Pregnant? How the hell can you be pregnant, you are only 16!!! (Teenage Pregnancy)

Member Name: mr blonde

Product:	Teenage Pregnancy
Date:	18/06/02 (403 review reads)
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Well, I suppose this is mr blonde getting his money's worth in again on the old opinion malarkey, so without further a due here goes!

Teenage pregnancy is one of those subjects that everyone seems to have an opinion on, many people of which turn their noses up at the thought of it, feeling that their children are too "sensible" for that to happen to them. Well, those people are simply naive. Pregnancy can happen to anyone, it can be deliberate, it can be deceptive, it can be accidental, planned in order to receive benefits, but at the end of the day, it can also be innocent, a one night stand gone wrong, well, that is what it would be if it happened to an adult, but us "kids" or "teenagers" aren't classed as grown up and mature enough to understand that!

The fact of the matter is that yes we may well be "kids", but on the issue of sex, we are only as naive as society teaches us to be. We are taught that a condom will save the world and that they are readily available wherever you go, which in fairness is true, contraception is easily accessible, but what about the teenagers who do things like drinking every weekend, just the same as adults, when they are drunk, is something like a condom the first priority when you cannot even see the girl you are having sex with straight? Yes it should be, but I somehow doubt that it becomes top of the priorities list when that state of mind is reached.

The government would have us believe that it invests heavily in sex education, yet the media continues to destroy almost every option that it proposes. If the government?s sex education is of a supposed high standard, then why are so many teenage girls getting pregnant?

The media makes teenager mothers out to be "slags", and condemns them from society, which in my opinion only has a bad effect. Because teenage parents are outcast from society, the children they bear are brought up a
s outcasts, and therefore they learn to live as outcasts, and in turn often go down the same road as their parents. Propaganda would have us believe that every teenage pregnancy that occurs is because of a reckless couple of youths who couldn't careless, and are out to scrounge off the state. Well, what about the teenagers that have actually made genuine mistakes, they have to live by that mistake for the rest of their lives, they may well have had a huge career ahead of them, and one night of idiocy may have cost them that. I for one do not believe that teenage pregnancy is a good thing, but I do not believe that the parents should be shunned from our so called "global community" as geographers would have us believe this world is. If we are such a global community, then why are people still outcast?

Investment into contraception and education I do not feel is the key issue here, it is the government's and the media's incessant lack of tact, and indeed sympathy towards teenagers that causes many a problem in this region.

Teenage pregnancy is often condemned by the media as being a way of teenagers scrounging off the state, like I have already said though, what about those who had a career ahead of them I am sure a measly £150 every couple of weeks and a crumby council house is a real substitute for a potential salary of 20 grand a year plus, nice house, nice car, decent education and all the trimmings, I would imagine that the prospect of getting up early and dirty nappies etc would not really appeal to them.

I personally have made a conscious decision (bearing in mind I am still a teenager myself), that I don't want any kids until I am able to provide a decent home and a healthy stable environment for them, where I can provide for them, and not until I reach that point, will I and my partner decide whether to "dive without the wet suit" so to speak.

I feel that the more we ostracise tho
se in society that are unfortunate enough to get pregnant at an early age, the more the problem will increase. If we accept the parents as parents, then I feel that the problem may well decline, because of the simple reason there will be less kids brought up in hostile environments, where they are taught to do as they please because society will shun them no matter what they do.

There are also the generalisations that come with teenage pregnancy, the old crack of "she only got pregnant to scrounge off the state", "she is a slag" just because she has a baby, "I blame their parents". Just how many ways are there for us to excuse ourselves from accepting these people as humans, or before we can look at all the possibilities before we judge them. There is every chance that the girl might have been "a slag", or that the parents were just after welfare, but until you know the real truth behind each individual case, then nobody is able to judge fairly.

Anyways, this has been my opinion, I do not feel teenage pregnancy is a good thing in any way shape or form, but I do feel those that get pregnant should not be punished.

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