I.

Problem

Teenage pregnancy is widespread in the Philippines, especially amongst the poor. It is a

story that may not be too pleasant, but one that is repeated all too often. Teen pregnancy is an
obvious rising issue in our society. During the 21st century, the statistics about this issue
continues to rise even though there are a lot of disadvantages that young mothers and fathers can
obviously get in the said issue.

Fox(2008) defined teenage pregnancy as:

Teenage pregnancy is one of the most important and alarming issues in today's
world. A teenage pregnancy, also referred to as teen pregnancy, comes to be when a girl
attains motherhood before she becomes a major or adult, as laid down by the law of the
land (p.5).

Some 16.5 million Filipinos belong to the 15-24 year old age group. We are forced with a
glaring truth that at a very young age, a lot of young people today have children of their own. 30
% of all births belong to this age group; and by the age of 20, 25% of the youth are already
mothers. This shocking truth about teenage pregnancy in the Philippines should wake the
government and parents themselves to take action (Flores, 2008).

According to the 2002 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study by the University of the
Philippines Population Institute (Uppi) and the Demographic Research and Development
Foundation, twenty six(26%) of our Filipino youth nationwide from ages 15 to 25 admitted to
having a premarital sex experience. What’s worse is that 38 percent of our youth are already in a
live-in arrangement. Another is the 1998 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS)
reveals that 3.6 million of our teenagers (that’s a whopping 5.2 percent of our population!) got
pregnant. In 92 percent of these teens, the pregnancy was unplanned, and the majority, 78
percent, did not even use contraceptives the first time they had sex (Singson, 2008).

Most teenagers don't plan to get pregnant, but many do. Teen pregnancies carry extra
health risks to the mother and the baby. Risks for the baby include premature birth and a low
birthweight. To control this, we must help each other by following the suggested solutions.

II. Cause

Causes of teenage pregnancy are occuring due to following reasons according to

Fox(2008):

Consequence of raging hormones. Most teenagers experience sudden and hitherto

unknown emotions and feelings during their early puberty. All this, coupled with a sudden sense
of new-found freedom and sexuality, results in many of them giving vent to their feelings
through sexual expressions and experiences. Of course, most countries stress on sex education in
schools, but yet, some teenagers involve themselves in unsafe sex, which could lead to unwanted
pregnancies.

Peer pressure. A lot of teenagers indulge in early sexual behavior due to peer pressure.
This is due to the fact that they feel the great need to be 'hip' and 'accepted' by their circle of
friends. The only way they could probably achieve that would be by having a boyfriend or
girlfriend or at least by dating and indulging in sexual acts often.

Contraceptive Failure. Though there are many types and brands of contraceptives and
emergency birth control pills easily available in the market, these are never a guarantee for
complete safety. Only Mother Nature knows when she might want to get into action, so no form
of birth control is going to be completely foolproof! (Fox,July 18,2008).

Other causes of teenage pregnancy are:

1. Lack of Parental Guidance. Most people evade their children from talking about sex. In
some cases, they provide false information regarding sex and discourage their children to
participate in any informative discussion about sex. In some cases, teenage mothers are
not well educated about sex before getting pregnant and thus this leads to lack of
communication between the parents and the children.

2. Inadequate Knowledge about Safe Sex. Most adolescents are unaware of safe sex. They
probably have no access to the traditional methods of preventing pregnancy. And the
main reason behind is that they are either too embarrassed or fear to seek information
about it. It was found that more than 80% of teenage pregnancies are unintended.

3. Exploitation by Older Men. This is another major factor that contributes to pregnancy
among the teenagers. Those girls who date older men are more likely to become pregnant
before they attain womanhood. Rape, sexual exploitations etc. also takes place that leads
to unwanted pregnancy among teenage girls.

4. Socio Economic Factors. Teenage girls who belong to the poor families are more likely
to become pregnant. Researchers have found that even in the developed countries teenage
pregnancy occurs most commonly among the deprived sections.

5. Glamorization of Pregnancy. The movie industry and the media contribute to teenage
pregnancy by glamorizing teen pregnancy in news stories and movies. Movies that depict
teen pregnancy as something to be desired encourage teens to engage in reckless sexual
activity, according to ABC's "Good Morning America." During adolescence, teens
become more focused on their appearance and how their peers perceive them. They want
to be seen as part of the group, so if teen pregnancy is viewed as acceptable in their
school or amongst their friends, they may seek to become pregnant as a way to gain
social acceptance.

6. Teenage Drinking. Teen drinking can cause an unexpected pregnancy, according to the
website Love to Know. Many teens experiment with drugs and alcohol. Drinking lowers
 a teen's ability to control her impulses, contributing to 75 percent of pregnancies that
occur between the ages 14 and 21. Approximately 91 percent of pregnant teens reported
that although they were drinking at the time, they did not originally plan to have sex
when they conceived.

7. Sexual Abuse or Rape. Teens can become pregnant as a result of sexual abuse or rape.
The Guttmacher Institute states that between 43 and 62 percent of teens acknowledge that
they were impregnated by an adult male, and two-thirds report that their babies' fathers
are as old as 27. Approximately 5 percent of all teen births are the result of a rape.

