ProWomanProLife

If you want to know if you’ll be treated any differently once you’re pregnant, the short answer is yes. I imagine this goes for all women, but it is especially true for the young and unmarried ladies out there. Things will be different, but a new autobiographical book entitled The Pregnancy Project concludes that the baby bump doesn’t push a successful life out of reach.

Gaby Rodriguez, of Toppenish, Wash., got headlines last April when she announced at a high school assembly that she had worn a faux baby bump for months to explore stereotypes about teen pregnancy. [...]

“Being a Hispanic girl from a family full of teen pregnancies meant that my odds of also becoming a teen mom were way higher than average,” she wrote. “If I gave people what they predicted, how would they react?”

Rodriguez believes the biggest message from her experience is: Things will be OK.

“It’s not the end of the road for them,” she said. “It’s going to be harder, but it’s not the end of the road.”

The pressure to be sexually active comes at us all from various angles. The ads we see each day run the gamut from subtle ads for “performance enhancing” drugs to use later in life (when some of us may not even want to be all that sexually active) to the more aggressive ones, continuously targeting younger and younger audiences. You can’t escape these images, they’re on bus stops, locker rooms, in a banner on a website, in fact they’re so common that they hardly seem to stand out. As adults, maybe our life experience can buffer some of this imagery, but what about kids, teens who are in the process of figuring themselves out as people? A survey by ESSENCE magazine revealed that,

Black youth report considerable pressure to have sex, according to a new survey of 1,500 Black youth ages 13-21 released by ESSENCE Magazine and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Of those who have had sex, 47% of those 13-21 (including 21% of those 13-15) say they have been pressured to go further sexually than they wanted to. [...]

Overall, the survey found that almost half of Black teens ages 13 to 21 reported that they have lied to get out of a sexual situation, and 54% of Black males said they feel pressure from their friends to have sex.

But some of the findings in the survey are hopeful. Nearly half of younger children (13-15) say they value their parents’ opinions and that their parents influence whether or not they will be sexually active. This gives parents an opportunity to express to our kids that they’re not expected to have sex.

“More education and more contraception” has long been the rally cry of abortion advocates. In turn, they blame pro-lifers for increasing abortion numbers, as most pro-lifers disagree with contraception as a solution to ending abortion. Turns out that’s for good reason.

More than a thousand girls a year aged under 15 have an abortion [in the UK], figures revealed.

Terminations are being carried out on youngsters aged just 12 or 13 who have only just started secondary school. [...]

Norman Wells, director of  the Family Education Trust charity, said: ‘Every abortion involves a personal tragedy for a mother and a child, and none more so than where the mother herself is a child.

‘But these figures are just the tip of the iceberg. For every child who has had an abortion under the age of 16, there will be many more who are engaging in illegal sexual activity and suffering physical and emotional harm as a result.’

Mr Wells pointed to research  showing it was not ignorance of contraception that leads to high rates of teenage abortions, and said instead the ‘contraceptive culture’ was to blame.

‘Those who imagine the answer lies in more sex education and more contraceptive schemes are sadly mistaken,’ he said. ‘As a result of the contraceptive culture we have tended to separate sexual activity from childbearing in our minds. There is always the possibility intimacy will result in the creation of a new life – that is not something to be done lightly.’

The Rev Joanna Jepson, who campaigned against terminations for minor deformities, warned abortions were being offered without any concern for the gravity of the procedure. She said: ‘The figures for underage girls suggests we have to have a debate about the kind of society we’re creating that leads to so many abortions on demand.

I’ve been reading this article today that addresses the teen pregnancy issue and offers a solution: Give disadvantaged young girls options and purpose.

For all the noise and clatter about encouraging abstinence or handing out condoms in schools, many close to the issue are convinced that teenage pregnancy is less a matter of morals or sex education or access to birth control than it is a matter of a girl — or boy — feeling that they have a future. Or not.

“Simply put, girls with prospects do not have babies. It is not just the disadvantaged, but the ‘discouraged among the disadvantaged’ who become teen mothers,” Janet Rich-Edwards, a Harvard epidemiologist, wrote in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Some even theorize that many teenage girls don’t have babies despite being poor. They have babies because they are poor. Teen pregnancy is well established as a cause of poverty. It may also be a result of poverty.

