The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced the teenage birthrate had declined 30 percent over ten years to a historic low of 43 births per 1,000 ("Teen Pregnancy Rates at 10-year low", 2003). African-American teenagers showed the sharpest declines, down more than 40 percent since 1991. According to Woman's Health Weekly, pregnancy, birth and abortion rates dropped in the United States from 1990 to 1999. The overall pregnancy rate among teenagers dropped by 25% in the ten-year period ("Pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates dropped in U.S. during the 1990s", 2003).
Negative Aspects of Teen Pregnancy: There are a number of negative aspects of teen pregnancy. For example, every year almost one million teenage girls become pregnant. Approximately one-third of the girls who get pregnant carry their pregnancies to term and keep their babies. About another third have abortions, and the other third has spontaneous miscarriages. Robert Brown M.D. lists some of the other negative aspects of teen pregnancy ("Adolescent Pregnancy", 2002):
Less than one-third of teens that have babies before the age of 18 finish high school.
Almost half of all teen mothers end up on welfare.
According to Kata Pollit (1996) some teenagers are pregnant because of the actions of sexual predators (Pollit, 9).
Less than 25 percent of births to teens occur within wedlock.
Teen mothers are sometimes in their early teens and may not fully appreciate the future consequences of their actions and their decision to become sexually active. This inability to recognize the potential consequences of current behavior is called cognitive immaturity.
Teenagers are less likely to have adequate prenatal care and as a result are more likely to have low birth weight babies.
Often, adolescent or teenage girls who have low self-esteem, or who are depressed, may engage in sexual activity as a way of trying to make themselves ...