8. Inconsistent use of birth control. Even though the use of contraceptives has increased
among teenagers, its use remains spotty. Teens may use birth control to help prevent teen
pregnancy, but most do not use contraceptives consistently. Erratic contraceptive use,
however, is better than none. A sexually active teen that does not use any birth control
has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year. Some of the reasons that
birth control is not used include the following: uneducated about birth control,
uncomfortable using birth control methods and unable to access reliable birth control.

9. Abstinence-only sex education. Despite recent government efforts to fund abstinence-

only sex education, the vast majority of teenaged boys and girls (62 percent and 70
percent) have initiated vaginal sex by the age of 18. Because of their nature, abstinence-
only programs leave out educational information on birth control. These programs have
never been shown to actually reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy. However, they are
the programs that receive the most funding from the government. There are state
governments that forbid any sort of teen sex education in schools at all. This means that
teens that experiment may not have information on birth control and are more likely to
engage in activity that results in teen pregnancy.

10. Psychological factors. The immature and irresponsible behavior arising due

to complex teenage psychology is another important cause of teenage
pregnancies. Teenagers often go through a number of emotions because of
their own transition from childhood and peer pressure.

The causes above are also similar to the causes here in the Philippines.

III. Solutions
A. Existing Solutions

Since abortion is immoral and legally wrong here in the Philippines, they consider
adoption for the baby or acceptance for the parents. If not yet born, then they suggest that the
baby not be killed. Currently, the government proposes sex education but it is still debated
whether it would be taught or not.

One way to prevent pregnancy is by practicing safe sex. In addition to it, birth control
tools such as condoms, pills, intra-uterine devices or spermacides can regulate the fertility of a
woman's eggs. Even though it decreases the chances of not being pregnant, still it is not 100%
sure and effective to avoid pregnancy. Some are even desperate that they will come to a point
that they have to abort their babies without knowing the effects it may cause to the mother and it
will kill the conscience of who will ever do this abortion thing.

With the help of Science, Medicine has developed a new pill contraceptive named
RU486, the morning after solution to a sex encounter.

Teenagers nowadays are sexually active without their parents knowing their sexual
activities. Often times, media promotes sexuality to the young which may cause them to be
mislead with wrong information about sex and they might be misguided, that's why parents play
an important role to the lives of their children.

For all we know, sex is for those couples who already undergo to the Sacrament of
Marriage, because doing sex needs a lot of sense of maturity not only physical but mental and
spiritual basis. Once a pregnancy occurs from premarital sex, the couple is bound to live together
for the rest of their lives with or without marriage because they have now the obligation to raise
the child.

The best way to avoid teen pregnancy is by avoiding or abstaining from sex before
marriage. One thing is for sure, abstain from sex will keep you 100% safe from diseases,
undesired relationship, and of course teenage PREGNANCY (Life Challenges -
AllAboutLifeChallenges.org, 2011).

Other possible solutions are:

1. Abstinence from sex until you are old enough to do so.

2. Usage of contraceptives and other forms of birth controls.
3. Sex education
4. Affection and Guidance of parents
5. Counseling
6. Discouraging early dating

Whatever the solutions may be, we must all keep in mind that we must be pro-life.

B. How it is done in other countries

Existing solutions do not only exist on the Philippines but also on other parts of the
world. For example, abortion in the United States has been legal in every state since the United
States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, on January 22, 1973. Prior to "Roe", there were
exceptions to the abortion ban in at least 10 states; "Roe" established that a woman has a right to
self-determination (often referred to as a "right to privacy") covering the decision whether or not
to carry a pregnancy to term, but that this right must be balanced against a state's interest in
preserving fetal life (Wikipedia, 2011).
 In Egypt, they teach knowledge about male and female reproductive systems, sexual
organs, contraception and STDs in public schools at the second and third years of the middle-
preparatory phase (when students are aged 12–14) (Wikipedia, 2011).

In France, they promote sex education and it has been part of school curricula since
1973. Schools are expected to provide 30 to 40 hours of sex education, and pass out condoms, to
students in grades eight and nine (Wikipedia, 2011).

In Britain, which has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe ,sex education
is a heated issue in government and media reports

In Sweden, sex education has been a mandatory part of school education since 1956. The
subject is usually started between ages 7 and 10, and continues up through the grades,
incorporated into different subjects such as biology and history

In some countries, such as America, Falcon punch is done by the teens. The Falcon
Punch is most often used to end the untimely pregnancy of a loved one in a humane manner,
especially if the loved one happens to be under the age of sixteen. (EncyclopediaDramatica,
2011).

Active euthanasia, commonly referred simply as euthanasia, is only legal in the

Netherlands and Belgium. (WikiAnswers, 2011)

Euthanasia is the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for
his or her alleged benefit, and over the years it has been one of the favorite tools of those who
think society is better off when we take active steps to kill the poor, the disabled, the elderly, or
the “unwanted”. Today the debate over euthanasia most commonly revolves around the issue of
physician-assisted suicide. There are many forms of euthanasia but the assisted suicide is its
most common from. This method has also been done to prevent teenage pregnancy. (Wikipedia,
2011)

There are many possible solutions that can be done, some countries perform different
methods that are immoral for Filipinos. One example is abortion. But amidst all this, we must
learn to give importance to life because it is God’s wonderful gift to all of us.