Teenage pregnancy is one of the phenomena that are quite hard to approach. On the one hand, it would be absurd to claim that young mothers are unable to provide for their children on their own and, therefore, are not to have ones before they reach the age of twenty. On the other hand, teenage pregnancy is traditionally caused not by the need to have a child to care about and a family to provide for, but because of the lack of responsibility and often a negative family background. As a rule, teenage mothers belonging to the categories specified above are unable to provide their children with the required care; eventually, both the mother and the child suffer. Therefore, teenage pregnancy must be controlled better.
According to the statistical data acquired recently, the key reason for teenagers to get pregnant is the lack of information concerning family, responsibility and the role of a mother. In other words, teenagers need to be introduced to the basics of sex education, including such topics as human sexuality, reproductive health, reproductive rights and responsibilities, and the related issues. At this point, however, the problem of autonomy comes to the forth. On the one hand, according to the age of consent in the USA, starting from 16, teenagers are allowed to have sexual intercourse. On the other hand, with the lack of knowledge regarding sex and reproductive rights and responsibilities, teenagers often make same mistakes by becoming parents while having little to no idea of what sexual relationships entail (Potera, 2008).
Another obvious concern regarding the skyrocketing rates of teenage pregnancy, nonmaleficence should be given a proper mentioning. According to the existing code of tending to the needs of pregnant teenagers, it is imperative that the teenager in question should be transported into a safe environment, which often presupposes that the teenager should be under unceasing observation of healthcare specialists. The given decision seems rather reasonable, seeing how pregnancy process often results in unpredictable accidents in teenage mothers. In addition, unless it has been technically proven that the man who was defined as the biological father of the baby to be born is willing to provide for his future family or at the very least that the intercourse was under mutual consent, he is legally suspected as a possible rapist, which presupposes that the young woman should abstain from contacts with him and remain under the observation of professionals (Koshar, 2001).
The aforementioned decision, however, begs a few questions regarding the legitimacy of preventing the future mother and the biological father of her baby to be born from contacting. While it is quite reasonable to assume that the two young people are going through a very difficult period in their lives, when they have to face dilemmas of the adult world, it is wrong to create obstacles for their communication. By talking the issue over, young people will be able to evaluate the situation, realize what their responsibilities are, reconcile and, perhaps, even decide to raise their future child together. Therefore, the ethical reasoning behind prohibiting the biological father to communicate with the future mother seems unreasonable at the very least. Though, probably, traumatizing, the given experience might resolve in a happy ending.
Teenage pregnancy is still one of the major concerns in the American society. However, the rates of teenage pregnancy can be brought down once teenagers are provided with the information concerning responsibility, parenthood and contraception. Meanwhile, ethical issues regarding teenage pregnancy remain to be resolved on a regular basis.
Reference List
Koshar, J. H. (2001). Teen pregnancy 2001 – still no easy answers. Pediatric Nursing, 27(5), p. 505.
Potera, C. (2008). Comprehensive sex education reduces teen pregnancies. The American Journal of Nursing, 108(7), p. 18.