Shocking Pregnancy Trends from the 1950s to Present

Many adolescents are sexually active today. Whether it personal decision or being forced into it, teenagers are still involved. According to Samantha McKinney and Kristina Scott, of those sexually active only one in five use contraception (Samantha). These teenagers who do not use contraception set their selves up for hardships in life. Being sexually active and using contraception as a teenager is a choice that may determine the rest of your life. Is "it" really worth it? One major outcome of those sexually active is pregnancy, which leads to many other choices: adoption, abortion, keeping the child, or even terminating the pregnancy.

Pregnancy all begins with talk of sexual activity. According to Miracle Brown, out of 618 California high school students, 44 engaged in some type of sexual activity during the years of 2002 - 2004. These 44 students were had sexual relations by the end of tenth grade. Statistics from The Family Connection of St. Joseph County, Inc., stated that "56 percent of young women and 73 percent of young men today have had intercourse by age 18..." (Samantha). Beginning in the 1950s, there are records of teenagers having intercourse and many unwanted pregnancies.

Shocking pregnancy trends from the 1950s to present

According to Christensen and Rosen, the teen birth rate in 1957 was higher than it is today (Samantha ). In my opinion, although teenage pregnancy has become more socially acceptable in this day and age, so have pregnancy terminations and abortions. This meaning the birth rate may have gone down but the pregnancy rate has not.

Yet, "In 1955...only six percent of white teenage childbearing occurred outside of marriage; today it is 42 percent" (Samantha). Although a teenager becoming pregnant was very common in the 1950s, after discovering they were pregnant, it was perceived the right thing for the father to do was marry the woman he impregnated. The father was often forced into marrying the mother of his child. In the eyes of the public this was a social norm for a teenage couple soon to have a baby. In visiting with my father he referred to this type of marriage "a shotgun wedding." Even though the couple may not necessarily have been in love with one another, they still followed what was expected of them. Therefore, today pregnant teenagers don't marry the father as often.

Prior to the 1970s, demographers and family planners were focused on health aspects of both mother and baby in unplanned pregnancies of middle-aged women (miracle). Meanwhile the sexual activity of teenagers was being overlooked and in turn on the rise. With these occurrences, more attention was devoted to teenagers having children. By the mid-1970s, it was common to see teenagers "pregnant and carrying and armload of schoolbooks" (miracle). This seemed to be the start of moral decay of young men and women as well as our society in believing this trend to be socially acceptable. According to Christensen and Rosen, sexual activity was lower in the 1970s than today (Samantha). These statistics should have directed the educators to target the use of contraception over abstinence, since sexual activity was obviously going to continue to increase.

Surprisingly, even though sexual activity in teenagers has risen, the birthrate from 1990 to 2005 has decreased according to Brooklyn Sanders. There are good and bad reasons for this decrease. A positive force was the education of teens in the use