Nice Girls Get Pregnant Too, Okay?
As someone who got pregnant in high school, I quickly learned how the other half lived. Pre-pregnancy, I enjoyed my teachers’ efforts to guide me and I enjoyed their praise. I enjoyed being well liked by them and I enjoyed the extra time they put in to help when I needed it. I thought this was standard procedure, a thing all students enjoyed. Except, you know, those students. The students who brought teachers’ disfavor on themselves by being “bad.”
The moment my pregnancy went public, despite my best efforts to conceal it, I saw the collective faces of my teachers turn away. The encouragements and recommendations for college programs ended. Finite. My counselor refused to give me any more scholarship and university information. My beloved teachers treated me completely different, at times making me feel horribly ashamed. My cheer coach openly felt I was forever screwed. I was academically ignored. In general, since I obviously intended to keep this baby, why bother with me anymore? The overall message was simple: I can’t believe you didn’t quietly abort. Now you’re royally fucked.*
When I was sick during the early parts of my pregnancy, I suffered through a lot of classes. I also missed a lot of classes, but I felt I had to push through so my attendance didn’t affect my grades. I also kept my pregnancy hidden until after basketball season was over. I didn’t want to get kicked off the cheerleading squad even though I was still in my first trimester (back off, I was 17).
Several times a week, I was taken out of regular classes to attend “mommy” classes. These were bonehead sessions inflicted on deliquent moms and moms-to-be that were supposed to help us realize just how much formula cost (regardless of my stated intent to breastfeed), how impossible college would be (thanks so much for the positive message), or how much sleep you would lose once a baby was born (oh really? I had no idea). Taking me out of calculus or college English to discuss the impossibility of child rearing was futile at best and ruinous at worst. I’m not against the idea of support for pregnant and parenting women AND men, but this wasn’t support. This was a recipe for hopelessness.
I wish, I wish, I wish I had known I was protected by the law to something better. I found this tonight. I wish I knew I was protected under the 1972 Title IX. I’m sad. I’m sad I didn’t know this was in effect 22 years before I needed it. I’m so sad that so many other girls I knew could have used this knowledge.
I wish in these twelve years things would be better, but they aren’t. With the push for abstinence-only sex ed, teens today are further misinformed, stigmatized, and undersupported.
Read on (from www.girl-mom.com):
More Than They Tell Us: Our Rights as Pregnant and Parenting Students
By Rebecca Trotzky-SirrIt’s hard enough to stay in school as a mama, but if your school is discriminating against pregnant and parenting students it can be damn near impossible. If you are pregnant or parenting, you have a right to stay in school. More than that, under federal laws like Title IX, pregnant and parenting students are protected from discrimination at any public school, or at any school that receives government funding (like many colleges, universities, and private schools.) It’s important that we educate our school and our teachers about our rights, so that it can be made as easy as possible for us to stay in school throughout the challenges of pregnancy and parenting. If we work together with our classmates to recognize discrimination and defend our educational rights, we can make that much easier for the next mama to graduate from school. Below are examples of the rights of all pregnant and parenting students:
You have the RIGHT to stay in school in your regular class while you are pregnant and after you have your baby. If your school claims that you have to move to a special program, they are violating federal and state law. Your school cannot legally force you into a special education program, unless YOU decide that you want to.
You have the RIGHT to participate in all school and extracurricular activities like sports, honors societies, or a drama club. Your school cannot single you out to demand a letter from your doctor before letting you participate. If other students don’t have to have a note from the doctor to participate in an activity, you don’t have to have one either.
If you choose to, you can participate in a special program for parenting or pregnant students. No one can force you into these programs. These programs must be comparable to the regular academic programs for students who aren’t pregnant or parenting. That means the special parenting program must have the same quality and selection of classes, qualifications for teachers, same availability and quality of textbooks, same quality of classrooms, and offer the same number of credits for classes as the standard program. If the educational standards for such programs are not up to par, demand your right to an equal education. If you are in a separate program for parenting and pregnant students and you want to take an advanced class or a one that needs special facilities (like honors chemistry with a lab) and this class is not offered through your program, you must be allowed to take the class where it is offered even if it’s not through your program.
