The senate just passed a bill that would make it illegal for someone to help a girl cross state lines to have an abortion without parental consent. Bills like this raise many questions for me. Is there such a problem with teen pregnancy in areas that outlaw abortions that a large number of girls are affected? Or is this just a political ploy to get people outraged over an issue that is really almost a non-issue? If it's the former, then there is a larger problem of trying to address the issue at its root - dealing with teen sex, teen pregnancy, and ineffective parenting. If it's the latter, then it's just another waste of time that I'd rather not be paying for with my tax dollars.
If a teenage girl gets pregnant, doesn't that say something about her parents and their role in her life? At a high level, it makes sense to have parental consent, but I'm not sure that it's always feasible or even healthy when you dig deeper. Most of the people I have known who got pregnant in their teenage years were of the following situations:
- Girls whose parents were overbearing, thus forcing rebellion out of the girl in her attempt to regain some control over her own life.
- Girls whose parents didn't care enough to set any boundaries or could not enforce normal boundaries, in which case the girl got out of control.
- Girls whose parents were also teen parents, which usually meant that they were struggling to make ends meet and couldn't really raise their children effectively.
- Girls whose parents were abusive, physically and/or mentally.
- Girls who had no self esteem (for a variety of reasons) and were searching for acceptance through sex. Sometimes this also led to delusional thoughts of having a baby in order to experience unconditional love.
Of course, there are exceptions, but those buckets account for a lot of what I've seen in my 28 years. I had one friend my around my sophomore year of high school who always talked about how great it would be to have a baby, but not in that "someday" kind of way. She really wanted a baby sooner than that, even though she knew that family would flip. All I could really think of was how much work a baby is, and why would you voluntarily take on that responsibility in addition to preparing yourself to make a good living and be a successful adult? Luckily there was a sane part of her that won out, but the drive was really there and she was missing a lot in her life that she later figured out through counseling. I'm happy to say that she has done really well for herself, so I can't even begin to think about how different her life would have been had she gotten pregnant and had a baby.
I dunno. I look at all of the people and groups who think that abstinence is the answer to the teen pregnancy problem, and, I agree that abstinence really is the only way to avoid pregnancy altogether (save for Mary in the bible you know...). However, I disagree that abstinence alone is the answer, because although we are human, we still make mistakes and we still have the drive for sexual intimacy. That drive doesn't just pop up one day - it's with us, in our genetic make-up, since birth. I remember learning in a sexual psychology class at the UW that babies touch their genitals, because it feels good and sends pleasure responses to their brains. It isn't until they have the mental capability and the social construct to condemn the behavior that they realize it's "bad", and of course, that social construct is different depending on the culture involved. But in the social construct of the US, we're essentially trying to get an age group that is in the stages of development to always make the "right" choice, and that's just not always going to happen, especially when it's a matter of morals stemming from an artificial social construct versus a matter of innate urges stemming from nature.
Ignoring the problem by saying that abstinence is the only answer is just plain irresponsible. You have to teach kids to understand their options, and understand that if they do have sex there is a possibility of pregnancy and disease, the likelihood of which increase dramatically when no contraception is involved. No one really wants their teenagers to have sex, but that doesn't mean that teens won't have sex. But it is really up to the individual family to mitigate the outcome of those issues rather than waste taxpayer dollars on endless discussion and attempts to pass legislation. I'd rather they discuss ways to help parents have more services and tools available to them so that they could be more effective parents. That would alleviate a lot more than just teen pregnancy. Because, at the end of the day we're just not all going to agree on these moral issues, and I don't think it's the job of the government to make moral policies - that is the job of families and local communities.
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