I.
Problem
Teenage pregnancy is widespread in the Philippines, especially amongst the poo r. It is a story that may not be too pleasant, but one that is repeated all too often. Teen pregnancy is an st obvious rising issue in our society. During the 21 century, the statis statistics tics about this issue continues to rise even though tho ugh there are a lot of disadvantages that t hat young mothers and fathers can obviously get in the said issue. Fox(2008) defined teenage pregnancy as: Teenage pregnancy is one of the most important and alarming issues in today's world. A teenage pregnancy, also referred to as teen pregnancy, comes to be when a girl attains motherhood before she becomes a major or adult, as laid down by the law of the land (p.5). Some 16.5 million Filipinos belong to the 15-24 year old age group. We are forced with a glaring truth that at a very young age, a lot of young people today have children of their own. 30 % of all births belong to this age group; and by the age of 20, 25% of the youth are already mothers. This shocking truth about teenage pregnancy in the Philippines should wake the t he government and parents themselves to take action (Flores, 2008). According to the 2002 Young Adult Fertility Fertility and a nd Sexuality Study by the University U niversity of the Philippines Population Institute (Uppi) and the Demographic Research and Development Foundation, twenty six(26%) of our Filipin F ilipino o youth yout h nationwide from ages 15 to 25 admitted to having a premarital sex experience. What¶s worse is that 38 percent of our o ur youth are already in a live-in arrangement. Another is the 1998 Nat ional Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) reveals that 3.6 milli million on of o f our teenagers (that¶s a whopping 5.2 percent of our population!) got pregnant. In 92 percent of these teens, the pregnancy was unplanned, and the majority, 78 percent, did not even use contraceptives the first time they had sex (Singson, 2008). Most teenagers don't plan to get pregnant, but many do. Teen pregnancies carry extra health risks to the mother and the t he baby. Risks for the baby include premature birth and a low birthweight. To control this, we must help each other by following the suggested so lutions. II.
Cause
Causes of teenage pregnancy are occuring due to following reasons according to Fox(2008): Consequence of raging hormones. Most teenagers experience sudden and hitherto unknown emotions and feelings during their early puberty. All this, coupled with a sudden sense of new-found freedom and sexuality, results in many o f them giving vent to their feelings through sexual expressions and experiences. Of course, most countries stress on sex education in
schools, but yet, some teenagers involve themselves in unsafe sex, which could lead to unwanted pregnancies. Peer pressure. A lot of teenagers indulge in early sexual behavior due to peer pressure. This is due to the fact that they feel the great need to be 'hip' and 'accepted' by their circle of friends. The only way they could probably achieve that would be by having a boyfriend or girlfriend or at least by dating and indulging in sexual acts often. Contraceptive Failure. Though there are many types and brands of contraceptives and emergency birth control pills easily available in the market, these are never a guarantee for complete safety. Only Mother Nature knows when she might want to get g et into action, so no form of birth control is going to be completely foolproof! (Fox,July 18,2008). Other causes of teenage pregnancy are: 1. Lack of Parental Guidance. Most people evade their children from talking about sex. In some cases, they provide false information regarding sex and discourage their children to participate in any informative discussion about sex. In some cases, teenage mothers are not well educated about sex before getting pregnant and thus this leads to lack of communication between the parents and the children. 2. Inadequate Knowledge about Safe Sex. Most adolescents are unaware of safe sex. They probably have no access to the traditional methods of preventing pregnancy. And the main reason behind is that they t hey are either too embarrassed or fear to seek information about it. It was found that more than 80% of teenage pregnancies are unintended. 3. Exploitation by Older Men. This is another anot her major factor that contributes to pregnancy among the teenagers. Those Tho se girls who date older men are more likely to become pregnant before they attain womanhood. Rape, sexual exploitations etc. also takes place t hat leads to unwanted pregnancy among teenage girls. g irls. 4. Socio Economic Factors. Teenage girls who belong to the poor families are more likely to become pregnant. Researchers have found that even in the developed countries teenage pregnancy occurs most commonly among the deprived sections. 5. Glamorization of Pregnancy. The movie industry and the media contribute to teenage pregnancy by glamorizing teen t een pregnancy in news stories and movies. Mov ies that depict teen pregnancy as something to be desired encourage teens to engage in reckless sexual activity, according to ABC's "Good Morning America." During adolescence, teens become more focused on their appearance and how their peers perceive them. They want to be seen as part of the group, so if teen pregnancy preg nancy is viewed as acceptable in their school or amongst their friends, they may seek to become pregnant as a way to gain social acceptance. 6. Teenage Drinking. Teen drinking can cause an unexpected pregnancy, according to the website Love to Know. Many teens experiment with drugs and a lcohol. Drinking lowers a teen's ability to control her impulses, contributing to 75 percent of pregnancies that occur between the ages 14 and 21. Approximately 91 percent of pregnant teens reported that although they were drinking at the time, they did not originally plan to have sex when they conceived.