You have the RIGHT to have excused absences for health issues related to your pregnancy and childbirth. Your school cannot automatically fail or in anyway punish you for health related absences if you have a note from your doctor.
Your school must provide you with accommodations for any health issues related to your pregnancy, if they provide similar accommodations for sick students. For example, if you have morning sickness or need frequent access to a bathroom later in your pregnancy you should be able to have a permanent hall pass. Or you can have a longer pass time between classes if you’re having trouble moving quickly due to your pregnancy. If your doctor says so, your school must change your gym requirements so it’s safe for you during pregnancy.
If you are bedridden or recovering at home for an extended amount of time after childbirth, you have the RIGHT to have tutoring at home if this option is available to other students (like the football player who broke his leg, or a student recovering from surgery.)
You have the RIGHT to receive make-up assignments from your teachers to make-up time that you were out of school due to your pregnancy if make-up assignments are offered to any other students who miss a class.You have the RIGHT to return to your class after childbirth at the same academic standing or level.
Mothers and fathers cannot be treated differently from each other. For example, if your school won’t give you an excused absence for taking care of your sick kid, your school will negatively impact student mothers more than student fathers because mothers more often take care of their sick kids. Denying students excused absences for caring for their sick kids may violate federal law that says that women and men must be treated equally.
A teacher cannot decide against giving you a recommendation because you are pregnant or parenting.
A teacher cannot grade you any differently because you are pregnant or parenting.
A teacher must make the classroom a safe and comfortable space for you. A teacher must act to stop harassment and teasing from other students because you are pregnant.You cannot be treated any differently if you decide to have an abortion.
If your school offers health-care to other students, prenatal care must be also available to you.
The above are example of our rights under Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination of women in the educational system. If your school or school district fails to respect your rights, they are in violation of the law. If your school violates the law, they could lose their government funding.
If you think that you are being discriminated against because you are pregnant or parenting, you can contact:
The National Women’s Law Center
202.588.5180
11 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
They can provide you with legal information.You could also try meeting with your school and taking matters into your own hands. I am currently writing an organizing guide for high school and college parenting students, so please share your stories—both good and bad—with me (nerd.girl@stanfordalumni.org.)
Your education is your RIGHT.
*I firmly believe in choice. I chose to parent. Others didn’t. In a different situation, I may not have either.
Posted by Melissa on November 22nd, 2005 under Flaming Ovaries, Spawn
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:44 am
You should really send this to our high school Sis! They REALLY need to read this!!!!!
November 22nd, 2005 at 1:41 pm
My High school was realy cool with the whole “pregnant-seniors” No, in our last year of school, not senior citizens.. that would just be weird. But anyway.
There were 3 of us knocked up in our senior year.
I went to class until 4 weeks before the due date then had a tutor come to my house 3 days a week.
After DaBoy was born, She came for an additional 6 weeks.
December 2nd, 2005 at 6:25 am
This is awesome, M. Thank you so much for posting it. Women need to know that pregnancy doesn’t diminish their rights, even if they’re minors.
Good feminist. You deserve a cookie. :)
December 7th, 2005 at 3:34 pm
This post has been featured in the Carnival of Feminists at
http://happyfeminist.typepad.com/happyfeminist/2005/12/holly_at_self_p.html
December 7th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
[…] It would seem the lovely Sara submitted my post, “Nice Girls Get Pregnant Too, Okay?,” to the Carnival of Feminists over at The Happy Feminist. […]
December 10th, 2005 at 9:44 am
Harpy, sorry that you were marginalized in high school. I hope you and your child are both doing well. However, it’s simply not in society’s best interests to have single teenaged moms. There used to be a stigma to teenage pregnancy, and it served to discourage other teenagers from ending up that way. I find it sad that schools “are cool with the pregnant seniors thing.” It’s not cool. It’s regretable.
