Teen pregnancy is something that we as a society battle every day. Over 240,000 teenagers gave birth in 2016. I believe that it is time to make a change in the way the legislation in South Carolina runs and funds programs that deal with health and sexual education as well as dealing with teen parents and helping them to become more than their situation; To help them become the type of members of society that would make this country a better place. I believe that not only should there be more programs specifically for teen parents, but there should also be a requirement to educate teens on more than just abstinence. Teenagers are one of the most volatile demographics in our society, and there is no way to reach all of them. Some will fall through the cracks made by bad decisions and ignorance. But a great way to seal the cracks and lessen the gaps of information in a teenagers mind when they are thinking about starting a sexual relationship with someone is to educate them on everything that comes with that decision, as well as inform them that help is available and life doesn’t stop with a pregnancy. And those that do fall through the cracks will be caught by the adolescent parenting programs that have been put into place. Ethically speaking, I believe that it is an ethical obligation by the South Carolina legislation to give teenagers as much defense against bad decisions as possible. Which includes having programs that help teenage parents make better and the best decisions possible in the future. None of these changes can happen without the support and funds of the legislation. I believe that in order to make any of these issues better for the future, half of the funding that South Carolina receives from the U.S. government and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control should go to non-abstinence only programs as well as programs that support teenaged parents in every aspect of life. In 2017, I believe that change can be made. It has already been proven that teen pregnancy rates will lower if more is done to prevent them beyond abstinence-only programs. There is no reason to delay the process of implementing a new way of educating and services teenage parents. I propose only that the funds already given to basic sexual education programs be shared with other programs that can be created with help from the legislation. It is time for more people to give support to this issue instead of ignoring it or putting it on the back burner because it is an uncomfortable topic. Change has never been an easy subject, as it is human nature to take comfort in that which is normal and routine. However, I believe that this is one subject that has a very attainable solution in implementing shared funding between the programs already in place and teen parenting/non-abstinence only programs.

People seems to take great interest in the ins and outs of preventing teen pregnancy and there are lots of programs and services available throughout the country to help young people who find themselves a part of this group. However, more often times than not, people seem to push aside the idea that a teenager (or teenagers) who ends up having their child would need help in the world. That is why I would like to discuss the other side of the coin. What happens to teenagers once the baby is born? What kinds of emotional, mental, and socioeconomic issue do these teenagers face on a regular basis? I believe that it is the duty of the legislation in South Carolina to invest in creating new programs and opportunities for adolescent parents by sharing the funding given to abstinence-only programs as well as adding important sexual education information to these courses so as to minimize the number of uninformed, uneducated teenagers. While researching on what programs South Carolina has already in place, I was shocked to find that on the whole, South Carolina does not have well known, or even significant programs or services to aid adolescent parents. Abstinence programs can only go so far to help decrease the occurrence of teen pregnancy, but once it has occurred, teenagers cannot be expected to be able to go off into the real world and live successfully without help from someone or something. Luckily, it has been proven that having programs and services like Public School Daycare and basic sexual education courses prevents repeat pregnancies and provides a better quality of life for those who would have otherwise been in a bad situation.

Currently, South Carolina is home to a few government programs such as Florence Crittenton Programs of SC that are in place to supposedly help adolescent parents. This program helps to provide support services to low-income single parents. This program is based in Charleston, but has reach into areas that include Berkeley and Dorchester and encourages teenaged parents to provide positive family dynamics and self-sufficiency for their children (Florence Crittenton Programs for SC). However, while this program is “government funded”, it does not receive even a fraction of the money that abstinence-only programs acquire within the same amount of time (South Carolina State Title V Grant Application). This program in particular only received about 44,000 from the government as opposed to the State Abstinence Program’s $18 million (Shaw, 2015). In addition, almost no schools across the state offer child care services, or daycare, for their students; in fact, only a certain few colleges in the entire state even offer it. A program in North Carolina called the Adolescent Parenting Program is another model of how I envision new programs in South Carolina. It is a government funded program that allows adolescent parents to learn job skills, basic parenting skills, get and education, and prevent future pregnancies from occurring (Adolescent Parenting Programs). I believe that South Carolina should use this program as a model for what adolescent parenting programs are supposed to be like. Clearly, it is affordable and effective because after years of being in effect, the program is still up and running and North Carolina’s teen birth rate is lower than that of South Carolina. Therefore, I see no reason why the legislation in South Carolina cannot share funding between abstinence and sexual education classes so as continue to both prevent high teen birth rates, and to give assistance to adolescent parents who are in need. For a teen, having a baby is a not only an obstacle, but a wall of adversity that they must fight to overcome, an emotional, mental, and physical strain on their lives; and while having an abortion is an option, enough teens choose not to go through with that choice that there is a need for things like adolescent parenting programs around the state and sexual education classes that would minimize teen pregnancy altogether.

