Teenage Pregnancy and Prevention

Teenage Pregnancy and a Way to Prevent It Teenage pregnancy – it can 't happen to me. This is the mindset that most teenagers have these days. Teenagers feel that they are invincible and that things, such as pregnancy, happens to others, but that they are immune to it. A lot of teenagers believe that you can 't get pregnant the first time you have sex, if a girl is on her period, pregnancy cannot occur, among other myths. The reason teens believe this is that the education on sex isn 't teaching them. Whether it is from their parents or school, teenagers aren 't being educated on sex and pregnancy properly. The facts aren 't being given to them; the risks aren 't imbedded into their minds, and the statistics on what does happen aren 't given to them straight. Without being taught effectively, teenagers don 't realize that they don 't have to have sex to be cool, that pregnancy can happen to them, and the consequences that can happen could possibly forever change their lives. Eight hundred and twenty thousand teen girls become pregnant each year (The National.) Some may be planned, but for the most part, those 820,000 are unwanted, unplanned pregnancies. Teens that become pregnant are pregnant because they either didn 't know about the preventative measures or they just chose not to use them. Either way, it is now a problem for them and something that is going to have to be dealt with. If the teens didn 't know, it is not just their problem; it is society 's problem as well for not properly teaching. It should be part of a parent 's job, but some believe that only roughly 5% of all children are given any sex education in the home (Bolmeier 14.) "The responsibility for sex education should be shared by the parents, social services in the community and particularly, the schools. Unfortunately, however, sex information to youth is provided by peers. . ." (Bolmeier 12-13.) And that information from peers is usually from music, movies, and television,

Cited: Advocates for Youth. "Adolescent Pregnancy and Childbearing in the United States." 17 April 2005. http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fsprechd.htm Bolmeier, E.C. Sex Litigation and the Public Schools. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Miche Company: 1975. Halstead, J. Mark and Michael J. Reiss. Values in Sex Education – from Principles to Practice. New York: RoutledgeFalmer: 2003 McFeely, Siobhan. "Helping Prevent Teenage Pregnancy." Practice Nurse. 11 March 2005: 37. Academic Search Planner. EBSCOHost. 5 April 2005. The National Campaign To Prevent Teenage Pregnancy. 2004. Teen Pregnancy. www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/teens/facts/fact1.asp