December 10th, 2005 at 9:50 am
Harpy, sorry that you were marginalized in high school. I hope you and your child are doing well. However, it’s simply not in society’s best interests to have single teenaged moms. There used to be a stigma to teenage pregnancy, and it served to discourage other teenagers from ending up that way. I find it sad that schools “are cool with the pregnant seniors thing.” It’s not cool, it’s regretable.
December 11th, 2005 at 3:12 am
Kelly, I find it interesting you think the stigma of teenage pregnancy served to discourage other teenagers. Because it doesn’t.
There was huge stigma at my very conservative, farm country school and in a class of 56, I know of nine girls who got pregnant. I also think it’s a weird statement to make that you think it’s not in society’s best interest to have single teenaged moms and that stigma would somehow be a good way to reduce this. I would much rather serve to lift up girls in general, giving them the tools to grow up in the way THEY choose instead of stigmatizing them.
I don’t think a teenage mom is necessarily bad for society. I was one. I’m 29 now, with two children, and I’m married with a Masters degree and a job that allows me to fulfill my intellectual and parental needs. I’m hardly a drain on society and I never have been. Yes, being a teen parent could increase your chance of needing help. But, I don’t think the problem is the teen pregnancy, I think it’s a larger societal problem that deals more with poverty and education.
Don’t be sorry I was marginalized. It made me stronger but it certainly didn’t dissuade others from doing it. All marginalization and attaching a stigma to teen pregnancy does is increase abortions, because girls don’t feel free to tell their elders, carry a pregnancy to term, and parent. Abortion is a hard decision to make as it is, but doing it because you will lose your education is just sad.
Schools that may be “cool with the pregnant senior thing” are not schools that glamorize teen moms as you seem to suggest. They are dealing with a realistic issue and serving their students the best way they can. I could have used a real parenting or breastfeeding class instead of what I received. I could have used calculus instead of what I got.
I’m sorry you think that serving teen parents in a real way instead of marginalizing them is regrettable. That’s sad for you, really. For the young women and men, it’s necessary. Deal with the larger societal problems and you also help with teen pregnancy. Teens who get pregnant deal with the consequences the best they can, they know the problems they deal with better than you could ever understand. Help them or leave them alone, but don’t marginalize. It certainly doesn’t serve as a warning to others and it’s naive and simplistic to think it does.
December 13th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
Why is it considered “feminist” to make it easier for girls to do something which directly benefits a man (the baby daddy, who now has progeny), which will PROBABLY mess her up financially and socially for the rest of her life and puts a child at risk of an inadequate rearing?
Teen pregnancy — it is absolutely clear in the data — leads to lifetime lower income, higher rates of poverty, lower educational attainment, higher rates of crime by the child and so on and on. It’s perfectly clear. Teen pregnancy is rightly considered a social ill. This is due to the fact that childcare costs a lot and young girls do not make a lot of money. Someone is getting free ride (the father). You close off options for the girl and destroy her freedom of movement. In most cases, it is the parents of the girl who fill the gap, but at other times, it has to be the government picking up the tab for the errant father. It’s not the expense of it to the public that is the problem, it is the reduced life chances for both the girl and the child.
Get yourself clear on this, THE GIRL HERSELF IS DAMAGED.
And, she has been damaged BY A MAN for the BENEFIT of that MAN.
A man is getting a HUGE IMPORTANT SIGNIFICANT GIFT from a woman who has his child and invests thousands and thousands of hours of valuable time into rearing that child, which is physically HALF HIM. It is as though you are sacrificing your life to put food in HIS mouth and to feed and help HIM. You are giving up your options in order to wipe HIS face, comfort HIM, protect and aid HIM. A woman who does that for a man without getting anything in return from him is a STUPID DUPE. She has been USED.
Use birth control or get an abortion or give the child to someone who has the resources to send it to the best schools. Are you really in a position to do right by that child? NO!!!!
