teen pregnancy

Our first world society likes to believe teen pregnancy is rare; it's a taboo subject. But we tend to forget that 16 million girls ages 15-19 give birth each year.  All though the teen pregnancy rate has declined over the past few decades, the fact of the matter is that the United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of the Western industrialized world. It is true that the teen pregnancy and birth rate was much higher prior to 1980 (and especially in the 1950s and 1960s), but at the time young women were getting married and having children before the age of 20. Most of the teen pregnancies occurring before 1980 were to married women; now most of today’s teen mothers are unwed. Here are some more interesting teen pregnancy statistics: 3 million 15-19 year old girls have unsafe abortions every year. Not only that, U.S. has twice the teen pregnancy rate as Canada. Both Germany and France have a teen pregnancy rate that is four times lower than the U.S. as well.
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To put a personal note on it, a very close friend of mine was pregnant. To start at the beginning, she and her boyfriend had sex for the first time, and after a week or two, she started feeling nauseous. I went and picked up 3 pregnancy tests for her, and we sat in the CVS bathroom waiting for her results. When we saw it was positive, she started bawling. I just hugged and comforted her. I told her she needed to tell her boyfriend, and she did. He broke up with her on the spot. Through all of this pain, I reminded her it would all be ok- that she didn't have to go through it alone. After telling her parents, she decided to get an abortion. Her decision was a hard one, but she did it because her body wouldn't have been able to take proper care of the baby- it was far too immature. 


The point of all of this is that YOU WILL MAKE IT THROUGH. You are never alone. If you need my help AT ALL, I can be emailed at [email protected] or texted at 952-567-9467. Stay strong readers! 

​Sophie