The article “Supporting Adolescent Mothers: A Journey through Programs, Policies, and Research” talks about research studies that were conducted to test the idea of having programs to aid adolescent mothers. The author states that some of the studies included adding school-based prenatal care and volunteer-based at home care for the adolescent mothers. The school-based care proved to be fairly successful in that in implementing that program, the adolescent mothers were much less likely to miss class, cut off social connections, or eventually drop out of school because of their child. This is very important because the goal of these programs is to help an adolescent parent get back into the normally structured lives as easily as possible. In addition, while the at-home volunteer was also successful for the purpose of the adolescents going to school or job, it failed the test of whether the adolescents could keep up social connections and mental health that associates with having friends which is an issue because teenagers are very social creatures and those that are also parents are in need of even more support and connection with their peers. The conclusion to the study was that though the demographic of teenager parents is somewhat small, they all deserve the chance to make something of themselves with the help of some much needed programs. Clearly, as the state with the 12th highest teenage pregnancy rate in the nation, whatever abstinence programs that have been in effect for the past couple of years are not very effective at all. The program that this article speaks of is the type of thing that must be implemented for the legislation to see any significant change in the teen pregnancy rate. Thus far, rate of teen pregnancies per year is lowering slowly but surely each year or so with the aid of abstinence-only programs. However, shouldn’t the goal of a program be to minimize the issue as fast as possible? Studies have shown that a lot of these births are not coming from new teenagers, but actually from teenagers that have already had a pregnancy (Collins, 2013). These same studies state that with the help of programs for adolescent parents, there is a much smaller likelihood that these parents will have repeat pregnancies. Instead, they will look toward the future for themselves and their babies. Which means that the teen pregnancy rate will see a much bigger jump from past birth rates. And for those who are not yet adolescent parents, having non abstinence-only sexual education courses will provide the prevention aspect that will keep the teen pregnancy rates from rising again.

Teenagers in general are also more emotion-based creatures than their older counterparts, and therefore having the hormones and emotions that come with pregnancy might cause a more profound reaction to the daily struggles of most new parents in adolescent parents than in adult parents. For this reason, many professionals question whether adolescent parents should even be given the same rights as a regular parent (Mercurio). Some experts would argue that because it is their child, rights such as acting as a surrogate decision maker should automatically go to the parent. However, most would agree that though the teenager is “old enough” to make the decision to have a child in the first place, they are not mentally ready to hold someone else’s life or death decisions in their hands. I believe that having adolescent parenting programs that help buffer some of the strain that is on adolescent parents would lessen the mental burden that many of them carry, thereby helping both the parents and the baby to have the best life possible. Mental health is a tricky subject because falling into poor mental health could happen to anyone and expecting persons are even more at risk due to the hormones in their bodies. Post-pregnancy mental health problems are something that many pregnant or expecting mothers face, but the feeling is greatly amplified when experienced as a teenager. Seeking help for diseases such as depression can prove to be a challenge for adolescent parents and many fail to get help because of their at-home responsibilities (LaPalette). As of right now, no abstinence programs have anything set up for mental health and finding help for those who need it, but with more government programs that support adolescent parents, there will be an increase in the amount of people who do get help sooner rather than later and get their lives back on track for the future. 