It is unfair to the mother and it is unfair to the child and it is NOT a right which should be fought for — the right to be used and abused??
I’ll be damned the day I fight for a “feminism” which is fighting against social rules which are designed to protect young girls from being USED BY SELFISH MEN.
This all makes NO SENSE. Men are just laughing all the way to the bank at the stupidity of girls to actually “fight” for the “right” to be used by them in this abusive, uncaring, selfish, destructive manner.
Ending up with a child is NOT appropriate “punishment” on a girl for having had sex, which is why the anti-abortion crowd want these young girls to have these babies — they think it will stop them having sex. I don’t give a darn if they have sex. But it gets me riled to see them having babies.
Men want children. They want progeny. They want to procreate. They get a big ego thrill out of it. It’s a basic biological drive. Men yearn for children.
WHY SHOULD THEY GET ALL THAT FOR NOTHING????
Make the bastards pay!! Make them help you!! Make them support you or abort their baby!!! Make them contribute and participate and if they won’t REFUSE TO BEAR THEIR CHILD!! Use birth control, get an abortion or give the baby up for adoption.
The right to destroy yourself for the benefit of some man who doesn’t care enough to contribute and the right to bear children into inadequate, underfunded and permanently stunting environments (being raised in poverty by a very young mother) which drag you into years of financial struggle and limited options is NOT a “right” for which anyone with any sense is going to fight.
You are “fighting” for the “right” to allow yourself to be used and cheated out of your most valuable asset - your time and your energy and your life. I’m not going to help you.
Jan VanDenBerg
December 13th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Never forget — all men want babies all the time — they just don’t want to have anything to do with taking care of them.
That’s the reason for all those ridiculous lies they put out about it being WOMEN who want kids. LIES LIES LIES
Don’t give them something that valuable for free!!
Make the bastards pay up front or don’t have THEIR children. And you don’t have to be abstinent to get there either — that’s what modern medical science is for.
NO KIDS. That will finally get their attention. That’s when men will start treating women with some respect.
Jan VanDenBerg
December 13th, 2005 at 8:59 pm
Jan,
Sweetie, I don’t know what man hurt you but I’m sorry you feel this way. But it doesn’t sound like you were a teen mom. You don’t seem to have been there like I have.
I don’t agree. Line for line, I don’t agree with you. I don’t need to get myself straight on this. I was that pregnant teen and I am not damaged. The father of my children didn’t get a free gift (as you so oddly call my children), since he is an able father who financially contributes. I wasn’t used. My uterus is mine. That’s why choice is important, I CHOSE to have my children. I did. Don’t ignore the intelligence of women by saying they are a pawn in the evil schemes of men. The “no kids” stance you have is ignorant and simplistic at best.
I have sense and I have been there, and I will continue to fight for the rights of teen mothers. I will fight for their rights because like it or not, they’re women. Human beings. Not statistics.
December 13th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
[…] Ladies and gentlemen, we have trolls. Well, perhaps not trolls in the classic sense, but definitely comments that disregard the intelligence of women and girls. My post, “Nice Girls Get Pregnant Too, Okay,” has had a lot of attention recently and it’s only expected that I’d have an asshat or two feel the need to comment. […]
December 13th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
You are an exception.
The problem with teen mothers is that usually the fathers DON’T contribute. Or, if they do, it is not enough to adequately provide for their offspring. The rate of poverty for women who had their first child as a teenager is a multiple of the rate for women who had their first child in their 30s or never had children.
Only about a third of the children of unwed fathers ever have a court-ordered paternity payment and most of those are never fully paid.
The majority of these children receive nothing or very little from their fathers.
We need to protect girls from pressures to carry and keep these children.
There are exceptions to every rule. You are one and you know that. You already realize that MOST teen mothers do NOT have support from the father to any significant degree. Millions of children are being raised by grandparents. You shouldn’t be arguing that teen motherhood is a “good” thing for girls based on your experience, because it is exceptional. For most of them, the experience will be quite different — and not nearly so positive.
