Teen Pregnancy

2 Pages 491 Words

Every year 445,944 teens aged 13-18 years old become pregnant. Many are not taught the importance of birth control let alone to abstain. Parents rely on the school system to teach their children about birth control and the educators expect it to be taught in the home. Children are not being taught the importance of being abstaining. By the time a child becomes a teenager they are faced with the hard decision of falling in to the trap of peer pressure. Most teenage girls think that if you do not have sex with your boyfriend you will lose them. What they do not realize is that they run the risk of getting pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted disease.
In 2002 more than 80% of the teens having unprotected sex were getting pregnant each year. Most teens have unprotected sex because they unaware that they can go to free clinics and get several different types of birth control at no cost. Most clinics will also perform pregnancy tests as well as pap smears and regular physicals. Most teenagers are embarrassed to ask for birth control pills or condoms. The easiest form of birth control for girls is the pill. Girls must also understand that birth control only protects you as long as you are taking it, if you mss even one day, or do not take it at the same everyday you are still at risk for pregnancy. There are several other forms of birth control especially for girls there are female condoms, spermicidal lubricants, and the diaphragm. All of these can be purchased in the supermarket or given out at the free clinic
For boys there is only one type of birth control, the condom is 92-99.7% effective. Condoms cost around twenty-five cents a piece and are given out at every free clinic by the hundreds. When used with the pill they are almost totally 100 % effective. Another form of birth control is the IUD (intrauterine device) this is one of the most effective types of birth control to date. With a success rate of 98% the IUD should be tr...