Intro To Teen Pregnancy Essay

Teen pregnancy is one of the biggest problems in this country. Childbearing teenagers cost American taxpayers nearly 10.9 billion dollars each year. Also children who are born from teen mothers also experienced a wide range of problems such as higher risk for low birth weight and infant mortality, have fewer skills and be less prepared to learn when they enter kindergarten and have behavioral problems and chronic medical conditions. Whereas only 50 percent of teen mothers have received a high school diploma and only 30 percent have earned a General Education Development (GED) certificate. From 1996 to 2006 Arizona teenagers were an average of 21.5 percent over the national average in childbirths.
Currently there are three main solutions, have parents and schools talk about safe sex, make abortion pills more accessible through the planned parenthood program, tell pregnant teens to consider abortion. The National Campaign reports that teens say their parents influence their decisions about sex, love and relationships the most; even more than the media or their peers. Starting a conversation about sex early and often may prove beneficial. This conversation should ideally begin well before a child's teen years. In fact, the National Campaign encourages parents to talk early and become "askable" parents. Remember, this is ideally an 18-year conversation, not just one talk.
The good news is that teen birth rates in the United States have declined almost continuously since the early 1990s — including a ten percent drop from 2012 to 2013 — further decreasing from 2012's historic lows. Between 1991 and 2013, the teen birth rate decreased by more than half in the United States (from 61.8 to 26.5 per 1,000 teens).Despite this decline, the U.S. teen birth rate is still higher than that of many other developing countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom. Expanding access to Medicaid family planning services, and utilizing mass media campaigns to promote safe sex may reduce teen pregnancy and save taxpayer dollars eloped countries.
Unintended pregnancies account for more than 90 percent of all abortions—and a substantial majority of Americans of all political stripes support the goal of reducing abortions. If this is true then why not make birth control pills more accessible through this by making it cost less. If we can do this then taxpayers can avoid the later issue that cost billions of dollars.