The data linking early pregnancy with lifetime lower incomes, lower educational achievement for both mother and child and family poverty is quite clear. Just because it worked for you doesn’t change the fact that it does not work for MOST of those who experience it.
Jan VanDenBerg
December 14th, 2005 at 12:58 am
Some data for you:
Nearly 80 percent of teen mothers eventually go on welfare. According to one study, more than 75 percent of all unmarried teen mothers began receiving welfare within five years of giving birth.
[Again, I am not one of those complaining about the cost to the public; I think more should be spent on poverty alleviation, drug treatment, mental health, etc in this country. This is to indicate how POOR these girls end up.]
Only 15% of never-married teen moms are ever awarded child support, and those with orders receive, on average, only one third of the amount originally awarded.
In 2001, only 30 percent of teenage mothers received child support payments. {This difference reflects the 20% of teenage mothers who got married; these girls recieve more child support than those who never married the father.]
The infant mortality rate for children born to teen mothers is about 50 percent higher than that for those born to women older than 20.
Some 52% of all mothers on welfare had their first child as a teenager.
Teen mothers are less likely to complete the education necessary to qualify for a well-paying job – only 41% of mothers who have children before age 18 ever complete high school compared with 61% of similarly situated young women who delay child bearing until age 20 or 21.
Two-thirds of families begun by a young unmarried mother are poor.
The children of teen mothers are 50% more likely to repeat a grade.
The sons of teen mothers are 13% more likely to end up in prison.
At the time of their child’s birth, almost one-third of unmarried teen mothers say that they are “certain†that they will marry the biological father of their child. And additional 23 percent say their chances of marrying are “good.†In reality, not even 8% of unwed teen mothers are married to the baby’s father within one year of giving birth.
Nonetheless, one year after birth, almost one-quarter of unmarried teen mothers still believe they are “certain†to marry their child’s biological father. Another 11% believe their marriage chances are “good.†[Is someone getting misled here, maybe?]
There is a counterintuitive and much-quoted 2004 study by Hotz of UCLA, etal using miscarrying teenage wanna-be mothers as the comparison against girls having children before 18 (rather than using girls who never get pregnant plus girls who do but abort as the comparison group). This study found that most of the disadvantages associated with teenage motherhood disappear, so they argue that most of these disadvantages are caused by the poverty, undereducation, and disadvantage which also caused the teenagers to get pregnant and decide to carry the baby to begin with, not the baby itself. However, of this “control group” of girls who miscarried 44% pregnant AGAIN and STILL gave birth before age 18 — so 44% of the “control group” are actually members of the “target group” but were left in the “control group” instead of being picked out as they should have been. So, of course, the two groups were very similar in both being disadvantaged, poor, undereducated, unlikely to marry, likely to divorce, likely to collect welfare and likely to be parents of children who died, failed grades, etc. I find this study unconvincing and over-rated due to this conflation of the control and the target group. The influence of this poorly-designed study on the discourse around teenage motherhood is unfortunate.
It is clear there is quite a lot to the argument that it is the pre-existing poverty and disadvantage of the group of girls who become teenage mothers which feeds into their poor outcomes — so it is not all caused by the teenage motherhood — but the teenage motherhood is the nail in that coffin that will keep the lid closed permanently and pass the curse onto another generation — a nail driven in before these unfortunate girls are even old enough to think clearly.
Jan VanDenBerg
December 14th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Jan, I’m not disputing the data, especially since pre-existing poverty and parental divorce play such a huge role in general. I don’t think we need more pregnant teenagers AT ALL. It’s a hard, hard life to choose.
HOWEVER, treating girls simply as statistics is wrong.
Teenage motherhood DOES NOT HAVE to be the nail in the coffin and making that blanket statement is wrong.
Please hear me on this. I was a teenage mother. I have two sons. I am married. I work. I have a Master’s degree. And, my parents were not wealthy. They were divorced. My kids are not fatherless or in a poverty situation. I went to school paying for it on my own.