Furthermore, I believe that too often, there is too little focus on the men that play a role in their child/significant other’s life and well-being. Society sees the women as the primary caregivers and the ones who are hold primary responsibility for their child and the ones that struggle from mental health problems the most because of it. The book Adolescent Fatherhood by Arthur B Elster talks about the mental health struggles that males also go through as a part of being not only a parent, but also a regular teenager. It explores why young males even become fathers in the first place and makes the central claim that men should be as held as accountable as the women when it comes to being a parent. I believe that having adolescent parenting programs would tremendously help the men as well as the women with the mental health issues that some adolescent parents may deal with on a daily basis and allow those same parents to grow into both better parents and better members of society. 

Having government programs to help adolescent parents in South Carolina is something that could change the outlook of the next generation. So many times, children of this generation hear that their time is doomed and that if change does not come soon then the future is looking very dull. I don’t know that there is a solution to the problems of every teenager that belongs to this generation, but I do know that changes could be made for the better for adolescent parents living in South Carolina. For example, in the article “Supporting Adolescent Mothers: a Journey through Programs, Policies, and Research”, the author talks about a former patient that she had had that was doing very well for herself and was starting her life were her pregnancy as a 15 year-old didn’t define who she was. The author talked about how Brittney, the patient, had gone to a program that had helped her with school-based prenatal care, guided her parenting with a tailored curriculum, encouraged her to delay future pregnancies until she was older, and supported her to remain in school (Barnet, 2012). Such a program helped her to stay on track for better things in the future, and sure enough, the article states that Brittney is a thriving thirty-something year old whose 17-year old daughter is also doing well and is looking forward to going to college on a scholarship. Without the help of the program, Brittney may have been in a much different situation. If the South Carolina legislation would give serious thought to changing the way funds are distributed between abstinence programs and services for adolescent parents, it would help thousands more teenagers in similar situations. Instead, the legislation continues to fund abstinence-only programs that not only prevent health knowledge of sexual relationships, but also doesn’t give any help to those who find themselves in situations like Brittney. 

To determine whether or not this change would be a plausible one from the grants awarded to South Carolina, I researched the laws that South Carolina has for abstinence programs. Currently, it is required that schools’ health programs are all-inclusive and that they involve teachings on abstinence until marriage. In the article “The Truth about Abstinence-only Programs”, there is a statement made by Campaign Chief Operating Officer Gwendolyn Baker: “The implications of teen pregnancy ripple across a host of public concerns such as poverty, health, education and the economy.  Now is the time to educate members of the House and inform them about these important programs.” To some degree, I agree with what Baker is saying. I believe that educating the members of the House, the people that can actually change the way things are now will allow good things to happen with the programs already available and the programs that are to come. In fact, many people in our state, being more conservative, would probably agree that this is the only way that teenagers in our state should be educated. However, and article from Advocatesforyouth.org states that though over 1.5 billion dollars have been spent by the United States government on abstinence-only programs (this means no advocating for contraceptive use or even discuss the different contraceptive methods), there has been no evidence to the claim that abstinence-only programs delay sexual initiation by teenagers and ultimately reduces teen pregnancy. In reality, it has been known to do the exact opposite. Abstinence-only programs delay knowledge of the dangers of sexual intercourse as well as what can be done to prevent pregnancy if such a situation may occur, which we already know to be true. The question is, knowing this, why does South Carolina’s legislation continue to put all of their trust in abstinence-only programs? Truth be told, the answer may lie in the idea that the governing bodies of South Carolina do not know that having programs that reach farther than abstinence-only can actually decrease the amount of teen pregnancies at a rate that is much faster than that of just abstinence-only. This is why I believe that in addition to programs that assist teen parents, the legislation should legalize, if not require sexual education programs in schools to include information on contraceptives and other topics that are recommended for well-rounded knowledge of healthy and safe sexual intercourse and ultimately, I believe that including this type of information in health/sex education programs will decrease the number of teen pregnancies exponentially. 

In this day and age, there should be services all around to aid you in whatever situation you find yourself in. In writing this paper, I found South Carolina lacking in a department that it should not be. I hope that with this essay, the legislation of South Carolina seriously considers moving funding from sexual education classes and making adolescent parenting programs as well as making sure that abstinence-only programs are not interfering with getting teenagers the knowledge that they need to have a healthy, safe, and someday fruitful sexual relationships in addition to all around successful lives as adults. 
