young ages because it’s becoming the new ‘normal’.  “Only one out of every five teen mothers receives any support from their child’s father, and about 80 percent end up on welfare. Once on welfare, they are likely to remain there for a long time. In fact, half of all current welfare recipients had their first child as a teenager” (Sawhill). This is a result of these young mothers dropping out of school to support their child but then cannot make a living because they have no education background. So what can we do to make sure teen pregnancy is reduced? We can instill sexual education classes with stricter enforcement. People may disagree and not want it taught, especially in private Catholic schools because Catholics state that you should have intercourse after you are married, so the school faculty automatically thinks that curious teenagers are not having sex. Wrong. Just from graduating a private Catholic high school and not having sex education taught, three of my close friends ended up getting pregnant.
           I believe that stronger administration needs to be implemented when it comes to the topic of sex. People always view it as a bad word or a ‘dirty’ word but as a matter of being pregnant and dropping out of school or not, the word sex doesn’t even compare to the lifelong words that people may call you. If we can spread the word about prevention of teen pregnancy, we will be on a brighter path of more couples either using protection or just not having sex.  From my mother being a teen mom, I know first hand the struggles that she had to go to just to support herself and I. People may view it as being cool, and ‘hip’, but is cool going to get you places in the long run or will book smarts? Actions do speak louder than words, and they have their consequences. Even though a baby is not a consequence, the future has its negatives such as dropping out of school, not being able to find a stable job etc. Now not all drop out of school, and are successful in life but that is a very miniscule group. An increase in sex education may or may not reduce the amount of teen pregnancies, but from personal experience, especially in private school, an escalation in the program would benefit so many students that it may hit them, harshly, with reality, which is necessary.

Works Cited

Sawhill, Isabel. "What Can Be Done to Reduce Teen Pregnancy and Out-of-Wedlock                             

               Births?" Brookings Institution. Welfare, Reform & Beyond, Oct. 2001. Web. 10

                Mar. 2013.  

                <http://www.brookings.edu/es/wrb/publications/pb/pb08.pdf>.