Word: parenthood
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...careless or indifferent about birth control. About 15% of pregnant teens become pregnant again within one year; 30% do so within two years. "You ask, 'Why didn't you come in for the Pill?' and they say, 'I didn't have time,' " says an exasperated Kay Bard of Planned Parenthood in Atlanta. "Their lives begin to spiral out of control...
...Yankelovich, Skelly & White, Inc., 78% of Americans respond yes to the question "Do you favor sex education in the schools, including information about birth control?" And yet, despite the majority opinion, the subject of sex education remains a divisive one. On one side are those like Wattleton of Planned Parenthood who argue that Americans should learn to accept adolescent sexuality and make guidance and birth control more easily available, as it is in parts of Europe. On the other side are those who contend that sex education is up to the parents, not the state, and that teaching children about...
...explain this skittishness? "We are still very much governed by our puritanical heritage," answers Faye Wattleton, president of the New York-based Planned Parenthood Federation. "While European societies have chosen to recognize sexual development as a normal part of human development, we have chosen to repress it. At the same time, we behave as if we're not repressing it." In studying various cultures, the Guttmacher researchers found that the highest teen-pregnancy rates were in countries with the least open attitudes toward sex. "The ambivalence our society is projecting about sex is costing us a lot," concludes Institute President...
Even without the risk of being squealed on, many young girls are embarrassed about going to a public clinic. "I chickened out," confesses Debra Stinnett, 18. "I just never went back to Planned Parenthood for the pills." She now has a one-year-old daughter. Studies show that, on the average, teens wait twelve months after first becoming sexually active before they seek contraception. By then it is often too late. "When you're young," says Kim Adalid, 19, of Lawndale, Calif, a wise old mother of two, "all you think about is the weekend...
There is for many young girls another, less tangible factor in the sequence of events leading to parenthood: a sense of fatalism, passivity and, in some cases, even a certain pleasure at the prospect of motherhood. Such attitudes are especially prevalent among the poor. Take Zuleyma, 16, of Los Angeles, who gave birth last May: "I thought I might want to have a baby," she says. "I was thinking more in the future, but things happen." Or Derdra Jones of Chicago, who gave birth at 15: "Part of me wanted to get pregnant," she confesses. "I liked...