Pregnancy Epidemic Frayser High School Mephis TN

Frayser High school in Memphis, Tennessee has an ongoing problem with teen pregnancy, as do many schools around the nation. However, at Frayser High, the problem is making news because there are 90 pregnant students. Eleven percent of the high school student body of 800 students that has been pregnant at some point within the year.

In the early 1960's, here in Pennsylvania females were forced out of high school if they became pregnant. These students were removed from school to prevent other students from getting ideas about sex. I find this ironic since the 60s are known as the era of free sex, yet let the females get pregnant and they were kicked out of schools.

I graduated in 1984 from Athens Area High School here in Pennsylvania and I could count the number of pregnant classmates on two hands. There were quite a number of classmates having sex, but birth control prevented pregnancy. There was a student population of between 700 to 750 students.

Therefore, to have less than ten females pregnant was not bad considering the number of females in high schools now who are experiencing a pregnancy. However, the amount of high school students pregnant in 1984 was awful when compared to the same school in the 60s.

We all know that pregnancy does not occur every time when sex occurs. To have eleven percent of a school's population carrying a child must mean a far greater number of high school students are having sex. This puts the students are a far greater risk then becoming teen parents.

It puts every single person in the United States at risk for paying more taxes for these children born to teen parents. Teen parents are usually straddles with lower paying jobs, which necessitate government aide to help them to survive. As these babies grow, they will put further burden society with medical expenses and living expenses.

Something needs to be done to prevent these pregnancy epidemics from occurring and it goes way beyond sex education, or extra activities within the school settings. In a perfect would birth control would be a necessity for students entering middle school and again as they enter high school.

Pills, foams etc could be easily forgotten in the rush of teen years, but methods such as Norplant, which goes under the arm, could be implanted and would not be a problem. Our children have forced vaccinations as they enter school, so I do not see forced birth control to teenage pregnancy is any different. It would certainly end the teen parent epidemic which is occurring on a wide spread basis across the United States.

Resources

CNN website

Huffington Post