Teenage Pregnancy Reduction

by Carissa

Teenage sex! Most people think that this is the root of the whole teenage pregnancy problem. Everyone is running their selves ragged trying to prevent teenage sex. And that leads to people worried about promoting sex.

NEWS FLASH! You don't have to worry about promoting it - a lot of other people are doing that for you. Even the Yakima public school district has been refusing to put condom dispensers in bathrooms, girls and boys. I think you are better off safe than sorry.

Now the next step is preventing teen pregnancy. Being a teenager myself and having friends who are also teenagers I know what would prevent a pregnancy of my own. In this town of Yakima, Washington, we have a large number of sexually active teenagers.

A very small number of these teenagers have parents who either know they are having sex or who accept their child having sex. Most teenagers, like myself, are busy hiding their sexual activity from their parents because they are afraid of what they will think or if we will get in trouble.

Teenagers are also worried about what other adults will think of them; it is embarrassing to go into a clinic and ask for birth control or go in for a check up. We almost have nobody to talk to that we are comfortable with.

I think that in reducing teenage pregnancy, you have to have acceptance. If you were to study or even look at other countries' societies and teenage pregnancy rates, you would see that they have a low teenage pregnancy rate and a high teenage sex acceptance rate.

You have to accept a problem before you can solve it. Sure we have Planned Parenthood and the crisis pregnancy center, and that does help, but you also have bills for birth control and exams.

What I am trying to say is that if parents, step parents, grandparents, and society as a whole or even as a half, accepted teenage sex they would have a better chance at communication between parents and children and lowering the teenage pregnancy rate.

"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution!"
- Emma Goldman

Feminist Women's Health Center