I support Teenage Abstinence. Abstinence is a good way for teenagers to practice safe sex.
I know that governments are trying to lower the teen birth rate. "Governors have taken the lead to lower the teen pregnancy rate by implementing a range of strategies instead of focusing their attention on just one." (State Role, 2). There are six ways to focus on this: promoting abstinence, providing teens with sexuality education, advocating youth development, increasing access to health services, creating public awareness, promoting male/female responsibility and involvement. Also, there are statistics about U.S> Teenage Pregnancy, National and State Trends, trends by Race, and Ethnicity.
The first strategy, providing teens with Sexuality education, is using Sexual education programs that promote and encourage abstinence. The focus of those programs is to help teens with the knowledge about sex, sexuality transmitted diseases (STD), and contraception. Using contraception will protect against unwanted pregnancy but not all STDS. Sexuality education is part of health curriculums that tells a wide range of sexuality-related issues, "such as gender differences, dating, and marriage, and families. Education of sexuality does help to "provide life skills to help teens to negotiate sexual issue and behavior, build decision making skills, set goals for their lives, and learn how to negotiate sexual decision within relationships." (State Role, 3).
The second strategy, advocating youth development, is "a philosophy that stresses the importance of assisting youth to become healthy, productive, self-confident, independent adults with a sense of purpose and a sense of their future." (State Role, 3). They encourage young people to learn about their world and their role of shaping it. It helps teens to improve their decision making and problem solving skills and help their value and to be able to take "responsibility for one's action, provides mentoring relationships with caring adults." (State Role, 3) Youth development is like a youth participating in group activities, such as clubs, sports, recreation peer counseling, counseling, and job skills training. There are organizations as Boys' and Girls' Club, girl and Boys Scouts, YMCAs and YWCAs, church groups, and local church sport leagues.
The third strategy is increasing access to health services, is because teens have less "access to health care than other age group." (State role, 3). School based and school-linked health centers (SBHC), community clinics, family planning clinics, and hospitals allow teens multiple points of entry to an existing in health systems. They are located in many areas in junior and senior high school campuses, where the students are entitled to receive a health service without disrupting the classes or day. But SBHC "is not only one that make health service more accessible, but they also help the high rates of emergency room visits, suicides, school dropouts, and absenteeism." (State Role, 3) They are located on or near school grounds, and are also sponsored by a local health center, community groups, health department, or the school itself.
The fourth strategy creating public awareness, is the created by State and governors that can influence a public with attitudes and behaviors about teenage pregnancy and also about sexual risk behavior by using social marketing and public service campaigns. They are focusing on changing the not healthy behaviors or culture. Many good public media campaigns can be developed from the television, radio, billboards, posters, and brochures or any information from a social service office.
The final strategy is to promote male responsibility and involvement. The program gives a variety of ways for men to be involved in teen pregnancy prevention. Their roles and responsibilities are 3 things: fatherhood, child support policy, and statutory rape enforcement. Fatherhood is when the men take responsibility for their children and seek to raise them and be unique to children's lives. "Promoting fatherhood includes providing education, and job training, creating public awareness campaigns, creating state fatherhood commission, establishing comprehensive funding streams to support these programs, or supporting prevention programs." (State Role, 4). Childs Support policy is mostly targeted at men for financial responsibility of their children, regardless of marriage or custodial arrangements. Men can request to have Paternity testing to prove if it is their child and look for financial benefit of child support. The third thing is statutory rape enforcement. There been a recent study of "predatory." (State Role, 4). Older men who are impregnating some teens. These are applicable to unmarried minors with the age difference in their partners. But there hasn't been any "research to show this strategy an effective way to prevent or reduce teen pregnancy." (State Role, 4).
Now that U.S. Teenage Pregnancy Statistics National and State Trends and Trends by Race and Ethnicity show that there been teenagers who are 15 to 19 years old who are having abortions and members of the various racial and ethnic groups were taken from state health department reports. It has been shown that in the year 2000, the teenage birthrates were highest in Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, and New Mexico. The states that have a lowest teenage birthrate were New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Maine. The highest abortion rates are in District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Nevada, and California. The research shows increased abstinence, and changes in contraceptive practice are responsible for recent declines in teenage pregnancy, also the number of teenagers who ever had intercourse declined by 285 between year of 1990 to 2002, and the birthrate in 2002 was 30 % lower than the peak rate of 61.8 births per 1,000 women reached in 1991. By 2002, the teenage abortion rate had dropped by 50% from its peak in 1988, in 1986 to 2002, and the proportion of teenage pregnancies ending in abortion declined more than one quarter from 46% to 34% of pregnancies among of 15 to 19 years old.
"Black women (African American) age 15 to 19 in nationwide of pregnancy rate had been felled by 40% between 1990 and 2002. White teenage pregnancy rates declined by 34% during the same time period. However for, Hispanic teenagers, has the pregnancy rate increased slightly from 1991, 1992, but by 2002 was 19% lower than the 1990 rate." (U.S. Teenager Pregnancy,2).
My conclusion is that there are so many ways for teenagers to practice abstinence because that is risk free until marriage. I believe it is a good idea for teenager not to go through pregnancy because of finances. There has been a increase in welfare, food stamps, and cash assistance. There is a cost that has been increased: "welfare and food stamp benefit is $2.2 billion, medical care expenses is $1.5 billion, spending on incarceration, including constructing and maintaining prisons to house delinquents sons of adolescent mothers $1 billion, also foster care is $0.9 billion" (State Role, 1) for the adolescent childbearing. The government is trying to make it easier for teenagers to prevent pregnancy by going through many programs as I listed above.
The programs teach them to understand and to be healthy, not to have sexually transmitted diseases, and also that there are contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancy. This is related to economics because of financial benefits to some program and to teenagers, as for example, using a condom is a safe way for teenager not to get pregnant which is a good benefit. Costs for the teenager are going to programs to help you to get through for you not to learn how not to get pregnant.