Lisa Piscopo, a Colorado Children’s Campaign researcher, said she suspects many teen pregnancies among disadvantaged kids aren’t accidents.

“I believe girls choose to have babies when they don’t have a vision of any other options,” she said.

That’s something we should all agree on. While I don’t adhere completely to some of the articles’ finer points, it seems, at least in Colorado, people are finally addressing the why behind teenage pregnancy instead of focusing solely on the how. It continues,

In 2009, a University of Chicago study reported that by age 17, one-third of young women in foster care reported having been pregnant. By age 19, that proportion had risen to nearly half. The study’s author, Amy Dworsky, found that as many as one third of girls interviewed for the study said they wanted to become pregnant. It’s likely, Dworsky told a congressional panel in 2009, that those girls want “to create the family they don’t have or fill an emotional void.”[...]

“And they’ll ask, ‘Why wait? Wait for what? I’m not going to college.’ “

Yes, more of this please.

PICTURES OF KATLYN GUNN’S little girl line the walls, cover the fridge and top the tables. Her baby’s name — Kylie — loops across her inner wrist, a tattooed reminder when the child isn’t in her arms.

“She’s my everything,” the 18-year-old Dartmouth mother says. “If I didn’t have her, I don’t know where I’d be.”

Perhaps the same could be said of where she actually is — a unique apartment complex, once a 1950s parochial school, tucked away behind a Dartmouth church.

These days, it’s a sanctuary of sorts for young single mothers like Katlyn. And the staff of volunteers guides the girls to far greater life lessons. Like how to bond with their babies, how to balance their chequebooks, how to rise above the people or places or behaviours that have been keeping them down.

The non-profit Supportive Housing for Young Mothers (SHYM) opened this 14-unit dwelling in October 2007, after extensive renovations funded by the federal government.

The organization bought the building — owned by Halifax Regional Municipality and used as a storage facility — for $1.

Single mothers aged 16 to 24, mostly teenagers, live in most of the units, although two units are set aside for staff, one of whom is a permanent resident. The girls stay for up to two years, occasionally longer. Most have no place else to go.

Katlyn used to live in group homes.

Former resident Amanda Young used to be homeless, going from friend’s house to friend’s house — and spending a month at a Halifax shelter with her now 3½-year-old son Jordan — until she came here.

“For one reason or another, they’re not able to live with their families,” says SHYM executive director Wendy Fraser. “Those reasons can be anything from financial, to capacity of the family, to mental health or drug and alcohol issues.

“There’s not really any one scenario that would fit for any of them. The common denominator is that they were young and didn’t have family that was able to provide the support they needed.”

I cannot tell you how many articles I’ve received about this MTV 16 and Pregnant special that covers “the abortion option.” Pro-choice fanatics heralded it as the greatest thing ever, which meant my guard was up. But pro-lifers jumped in and asked how the special could be seen as cheerleading for the pro-choice cause given how torn up the mother was.

I don’t love “reality TV” and was resisting even taking the topic on as a result.

But I’m breaking down. The special can be viewed online here. I’ve seen only the first little bit at time of posting but I’ll probably watch the whole thing and update with my personal views later.

Whether or not women under the age of 18 should be required to inform their parents/guardians prior to an abortion is a controversial issue. People who oppose notification want young women to have the same rights and privacy as their older counterparts, and those who are for it fear that younger women may not be mentally prepared for the decision or could be victims of statutory rape going unnoticed or unreported by medical professionals. Either way, the State of Alaska has voted in favour of parental notification, which takes effect this Tuesday.

Ballot Measure 2, which passed, and is now the parental notification law, would require minors under the age of 18 to notify a parent or guardian before getting an abortion.

A third group joined in on arguments between the state and Planned Parenthood during Friday’s preliminary injunction hearing.

Planned Parenthood and the State of Alaska met for the first time in court, after a ballot initiative was passed in the August primary.

It’s not surprising that Planned Parenthood disagrees and has, of course, filed a complaint.