7. Sexual Abuse or Rape. Teens can become pregnant as a result of sexual abuse or rape. The Guttmacher Institute states that between 43 and 62 percent of teens acknowledge that they were impregnated by an adult male, and two-thirds t wo-thirds report that their babies' fathers are as old as 27. Approximately 5 percent of all teen births are the r esult of a rape. 8. Inconsistent use of birth control Even though the use of contraceptives has increased among teenagers, its use remains spotty. Teens may use birth control to help prevent teen t een pregnancy, but most do not use contraceptives consistently. Erratic contraceptive use, however, is better than none. A sexually active teen that does not use any birth control has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year. Some of the reasons that birth control is not used include the t he following: uneducated about birth control, uncomfortable using birth control methods and unable t o access reliable birth control. 9. Abstinence-only sex education Despite recent government efforts to fund abstinenceonly sex education, the vast majority of teenaged boys and girls (62 percent and 70 percent) have initiated vaginal sex by the age of o f 18. Because of their nature, abstinenceonly programs leave out educational information on birth control. These programs have never been shown to actually reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy. However, they are the programs that receive the most funding from the government. There are state governments that forbid any sort of o f teen sex education in schools schoo ls at all. This means that teens that experiment may not have information on birth control and are more likely to engage in activity act ivity that results in teen pregnancy. 10. Psychological factors. The immature and irresponsible behavior arising due to complex teenage psychology is another important cause of teenage pregnancies. Teenagers often go through a number of emotions because of their own transition from childhood and peer pressure. .
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The causes above are also similar to the causes here in the Philippines. III.
Solutions A. Existing Solutions
Since abortion is immoral and legally wrong here in the Philippines, they consider adoption for the baby or acceptance for the parents. If not yet born, then they suggest that the baby not be kill k illed. ed. Currently, the t he government proposes sex education but it is still debated whether it would be taught or not. One way to prevent pregnancy is by practicing safe sex. In addition to it, birth control tools such as condoms, pills, intra-uterine devices o r spermacides can regulate the fertility of a woman's eggs. Even though it decreases the chances of not being pregnant, still it is not 100% sure and effective to avoid pregnancy. Some are even desperate that they will come to a point that they have to abort their babies without knowing the effects it may cause to the mother and it will kill the conscience of who will ever do this abortion thing. With the help of Science, Medicine has developed a new pill contraceptive named RU486, the morning after solution to a sex encounter.
Teenagers nowadays are sexually act ive without their parents knowing their sexual activities. Often times, media promotes sexuality to the young w hich may cause them to be mislead with wrong information about sex and t hey might be misguided, that's t hat's why parents play an important role to the lives of their children. For all we know, sex is for those couples who already undergo to the Sacrament of Marriage, because doing sex needs a lot of sense of maturity not only physical but mental and spiritual basis. Once a pregnancy occurs from premarital sex, the couple is bound to live together for the rest of their lives with or without marriage marriage because they t hey have now the t he obligation to raise the child. The best way to avoid teen pregnancy is by avoiding or abstaining from sex before marriage. One thing is for sure, abstain from sex will keep you 100% safe from diseases, undesired relationship, and of course teenage t eenage PREGNANCY (Life (Life Challenges AllAboutLifeChallenges.org, 2011). Other possible solutions are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Abstinence from sex until you are old enough to do so. Usage of contraceptives and other ot her forms of birth controls. Sex education Affection and Guidance of parents Counseling Discouraging early dating Whatever the solutions may be, we must all keep in mind that we must be pro-life. B. How it is done in other ot her countries
Existing solutions do not only exist on the Philippines but also on other ot her parts of the world. For example, abortion in the United States has been legal in every state since the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, on January 22, 1973. Prior to "Roe", there were exceptions to the abortion ban ba n in at least 10 states; "Roe" established that a woman has a r ight to self-determination self-determination (often referred to as a "right to privacy") covering the decision whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, but that this right must be balanced aga inst a state's interest in preserving fetal life (Wikipedia, 2011). In Egypt, they teach knowledge about male and female reproductive systems, sexual organs, contraception and STDs in public schools at the second and third t hird years of the middle preparatory phase (when students are aged 12±14) (Wikipedia, 2011). In France, they promote sex education and it has been part of school curricula since 1973. Schools are expected to provide 30 to 40 hours of sex education, and pass out condoms, to students in grades eight and nine (Wikipedia, 2 011).
In Britain, which has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe ,sex education is a heated issue in government and media reports In Sweden, sex education has been a mandatory part of school education since 1956. The subject is usually started between ages 7 and 10, and continues up through the grades, incorporated into different subjects such as biology a nd history In some countries, such as America, Falcon punch is done by the teens. The Falcon Punch is most often used to end the untimely pregnancy of a loved one in a humane manner, especially if the loved one happens to be under the age of sixteen. (EncyclopediaDramatica, 2011). Active euthanasia, commonly referred simply as eu thanasia, is only legal in the Netherlands and Belgium. (WikiAnswers, 2011) Euthanasia is the intentional killing by act or o r omission of a dependent human being be ing for his or her alleged benefit, and o ver the years it has been one o ne of the favorite tools of those tho se who think society is better off when we t ake active steps to kill the poor, the t he disabled, the elderly, or the ³unwanted´. Today the debate over euthanasia most commonly revolves around the issue of physician-assisted physician-assisted suicide. There are many forms of euthanasia but t he assisted suicide is its most common from. This method has also been done to prevent teenage pregnancy. (Wikipedia, 2011) There are many possible solutions so lutions that can be done, some countries perform different methods that are immoral for Filipinos. One example is abo rtion. But amidst all this, we must learn to give importance to life because it is God¶s wonderful gift to all of us.