Blog entry #10 Teen Pregnancy: An Epidemic in Foster Care

Title: Teen Pregnancy: An Epidemic in Foster Care

     What is worse, being a pregnant teen, or being a pregnant teen in foster care? Some girls are in foster care, and are pregnant. Foster homes are temporary homes for kids, and when one teen got pregnant, she found there was no support for her. Throughout the years, teen pregnancys have been rising but also for girls in foster care their rates have been getting higher and higher. 

Reflection-

    Its sad to know that kids with no support are having babies. For girls that are in foster care move from house to house, they don't have a stable home, or family. 

Evidence-

      *"And when I got pregnant, I found there was no support for me. It was like, 'We need to get you out of foster care because we won't be able to handle you and a baby.' "

  

  

Blog entry #9 It Happens to "Good Girls" Too!

Title: It Happens to "Good Girls" Too!

  At 16 a girl becomes pregnant. She had always thought about have a baby with her boyfriend, being married, being one of those proud parents. But then it all came real to soon. She tought that sex was the way her boyfriend showed her that he loved her. When she found out she was a mom, she was so excited to know she was going to be a mother. She called the father-to-be expecting him to be happy and excited for them, they were going to parents! His first question was. "are you sure?" secon question "Are you sure its mine?" she knew what that ment. She moved in with him and his parents, and they ended up not being together.

Reflection-

    I felt so bad reading this, this just shows me that pregnancy isn't always perfect. Her boyfriend left her, he didn't care about her or his baby. It also shows that she didn't see the pregnancy as a bad thing like if it ruined her life, is just changed it.

Evidence-

      *"I just had not had the maturity or the strength to allow myself to see the truth. In reality, we never loved one another. How could we? Our relationship was based on a sexual attraction."

     *By the time our child, a beautiful girl named Christina, had been born, things were irretrievably broken between her father and me. Several months later, I left his home and moved back to my grandparents'. I was lucky to be able to continue high school, but like most young parents in my situation, I needed to seek government assistance to help with the insurmountable bills I never expected.

Blog entry #8 Teen Pregnancy, Abortions Up

Title:Teen Pregnancy, Abortions Up

  The Pregnancy rate in teens in the United States has risen for the first time in more than a decade The pregnancy rate among 15 to 19 year olds has increased by 3%. The abortion rate has also gone up for the first time in a decade. Several experts blamed the sex education programs that focus on encouraging teen abstinence. Some even blame the condoms. But there are many other things to blame, it could be a lot of things coming together. 

Reflection-

     I feel like there are many things to blame, but sometimes its just the knowledge a girl has. Not all the time a girl dose it just because.

Evidence-

   *"Clearly, the nation's collective efforts to convince teens to postpone childbearing must be more creative and more intense, and they must begin today." 

    *"It could be a lot of things coming together," said Rebecca Maynard, a professor of economics and social policy at the University of Pennsylvania. "It could be we just bottomed out, and whenever you are at the bottom, it tends to wiggle around. This may or may not be a sustained rise."

        *Now we know that after 10 years and over $1.5 billion in abstinence-only funding, the U.S. is lurching backwards on teen sexual health," said James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth, a Washington advocacy group. 

Blog entry #7 Some Success Seen in Abstinence Program

Title :Some Success Seen in Abstinence Program

    An experimental abstinence-only program can delay teens from having sex. This involved assignments to help 6 and 7th graders to see drawbacks to sexual activity at their age. The students were assigned to one of four options: eight hour-long abstinence-only classes, classes incorporationg both approaches; or classes in general healthy behavior. Two years later they met with the kids again, about one-third of abstinence-only students said they'd had sex since the classes ended. Evidnece shows that abstinence classes don't work. 

Reflection-

       I thought that those classes did work, even though it didn't work for eveyone, there were some kids that did get something from those classes. But i feel like some kids were forced to be in that class and thats why they didn't really listen to what they learned.

Evidence-

       *"No public policy should be based on the results of one study, nor should policy makers selectively use scientific literature to formulate a policy that meets preconceived ideologies," said the editorial by Dr. Frederick Rivara, the journal's editor, and Dr. Alain Joffe, an associate editor.

Tanner,Lindsey"some success seen in abstinence program"time feb 3 2010

Blog entry #6 Parents' Sex Talk with Kids: Too Little, Too Late

Title: Parents' Sex Talk with Kids: Too Little, Too Late

  Researchers found out that 40% of adolecents had had intercourse befor talking with their parents about safe sex, birth control, or sexually transmitted diseases. Reasearchers studied 141 families in the Talking Parents Healthy, Healthy Teens Program. Parents and their children responded to questions about 24 issues regarding sex and sexuality. By the end of each study more than half of the parents had not discussed 14 of the 24 sex-related topics. This highlights a problem in the parent dialouge about sex. It could be extreamly hard to talk about it, the talks should occur ealier than they do. 

Reflection-

     I thought that this was very interesting because for me i have never ever ever had that talk, and im hoping i don't. Its really crazy to know that 40% of teens already have had intercourse befor their parents talked to them about sex. If that happens a lot that just proves that parents have to start talking about this at a young age. Because sometimes it could be way to late to talk about it. Teens might sometimes know more than their own parents in things.

blog enrty #5 New Data: Teen Pregnancy on the Rise, Abortions Too Read more

Title: New Data: Teen Pregnancy on the Rise, Abortions Too

The pregnancy rate began dropping in the years 1990, but then took an upturn in 2006. There were 71.5 pregnancies for ever 1,000 women under the age of 20. When it comes to abortions the rates have been going down for whites and Hispanic teens. Two-thirds of single mothers are poor. Less than half finish high school.

