While many teens that engage in pre-marital sex never become pregnant, some are not as fortunate. Did you know in the next 24 hours, approximately 3,310 girls will become pregnant. Every year over one million teenage girls become pregnant in the United States. Of theses pregnancies only 13 percent are intended. As a result, about a third of these teens abort their pregnancies, another 14 percent lose their pregnancies to miscarriage, and the remaining 52 percent teens bear children. Of the half-a-million teens that give birth annually, 72 percent are unmarried and 75 percent are giving birth for the first time. More than 175,000 of these new moms are age 17 years or younger. America has the largest growing number of teen pregnancies in the world and it's just keeps getting worse. .
Teen pregnancy is a very common occurrence nowadays, which is very sad and definitely 100 percent preventable. I believe the parents of these teens are partially at fault. Parents need to talk with their children early and often about sex, and be specific. They need to establish rules, curfews, and standards of expected behavior, preferably through an open process of family discussion and respectful communication. They should know what their kids are watching, reading and listening to. The media (television, radio, movies, music videos, magazines, the Internet) is chocked full of material sending the wrong messages. The media does not generally emphasize the responsibilities and risks of sex and I believe that it plays a major role in the high rates of pregnancy among teenagers in the United States today.
Furthermore, as a society must work together to empower, educate and encourage these individuals to become intellectual active members of our communities. It is significant to attend to the problem now and not later. We must help young teens in our society rise above what the statistics forecast. We can no longer look the other way when it comes to the youth and the issues that we face today whether it is drugs or alcohol abuse, crime, sexual orientation, sexually transmitted infections or pregnancy.