A Mom Before the Prom

By Cristina Page

Now that the national attention on Bristol Palin's pregnancy is fading (for the time being) it seems the only discussion it inspired was about John McCain's vetting process and, by extension, his decision-making abilities. But there is another far more important subject raised by the 17-year-old's pregnancy. For decades, teen pregnancy has been viewed as a problem, a danger to the children of young mothers and a hurdle to the success of the adolescent mothers.

But recent public displays of contraceptive failure by girls of visibility and means gives the misleading appearance that teen motherhood might be a lifestyle upgrade. Clearly one of the exacerbating factors is that someone like Bristol Palin is part of what feels like a growing trend: the normalizing of teen pregnancy and teen motherhood in the United States. Bristol is not alone in suggesting that to be a 17-year-old mother is not only acceptable, but exciting. Last year Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's then 16-year-old sister, had her baby. (The Spears', it's worth noting, were proponents of abstinence-only too.) Last year also featured the movie Juno, in which star Ellen Page played a 16-year-old whose quick-wit and sarcasm made her unwanted pregnancy seem as challenging as a bad case of acne. The attention garnered by each of these girls stripped away layers of what had for years been cautions against this very fate.

None of these occasions has prompted examination of the risks and damage caused by teen pregnancy and teen motherhood. And, it should be noted, recent data show that the rate of teen pregnancy in the U.S., which is already the highest in the developed world, is on the rise. The last year witnessed a dramatic 3 percent spike in the number of pubescent parents.

Of course, Bristol, Juno and Jamie Lynn don't exemplify the average American girl confronting unintended pregnancy. And the problem is the average American teen doesn't really know that. The choice the fictional character Juno made, adoption, is almost a fiction these days too. Approximately 1 percent of pregnant teens opt to give a child up for adoption. And then Jamie Lynn Spears is a teen millionaire. Her pregnancy only enhanced her fortune. The first photos of her baby fetched a million dollars. The spotlight on Bristol Palin offers false comfort too. Bristol has resources available to her that none of her pregnant teen counterparts does -- like the secret service, the ultimate nanny.

The average teen girl would be led to believe that teen pregnancy doesn't ruin adolescence, but instead brings lavish amounts of attention, an adoring and adorable teen father, and an endless supply of parental support. The reality for most teen moms could not be more different.

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, eight in 10 teen fathers do not marry the mother of their first child. Kids without involved fathers are twice as likely to drop out of school, twice as likely to abuse alcohol or drugs, twice as likely to end up in jail, and two to three times more likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems. Children who live apart from their fathers are also five times more likely to be poor than children with both parents at home.

Teen mothers, typically left to go it alone, are less likely to complete the education necessary to qualify for a well-paying job -- in fact, parenthood is the leading cause of school drop out among teen girls. College then becomes the remotest of possibilities. Less than two percent of mothers who have children before age 18 complete college by the age of 30.

Too often heartbreaking sacrifices are also foisted on the child of a teenage mom. The children of teen mothers are more likely to be born prematurely at low birthweight compared to children of older mothers, which raises the probability of infant death and disease, mental retardation, and mental illness. Children of teen mothers are 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade and are less likely to complete high school. The children of teen parents also suffer higher rates of abuse and neglect (two times higher).

Teen girls and their children are not the only ones paying dearly. Teen childbearing in the United States costs taxpayers (federal, state, and local) approximately $9.1 billion each year. Most of the costs are associated with services to address the negative consequences detailed above.

The issue of teen pregnancy needs to be taken seriously and there's no better time than an election year to demand that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page is the author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex and spokesperson for BirthControlWatch.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 2008 by the American Forum. 10/08

Important Life Decisions Are Private Family Matters

By Friedrike Merck

Sarah Palin and I have a lot in common. We were athletes and both became hockey Moms, we have held public office in small towns, we like to fish, (I am proud of my marksmanship skills but just can't seem to rustle up what it takes to shoot for sport one of God's creatures), we both have a can-do attitude and serious spiritual lives but we disagree when it comes to matters of privacy and family planning.

Maybe it's my independent New England roots or the tolerant Quaker in me that planted the simple belief that personal choices across a range of important life decisions, like when to have children, are absolutely a private family matter. The choices other people make about the size and timing of their family unit is never anyone else's business and to talk about it, where I come from, is called gossip. Neither is it anyone else's business how a family chooses to cope with the issues of dignity in dying, that's morbid prying. It is no one's right, in this country at least, to insist that there is only one way to believe in or to name a Higher Power, that there is only one way to honor the sanctity of life, that's the kind of holier than thou attitude that drove our ancestors from distant lands to this place of hope for individual liberty.

Lately we've heard the phrase "it's a private family matter" being used to protect the innocent children of candidates, which I am all for, but it has sounded more like a shield to prevent the media from talking about politicians' parading families than it does a sincere belief that we should all be protected from the uninvited bright lights, the opinions and will of others, including the government. I must have missed something along the way but, since when did women's medical decisions, and we women know that pregnancy is both a spiritual and medical condition, stop being a "private family matter?"

Instead of honoring the private discussions between women and their families, between families and their doctors, between people and their God, self appointed groups want to dictate the final say in matters they have no business being in. This dangerous meddling is happening in many areas of people's lives, from government intrusion into the private discussion of when a member of one's family should die to leaders who profess to know the mysteries of life itself. From birth control and emergency contraception availability to deciding whether an unplanned pregnancy should be continued our privacy is being taken from us because someone else claims to know better about how we should conduct our lives. At every step there are individuals, strangers, trying to gain control over our "private family matters" and I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Republicans and Democrats polled by the Women Donors Network show overwhelming support for allowing people to control their own fates in hospitals and at the doctor's office. Just as no one tells us which church to attend, which car to buy or how many guns we can own, we don't want to be limited in our medical choices. Voters across the country strongly believe that they should be able to make their own important life decisions for themselves and their families. A majority of Americans believe that government's role is to provide information, access and services to ensure that we can make these choices responsibly. If politicians can rightly demand a safe space for their "private family matters" then they ought to afford us the same courtesy and keep their noses out of other people's business and bedrooms.

As the next weeks unfold, voters across America should know where candidates stand, not just about "choice", the now polarizing code word for abortion, but more about candidates positions' on a range of common but important life decisions. We must hear the thinking of those hoping to lead this country on critical topics like affordable and readily available birth control, accurate sexuality education and how they define and defend the lines of decency and privacy not only for themselves but for all of us. Yes, the mother from Alaska and I share many similarities but regarding important life decisions, personal family matters, I only claim to know what's best for me and my family.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Merck is a portrait artist, a member of the Women Donors Network and a grateful mother
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 2008 by the American Forum. 9/08