Reflection-

   This is a lot of information that i never knew. 71.5 pregnancies is way to much. The good thing is that the abortion rates for whites and Hispanics have been going lower. What does make me think a lot is that less than half of them finish high school.

Evidence-

      * The increase was concentrated among 18- and 19-year-olds — pregnancies among those 17 or younger rose only marginally — and occurred in a year when the number of abortions among teens rose 1%.

      *But even in 2006, the most recent year for which figures are available, the rate was 39% lower than 1990's peak of 117 pregnancies for every 1,000 teen girls.

Luscombe BELINDA "New Data: teen pregnancy on the rise, abortions too." time 31 jan 2010

Blog entry #4 Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High

Title: Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High

At Gloucester High School, 17 girls where expecting babies. People blamed the movies like Juno and knocked up. The nurse Kim Daly had administered 150 pregnancy tests. None older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. It later got worse, they found out that one of the fathers was a 24-year-old homeless guy. The girls that got pregnant, reacted to news really well, giving each other high fives and having baby shower plans.

Reaction-

I felt like these girls crossed the line, getting pregnant on accident is one this, planning it is another. Having a pregnancy pact is really crazy, they think that having a baby is so easy, and cheap but there is so much to it, and especialy being a teenager. Sometimes i get really angry reading this because they never really thought about they babies and how tough it might be for them, they never even thought about what the father would think if she was planning to get pregnant.

Evidence-

*"They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," Ireland says. "I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m."

* "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says

Kathleen Kingsburyhttp://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1815845,00.html

Blog entry #3 A Teenage Mother, Wiser, Speaks Up

Title: A teenage Mother, Wiser, Speaks up

In 2007 Allison Banegas,15, found out she was pregnant. Allison told her mother, all she saw was disappointment and anguish in her moms reaction. Allison felt alone, and felt like she was alone, with no one. She was later invited to join a discussion group with other pregnant students. Many of the girls were hispanic, who sais that their parents became pregnant at a very young age also. In the group Young Parents Program is where the girls can find support, counceling, and pre- and postnatal care and education. The program is run by Greenwich-based family Centers, a nonprofile organization financed by city and state grants and donations. The coordinator, Andrea Payo says that in the program 56 percent are African-American, 41 percent are Hispanic, and 3 percent are white.    

Reflection-

    While reading this, i felt like Allison didn't see her pregnancy as ruining her life, but just changing it. When she joined Young Parent Program, she didn't feel alone, there were other girls feeling the exact same way as her. She also said that when other adults saw her with a big belly, they said hurtful things like, "if i was your mother i would have kicked you out on the street." I feel like thats just wierd that there are adults that would say that, someone is Allisons positions needs someone to be on her side, help her, and support her, not tell her that she should be on the streets.

Evidence-

     *“Oh, God. You had a future. College. I thought maybe you’d be a lawyer or something. You have to say goodbye to all that.”

     *“We talked about how scared we were. Some girls were really upset that their boyfriends were still out having fun. And we didn’t know the first thing about taking care of babies.”

     *This was Allison’s position: “I’m pro-life. I never considered abortion for a second.”

     *“Some girls think it’s cool to have a baby. I want them thinking straight,” she said. “I want them to really know the consequences from somebody who’s living with it every day.”

     *“Get up with my alarm clock — the baby. Feed her and get her things ready to go to baby-sitting. Take her there with my mom — I wasn’t old enough for a learner’s permit so I couldn’t drive her myself. Then I’d go to school. Come home at 3 just dying for a nap but having to do my homework before we pick the baby up at 5. Give her dinner, get her to bed. And work at Dunkin’ Donuts till midnight to be able to get the things I need for the baby and pay the baby sitter. Then get up and do it again.”

Questions-

       How would her life be different if she had never got pregnant?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/03colct.html?pagewanted=2

Blog entry #2 After Years Of Decline, Teenage Pregnancy Rate Rises

After Years Of Decline, Teenage Pregnancy Rate Rises

Pregnancy rate from girls 15-19 increased by 3% from 2003-2009. Teenage pregnancy rate is made up of births, miscarriage, and abortions. Experts say that it is to soon to know if the teenage pregnancy birth rates will continue to rise. Teenage pregnancy rates for whites are far lower than for blacks and Hispanics, but still the pregnancy rate increased for all three groups. Teaching teenagers sex education is proven that is does work.

Reflection-

    What stuck me about the article was that, the pregnancy rate keeps getting higher and higher, & so dose abortion. I thought that it was really crazy that rates for whites was way lower than blacks and Hispanics. Its important to know this because, now we know what the issue is and how it stands now.

Evidence-
"This new study makes is clear that abstinence-only sex education for teenagers does not work," said Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation Of America.

Blog entry #1

Question: How dose teen pregnancy change someones life?

We chose to focus on this issue because, teen pregnancy can affect people in differnet ways. For someone it can be a good thing, but for others it could be a struggle.