There is no nail on that coffin. To say this dooms so many more girls, before they ever have a chance to believe anything else. It’s a horrible thing to do to a person — you take away any hope they could have had.
I understand that I am largely the exception, however, it also proves to me that girls can be helped after the fact and shouldn’t be treated as though they have sealed their fate to a life of poverty and undereducation.
I don’t WANT more teenage mothers. I want more self-positive young women, who if they “fall,” can get self-positive help. Handouts are not help. Nails in their coffin do not help.
December 14th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
Apparently you are one of the 8% of teenage mothers who DID get married and then one of the 30% of that 8% who stayed married. So, you are among the 2.4% of teenage mothers for whom the experience has not resulted in financial disaster and the bearing of a hugely unfair share of the cost of some man’s child.
2.4% is a very very very small minority. 97.6% is an almost overwhelming share which merits “blanket” statements qualified with words like “most” and “almost all” and “almost always” and “probably.”
Of course, nothing applies to EVERY SINGLE CASE. However, the majority of teenage mothers clearly end up in poverty and on welfare. It’s just a fact.
A few don’t. That doesn’t change the fact that teenage motherhood is ALMOST ALWAYS a social ill.
By the way, my mother was a married teenage mother who remains married to this day (50 years!!) to the father of her three teen-born children (this was the 50s, so she was quite ordinary) and, frankly, I think she made a huge mistake. They were poor parents and my two brothers turned out poorly, both serving prison time.
She could have had me, or someone a whole heckuva lot like me, 10 years later and everyone would have been better off, including me.
So, in my experience, even that 2.4% aren’t doing the best they could for themselves or for their children. It’s not like that father and that mother couldn’t create another child 10 years later, if that first one had been aborted. Of course, if they keep it, that other child will not be born 10 years later; that mother already has had her children. Saying “no” to teenage motherhood and “yes” to teenage abortion would mean no more nor any fewer children — just children born a little later.
There is so much pressure on girls to be sexy, to be attractive to men and to please men. A teenage girl I know personally told me that at age 13, her classmates where doing a “poll” of all the girls in her class — which ones would abort and which ones would carry the child and keep it (adoption is down to about 2% of “unwed” births). She said lots of girls told everyone that they would carry and keep the child because the BOYS THOUGHT IT WAS SEXY.
This is sick. Girls of that age. This is abuse of young girls and without strong parental guidance, these girls have no defenses. The media is preaching the “be sexy” mantra. Boys are approving of these girls’ decisions to get pregnant and not to abort.
For too much of the Christian right, a girl is “fallen” if she gets pregnant, but somehow, in a sick way, “redeemed” if she decides to keep the baby and devote her life to raising this fatherless child.
Somehow, it has become acceptable in our society for girls under 18 who are not married to keep their babies.
I think we need to make it clear that we think that girls who abort these children are “nice girls,” too. That we support them. That we think that they have done the right thing. That we APPROVE, yes, APPLAUD that decision.
Now THAT would be a new, interesting and actually controversial thing to say.
Madonna-fying teenage mothers is really getting old. We already all know that they have “chosen life” and are “self-sacrificing” and “strong, hardworking women” who “live for their children” and all that sexist nonsense. Strong pressures in our society are bearing down on teenage girls to refuse abortion and to keep their babies. It’s become the “good” thing to do.
I just spoke recently to a 22-year-old with a 5-year-old girl (living with her mother) who was disappointed at her miscarriage because “It would have gotten me an apartment.â€
That’s our government’s message on the topic.
There has to be some way to get a message to girls that keeping these children is USUALLY a huge mistake and is ALMOST ALWAYS unfair to children and that deciding to abort is USUALLY a preferable choice — without being accused of “stigmatizing” teenage mothers.
The best help for a pregnant teenage girl is an abortion and people who are trying to make teenage motherhood “acceptable” or gloss over what it USUALLY does to a girl in terms of poverty, suffering, lack of options and lack of freedom are actively misleading these girls about what not choosing that abortion is PROBABLY going to do to their lives.