Planned Parenthood of the Greater Northwest and two doctors filed a complaint Friday in state court in Anchorage, the Anchorage Daily News reported. They contend the law treats teens who want to end their pregnancies differently from those who do not want abortions and are not required to tell their parents about their pregnancies.

The law is so vague, physicians are likely to have trouble determining when they are in compliance, the doctors said. The law, approved by the voters in August, allows teens to avoid the consent requirement by going before a judge or presenting doctors with a notarized affidavit of parental abuse.

Firstly, young women who are pregnant will, eventually, find it very difficult to keep their pregnancies secret from mom and dad. Secondly, there’s no grey area here. Women with affidavits or judge approval don’t need consent, that’s it. If a doctor finds this too confusing, perhaps they’re not mentally sound enough to practice medicine in the first place.

A few months ago, when the State of Nebraska voted for more in-depth screening for abortion procedures, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland filed a lawsuit, and the state couldn’t financially handle the fight. Alaska, however, with its annually granted permanent funds and  strong oil and fishing industry, has a lot more money.

Abortion has often been defined as a ‘necessary evil’, and for those in the immense grey zone of attitudes towards abortion, this powerful phrase tends to push them towards acceptance of the procedure. It allows one to support abortion, while still retaining a recognition that it is not ideal, a sort of moral give and take that softens the callousness of being pro-abortion. But those who are adamantly and unapologetically pro-abotion desire a procedure that is quick, painless (both emotionally and physically for the women), and accessible with as little emotivism as possible, rendering the term ‘necessary evil’ itself unnecessary.

So the pro-choice side is celebrating the latest study from Oregon:

Teenagers who have abortions do not appear to be at increased risk for depression or low self-esteem, according to the first nationally representative study to examine the issue.

Jocelyn T. Warren of Oregon State University and her colleagues analyzed data collected from 289 teenage girls who reported having at least one pregnancy when interviewed as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health between 1994 and 1996. Sixty-nine reported having had an abortion. They were also interviewed again five years later. The analysis found no association between having had an abortion and depression or low self-esteem within either a year of the pregnancy or five years later, the researchers report in apaper being published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

In their minds, they must see this as an achievement. Women will be less likely to require counselling as part of the abortion process (which will speed up things in the waiting room), and women will feel (similarly to postpartum depression) an ever increasing pressure not to ‘feel bad’. So while some women are suppressing their thoughts and emotions, others still will feel nothing, and the effect of these states of mind are not only possibly detrimental to the individual, but to the society as a whole.

Remember, these teenagers will one day be deciding what to do with all of us when we’re seniors.

Recently, there has been an influx of alternative resource centres for crisis pregnancy opening across north America. The problem? Abortion providers don’t like their new neighbours operating in such close proximity. These alternative centres operate with the goal of offering resources to pregnant women, some (as shown in the documentary 12th and Delaware) with the specific intent to change the minds of women considering abortion.

So, where exactly should these centres locate themselves? If a centre wanted to operate near the highest level of at risk women, a place where it would have the highest level of impact, it would open its doors in poorer areas with young populations. Say… near a public high school? But wait, that’s exactly where the abortion clinics are.

The newest mega-clinic recently opened by Planned Parenthood (the second largest clinic in the world) in May of this year is located at 4600 Gulf Freeway Houston, TX. Thanks to Google Maps, one can clearly see that this mega-clinic is smack dab in between the University of Houston and Austin High School. Where is my local abortion clinic? The Halifax Sexual Heatlth Centre (formerly Planned Parenthood) is located at 6009 Quinpool Rd. between two local high schools.

Location, location, location.

I love those experts:

The teen pregnancy rate in Canada is declining faster than in the United States, England or Sweden, and experts say that reflects a generation of teenagers who are better informed about sex and young women who see a future that includes goals other than motherhood. Between 1996 and 2006, the most recent years for which information is available for all four countries, Canada’s teen pregnancy rate fell by 36.9 per cent, according to a study released Wednesday by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada. That’s compared to a 25-per-cent decline in the U.S., a 4.75-per-cent dip in England and Wales, and a 19.1-per-cent increase in Sweden.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad the rates are down. I’m just wondering whether it’s possible that pregnancy rates might be down because Canadian teenagers (at least, some of them) are having less sex?