Teen Pregnancy: Defining the Problem

With three-quarters of a million cases each year in the United States alone, teenage pregnancy is truly an epidemic. That’s 750,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 19, girls largely without any sufficient means of supporting themselves, let alone an infant. Teenage pregnancy not only leaves young girls and their children utterly hopeless, it also is a tremendous drain on local economies. Special health care, housing, and many other needs add up to an estimated $30,000 required of taxpayers for each baby born to a teenager. And, with an average of 15,000 teenage births each year in Pennsylvania, the burden is tremendous—$450 million per year!
Like an aging population or an occasional flooding, teenage pregnancy is an expected expense. It’s considered inevitable: as long as there are teenagers, there will be pregnant teenagers too. Despite the fact that Pennsylvania youth are well-educated on the consequences of sex—every student in public schools is required to attend a sex-education course—pregnancy rates have remained high over the last two decades. The fact is, the detriment is not so much a lack of knowledge as it is a lack of positive influences. Without role models to show them that pregnant teenagers are not the norm, the disadvantaged youth will never reach a higher standard.
Although we can’t change what these teens are exposed to everyday in their neighborhoods and on television, or what they hear from their cynical parents (anything from “You’ll never amount to anything” to “You’ll end up just like I did, pregnant at 17”) we can help them by exposing them to different viewpoints. Some kind of mentoring program—offered through school, community foundations (like Big Brother, Big Sister), or religious organizations—that infiltrates the lives of teenagers with positive role models and good influences is an option. Only by shooting for the roots of the problem, lack of knowledge and poor influences, can any effective change be made.