teen pregnancy

ACLU of Florida PATH Project: Providing Acess for Teen Health

The Path Project serves as an information and advocacy center for minors facing difficult pregnancy choices. They help teens under the age of 18 navigate the courts so that they can make decisions about their own reproductive health care.

Should I have his baby to make him stay?

coffee_cakes asks:

Okay so I'm 16 and have been dating my boyfriend for two months now, but we have known each other and liked each other since like age 5. But recently I found out that he had gotten his ex pregnant while they were dating and they got an abortion, that was nearly 7 months ago. She's been contacting him and wont leave him alone. She's trying to get him back. He says he loves me and I love him, he's so important to my life happiness, health and just everything, I love him dearly. I'd been thinking about having his baby and now this makes me want to even more....

I'm so confused, should I be threatened by the ex? Should I have his baby? We both have jobs and he has a place for us to stay, I practically live with him as it is, he's already got his diploma. Please help.

Teen Pacts in Massachusetts School ... for Pregnancy?

Every year there are new student trends or patterns in schools and teachers may understand or may be left scratching their heads in wonder of what’s to come. Trends may be in types of clothing, hairstyles, a different set of words, even what classes will be deemed interesting for that year. A troubling trend began not too many years back with school shootings, making teaching a less safe career choice than it used to be.

Most recently a pact purportedly began in Massachusetts for teenage girls to become pregnant and have their babies to raise together.

I'm 14, and I really want a baby!

Trinity asks:

I'm 14, and I really want a baby. I know how to care for them because I live with my niece and sleep in the same room with her. Whenever she cries, I usually wake up and help my sister. I'm very good with babies. I already have 10,000 dollars in the bank just for me that I could use just for the baby, and it is still growing. I am a virgin so this is not just because I want sex. I'm very mature. I make straight A's in all my classes I really don't have many friends, so it wouldn't matter if I would not have many contacts. I really think I'm ready for a baby.

Film Review: Juno

Based on various internet reviews and commentary, I had expected the film Juno to be a touchingly light, introspective teen comedy in the same vein as Napoleon Dynamite or Ghost World; however, I had not expected it to be so sad and feel so personal. Sure, it starts with a lot of laughs, but a tinge of desolation soon sets in and it really gets to you by the end of the film.

Teen Pregnancy Rates Up in the U.S.: 10 Likely Reasons Why That Aren't Just About Sex Ed

You have probably heard that the teen pregnancy and birth rate is up in the United States, for the first time since 1991. As is reasonable, the primary issue most talking about this are addressing is abstinence-only sex education and, due to the way the U.S. has only given federal funding to those programs since 1996, the lack of comprehensive sex education. Of course, too, the ab-only corner is immediately coming to the table with the strange idea that pregnancy and birth rates are up because of comprehensive sex education. Logic and sound data obviously is not the order of the day for that faction, including in their curricula chock-full of intentional medical and practical misinformation, so it's hardly a shocker that they either haven't looked at the facts here or have, but don't care about misrepresenting them.

It's not tough to find the flaw in that supposition: we've only had the abstinence-only mandates, and the popularity of those programs, in this country since 1996, and ...

The Reality of New Mommyhood

I painted a picture of pure, perfect mommyhood to anyone who would (or had to) listen. He rides in the sling all day! I never get tired, I'm too happy! I grow all of his food in my backyard and I have a nice, hot dinner on the table for my partner when he gets home from his hard day at work! And we never, ever fight. I was born for this job! Yeah, right.

Hip Mama

An online parenting webzine "bursting with political commentary and ribald tales from the front lines of motherhood" with blog entries, links to stories, recipes, news, chat and more.

Birth control credited with drop in teen pregnancy

The dramatic declines in teenage pregnancy rates noted in the United States between 1995 and 2002 were largely due to improved contraceptive use, not to abstinence, a new study shows.

The article goes into far more detail but I just want to point out that this is evidence that teens can and do make responsible choices when choosing to be sexually active. Indeed, contraceptive use accounted for 86% of the drop whereas abstinence can only claim 14%.

I Want It NOW!

The majority of pregnancies that occur for adolescent women are unplanned. But some pregnancies in the teen years -- a general estimate is usually about one in five -- are intended or planned. One reason that sex education likely hasn't reduced those pregnancy rates as much as it might is that some teens know full well what birth control is and how and when to use it, but choose not to, sometimes because they -- maybe you -- want to become pregnant.