Jan VanDenBerg
December 14th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
I really don’t understand why you think I am calling for more teen parents. I’m not in the slightest.
Look, I don’t disagree with you that parenting, instead of not getting pregnant in the first place or adopting or aborting, is almost always the best situation for the mother. I am horrified that girls would think that boys think it’s sexy to have babies.
And, I married and divorced my kids’ father within three years. I got pregnant again within nine months of giving birth to my first. I WAS financially ruined. I couldn’t go to college. Plus, divorce ruined me in so many more ways than money. I WAS that majority statistic. And there are many, many reasons I’m not anymore.
Help and support exist. And along with an emotional support system these detriments didn’t keep me down long. I wasn’t forever damaged and to treat girls as though they are is wrong.
Wouldn’t it have been nice to have started out better informed?
The FACT is that girls get pregnant young sometimes, a lot of times even. I don’t disagree with you that less pregnant teens is a better thing for them and for society. But I feel as though you think I want to encourage girls to parent. I don’t. I want them to make informed choices BEFORE they find themselves in that situation to begin with.
Sometimes girls abort, sometimes they don’t get pregnant, sometimes they choose adoption, and sometimes they choose to parent.
It is my hope that girls are taught to be self-positive, and thus taking care of their bodies and souls better. So they don’t get pregnant too early.
And NO GIRL I KNOW has ever been redeemed by parenting. They are shunned from church and school alike. Churches are typically harder on them.
I completely agree that strong parental guidance is necessary. I don’t know who you think is Madonna-fying young girls, I’m certainly not.
I hope all girls get to grow up without ever having to deal with such difficult issues. But that’s not reality yet.
In the end, girls make difficult choices and they need to be well-guided, informed, and supported. They are still human after conceiving. Period.
Please don’t take my arguments for support as a rally for more teen mothers. It certainly isn’t. It’s for adults to act like adults and stop reacting but learn how to be proactive to help young people.
December 15th, 2005 at 10:32 am
Our differences are narrowing. I think we are actually pretty close on these issues.
I think our common enemy is the anti-abortion wingnut crowd. There is this avalanche of stigma and pressure being put on vulnerable young girls not to have abortions. Abortion is nearly ILLEGAL in this crazy, benighted country.
These “pro-life” people are completely indifferent to the damage they are doing to these young girls, who deserve another chance.
The stigma against abortion is high and increasing in this country and I know,personally, of a 17-year-old who bore her child because she “could NEVER have an abortion.”
Why the hell not? She’s 17, obviously fertile, the father is 18, no diploma, no job and ALREADY A FATHER of another kid by a 16-year-old (with whom he quickly had ANOTHER child, total: 3 kids before he hit 20 years of age.)
Just why the hell not? The egg that would have died in her panties that month if she’d been abstinent is just as dead as any egg which would have died in an abortion. Just allow her to return to status quo. The way she was.
Where is our culture that we will sacrifice young girls on this altar of rigid ideology, that young girls are absorbing this message that if they do get pregnant, then they must sacrifice themselves to this speck, just because it has a bit of a man in it?
Abortion now has more stigma that teenage motherhood and that’s what gets me irritated. Girls are suffering under this river of nonsense we get from the far right.
Jan VanDenBerg
December 15th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
The only thing I can’t see eye to eye with you is the idea that girls keep babies because of men. I think sometimes, yes. Many times, no. Although, if this is a growing trend it’s a scary one.
I totally agree with you that anti-abortion wingnuts are harmful to women. The nonsense spewed from pro-lifers and the pro-abstinence-only crowd misinform girls and women and make it nearly impossible for them to make informed choices. And then nearly impossible to get good adoption info, or access to abortions, or useful parenting info. It’s ridiculous that we have to deal with this at all.
Wonderful debating with you!
December 15th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
[…] Jan and I have continued the debate over in the post, “Nice Girls Get Pregnant Too, Okay?” […]