Teen Pregnancy Growing in Numbers
Gone are the days when pregnancy was limited to the people who can be more than able to raise a child. Marriage was normally the first step towards becoming full-pledged parents but to some, this is something that they have foregone.
The rate of teenage pregnancies in the world today has significantly increased. Some say it was done on purpose while others claim it was accidental. Of the two, the former seems to be the lamest excuse for getting pregnant.
One thing that is for sure, it is the babies who should not be made to suffer. The gift of life, a child, is something sacred and seeing so-called grown-ups take that for granted is something that is unforgivable.
“At the very least these men should be held responsible for financial support, if not put in jail for statutory rape as the mayor has suggested,” Greg Verga, chairman of the Gloucester School Committee, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Nationwide, teen pregnancies are showing signs of rising after steadily declining from 1991 to 2005. This trend was highlighted on Thursday when Britney Spears’ 17-year-old sister Jamie Lynn, star of Nickelodeon’s popular TV show “Zoey 101,” gave birth to a baby girl, according to People magazine.
“The data seem to be indicating that the declines that we had seen through the 1990s are coming to a close,” said David Landry, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based non-profit group focusing on reproductive issues.
Birth rates for teenagers aged 15 to 17 rose by 3 percent in 2006, the first increase since 1991, according to preliminary data released in December by the National Centre for Health Statistics.
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