One teen commented on www.mycentraljersey.com that she thought there was nothing wrong with a teen being a parent provided she had the support of family members and friends; her insistence was that a teen’s body would bounce back quickly and that being a teen doesn’t affect the ability to be a good parent.

Of course, that led to a number of comments from others who responded. Many pointed to financial issues and the fact that, well, it’s not really possible for a teen girl to be a full time student, a full time parent and to work to support her young family all at the same time. Others pointed to the lack of patience that many teens have, the sense that they may not have the ability to put another life before their own. Still others approached the published letter saying that the teen who made the initial comment couldn’t possible be thinking about the socio-environmental impact and other bigger issues.

Which side do you stand on?

Not only are there a number of reports indicating that the Obama presidency will be far more friendly to comprehensive sex ed, but also there are studies that show that abstinence pledges are not enough to stop teens from sexual activity.

According to the study, not only are teens breaking the vow, but also they are less likely to use birth control and therefore are more likely to face an unplanned pregnancy and risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

(source) In his sweeping speech at the Democratic National Convention last summer, President-elect Barack Obama may have touched upon the key to one of New London’s most vexing and heartbreaking problems.

”We may not agree on abortion,” then-Sen. Obama said, “but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.”

As the national teen-pregnancy rate rises for the first time in 15 years, health experts, community workers and legislators from New London to Washington hope the “common ground” solution on which people on both sides of the abortion debate can agree is comprehensive sex education.

Advocates of comprehensive sex education, which covers contraception as well as abstinence, have gained ground in the last year. A long-awaited Congress-backed study found abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which the Bush administration supports, to be inadequate and ineffective. As a result, 17 states, including Connecticut, have refused money for the programs.

Now, comprehensive sex education advocates are hoping the federal and state governments will show them the money.

As was reported in the Telegraph

In a statement issued by the family, Bristol said she “obviously discourages” teen pregnancy and understood her previous plans had now been changed forever.

“Teenagers need to prevent pregnancy to begin with – this isn’t ideal,” she said.

“But I’m fortunate to have a supportive family which is dealing with this together. Tripp is so perfectly precious; we love him with all our hearts. I can’t imagine life without him now.”

Ultimately, this statement brings up an extremely valid point: preventing teen pregnancy is the key to enabling teens to reach the goals that they set for themselves. Even in the most supportive families, taking a step back and making an effort to talk about what can be done to prevent pregnancy and to help teens focus on their goals is essential.

Planned Parenthood has already launched an appeal to the Obama administration asking them to protect the freedom of choice and to reverse this legislation - something that will also protect the health of women and teen girls everywhere.

If you wish to, click here to sign the petition .

(source)

Gay, lesbian, bisexual teens at higher pregnancy risk than straight peers

TORONTO — Lesbian, gay and bisexual teens in British Columbia are at a higher risk of becoming pregnant or causing a pregnancy than their heterosexual peers, says a study released Tuesday.

The authors suggest the discrimination, sexual abuse and harassment that gay, lesbian and bisexual teens face may prompt them to indulge in more sexually risky behaviour like having sex without using condoms, starting to have sex before the age of 14 or having multiple sexual partners.

Lead author Elizabeth Saewyc said that a succession of surveys since 1992 show that in general, all teens are becoming more sexually healthy and taking fewer risks than they did when the survey was first administered.

But there are still disturbing differences between lesbian, gay and bisexual teens and their heterosexual counterparts, she suggested.

“One of the challenges is that although teen pregnancy rates are declining, although some of the risky sexual behaviours are declining for all orientation groups, gay, lesbian and bisexual teens still started at much higher rates than their heterosexual teens,” said Saewyc.

“There’s still a gap. For us, that is a concern that there still is this gap between heterosexual teens and gay, lesbian and bisexual teens.”

Saewyc is an associate professor in the school of nursing at the University of British Columbia and research director of the McCreary Centre Society. Her study, which was published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The findings are drawn from data compiled through the B.C. Adolescent Health Survey, administered every five or six years to between 15,000 and 30,000 Grade 7 to 12 students in schools across the province. Conducted by the McCreary Centre Society, the survey gathers information on a range of issues including nutrition, weapons in school and sexuality.

This research article, which compares findings from the 1992, 1998 and 2003 surveys, showed girls who described themselves as bisexual were nearly twice as likely as girls who said they were heterosexual to have been pregnant. And in 2003 lesbian teens were more than 2.5 times as likely to have been pregnant at least once.

Male teens who described themselves as bisexual or gay were between three and four times more likely than heterosexual boys to have impregnated a girl in 2003 - which is actually a decline from earlier surveys.

Saewyc said it is a common misconception that gay boys don’t have sex with girls.

“We assume that sexual attraction, sexual behaviour and sexual identity are going to be 100 per cent consistent for people. And that’s not the case. Especially not for teenagers,” she said from Vancouver.

“So they may know who they’re attracted to. They may identify. But they’re not necessarily only going to be having sex with their same gender.”

Gay and lesbian teens may have sex with members of the opposite sex for a variety of reasons. Some do it to hide, to deflect the abuse that they see inflicted on gay, lesbian and bisexual teens. They call it “camouflage.”

“For some, it may be that they’ve been told that this is abnormal and wrong and they may think: ‘Well, if I just have sex with enough opposite-gender people that will cure me,”‘ Saewyc said.

