Essay about Teen: Teenage Pregnancy and Comprehensive Sex Education

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Teen Pregnancy

Teenage pregnancy is a growing problem throughout the United States, and is an

increasing issue. Based on the United States Department of Health, every twenty-six

seconds a teenager becomes pregnant, every fifty seconds an adolescent gives birth, and

every hour fifty-six children are born into the arms of a teenage mother. Young teens lack

the necessary judgment and maturity to be good and effective parents. Having children

during teenage year's is a poor choice and teens should avoid having children until they are

well into adulthood.

The concern of teen pregnancy has been a significant problem on society. “Simply

put, if more children in this country were born to parents who are ready and able to take

care of them, we would see a significant reduction in a host of social problems afflicting

children in the United States.” ("Opposing viewpoints")What this quote is stating is if

parents who are ready to be parents are able to care financially, emotionally, and physically

would be better parents rather than people who aren't capable of being parent's.There

would be a decrease to the issue in society.

Teen pregnancy has also been costly to the public- federal, state, government, and

taxpayers.Taxpayers pay at least nine-billion dollars each year for health care cost, child

welfare costs, prison costs, and lost tax revenue. To continue to reduce teen pregnancy

will help decrease poverty. “Two thirds of families begun by a young unmarried mother

are poor. Approximately one quarter of teen mothers go on welfare within 3 years of the

child’s birth. The daughters of teen mothers are three times more likely to become teen

mothers themselves when compared to the daughters of mothers who were ages twenty-

twenty-one. Teens in foster care are more likely to get pregnant than teens not in the

foster care system, and children born to adolescent parents are more likely than children

born to older mothers to enter the foster care system. Teen girls in foster care are two

and a half times more likely than their peers not in foster care to experience a pregnancy

by age 19. Children born to teen parents are more likely than those born to older parents

to end up in foster care or have multiple caretakers throughout their childhood.”

(Opposing viewponts") What this statement is stating is, teens in the foster care system

has more chances of being teen parents than their peers. Teen pregnancy has also been

costly to the public.

The results of increasing teen pregnancy has led to “Comprehensive Sex Education."

Teens who received comprehensive sex education were fifty percent less likely to

experience pregnancy than those who received abstinence- only education.” (Opposing

viewpoints.) Comprehensive sex education has been proven to be effective. It has delay

sexual activity and reduces the number of sex partners. It has also increased condom and

contraceptive use. Sex education has been proven that “ forty-percent delayed sexual

initiation, reduced the number of sexual partners or increased condom or contraceptive

use, thirty percent reduced the frequently of sex, including a return to abstinence, sixty

percent reduced unprotected sex.” (Opposing viewpoints)

Abstinence- only programs are showed to be be inaccurate, ineffective and may even

cause harm. Students who participated in the club were no more likely to abstain from sex

than other students.“Evaluations of publicly funded abstinence-only programs in at least

thirteen states have shown no positive changes in sexual behaviors over time. Among

youth participating in “virginity pledge”programs, researchers found that among sexually

experienced youth eighty-eight percent broke the pledge and had sex before marriage.

Further, among all participants. Once pledger began to have sex, they had more sex
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