“And for some, it is camouflage. It’s passing. For some, it’s curiosity - ‘Well, how do I know I’m really gay until I’ve tried and decided no, I really don’t like that?”‘

David Wolfe, a clinical psychologist who has a chair in children’s mental health at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, said the way to address the elevated pregnancy rates among bisexual, gay and lesbian teens is to find ways to stop making them feel so stigmatized.

“The take-away (message) to me is we have to normalize in our education of teens around such sexual orientation,” Wolfe said in an interview from London, Ont. “It’s much like racism and sexism has always been - it’s still something that’s permitted to continue in the schools.”

He said there needs to be more openness in the education process about the fact that there are different sexual orientations.

“I’m not necessarily saying to normalize it by making Dick and Jane become Dick and Fred or something. But I think that in their health education, they have to understand the variability of human sexuality. …”

“Parents may look at it as saying that somehow we’re endorsing this behaviour. … But what it’s really saying is that this is a reality. There are people there with different coloured skin. There are people there with different sexual orientation. And you don’t try to meld them all together and pretend they don’t exist … and label them as somehow wrong.”

“We are creating our own problems by creating problems for them,” Wolfe insisted. “By not giving them a chance to have a voice in it. Then it becomes a bigger problem - and we blame them for it.”

(source) Producers for the hit animated TV show SpongeBob Squarepants have announced plans to move ahead with a controversial episode in which the residents of Bikini Bottom deal with the unplanned pregnancy of its main teenaged character, Pearl. Creator Stephen Hillenburg said it’s a natural progression for the edgy series.

“We’ve tackled tough subjects before, like the dangers of too much sun, forgetting to feed your pet, or what happens when you write a letter to vikings and they actually show up at your place of employment,” said Hillenburg. “It just makes sense for us to take that next step to something bigger.”

The storyline script had originally been shelved following complaints by the parental groups Focus On The Family and Mothers Against Everything, both of whom lobbied successfully against the airing of the PBS children’s show, Sex! With Ruff Ruffman. The critics charge that such touchy topics should be left to shows like Kim Possible and Suite Life.

“If I want my kids asking questions I’m not prepared to answer, I’ll have them watch Cartoon Network,” said Focus On The Family chairman James Dobson. “This show should stick to what it does best - the hidden homosexual agenda between SpongeBob and Patrick and their misguided attempts to have a threesome with Squidward.

“God, what I wouldn’t do to be Squidward for a day,” added Dobson. “What a titillating quandary that would be.”

In the episode, entitled Abortions Are For Sissies, Mr Krabs learns that his teenage daughter Pearl is pregnant at the hands of his arch enemy, Plankton. Convinced that the pregnancy is merely a ploy by Plankton to get close to his family in order to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula, Mr Krabs tries to convince Pearl to get an abortion but later relents when he realizes he can employ the child at the Krusty Krab without having to pay him because he is family.

“Like so many episodes before it, this one works on multiple levels,” noted TV and film critic Roger Ebert wrote on his website after reviewing the show. “Whether it’s Squidward playing the clarinet at Pearl’s tummy for the little kids, or Pearl defying her father and getting it on with his rival for the older kids, SpongeBob once again delights, entertains and educates all in the span of 30 minutes.

“Plus that thing that Patrick does with the condom is just pure comic genius,” Ebert added.

The episode is scheduled to air in the spring and is expected to pave the way for spin-offs of other popular kids shows, including Fairly Young Parents, iPregnant, and Mr Meaty Meets Purple & Brown.

Ultimately, however, there are very few stories about teen pregnancy that end in the same way that one story out of Minnesota in which a teenage woman who had hidden her pregnancy and not had the support of family and others gave birth to her baby and, rather than taking advantage of the state’s Safe Haven law that would have allowed her to give up the child no questions asked, Nicole Beecroft instead chose to stab her infant daughter to death. After waiving the right to a trial by jury, Beecroft was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the crime.

You can read more about this tragic story below:

(source)In the end, Judge Mary Hannon ruled Monday that the evidence was clear: Oakdale teenager Nicole Beecroft planned the death of her newborn daughter, stabbed her more than 100 times and threw the baby’s body into a trash can outside her house.

The judge found Beecroft guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced her to life in prison without parole.

Beecroft, dressed in a brown suit with her hair stretched into braided pigtails, wept when Hannon pronounced the verdict in Washington County District Court. Bee-croft declined to make a statement before Hannon sentenced her.

“I’m really sad,” County Attorney Doug Johnson said outside the courtroom afterward. “It’s a waste of two lives.”

The trial by judge in a first-degree murder case in adult court — Bee-croft waived her right to a jury trial — is rare, Johnson said. He thinks it’s the first such trial in the 22 years that he’s worked for Washington County.

The attorneys in his office who prosecuted the case, Heather Pipenhagen and John Fristik, said Beecroft had considered leaving the baby at a hospital before she gave birth at her home in the early morning hours on April 10, 2007, but instead decided to kill her. Minnesota law permits such abandonment within 72 hours of birth to ensure a baby’s welfare.

Beecroft stabbed the baby 135 times in the neck, chest and abdomen. Several of the wounds penetrated the baby’s vital organs, Hannon said before she sentenced Beecroft.

“Defendant Beecroft denied her pregnancy and made no plans for the child’s future,” Hannon said from the bench. She also said Beecroft made false statements to investigators.

I don’t know how this particular situation came to be, nor do I have a sense of what could have prevented it. But what I do know is this: there is little that is more tragic that a teen in crisis who turns to drastic measures and acts on impulse.