Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decided to overrule the Food and Drug Administration’s report that Plan B emergency contraception was safe to sell over the counter. The Washington Post reports that this decision by the Obama administration symbolized a broken promise to honor scientific and medical evidence in the realm of public health.
At Youth Radio, we’ve been paying close attention to the school-based health centers popping up all over California and elsewhere. The main service they provide is access to reproductive health care. So how will this decision trickle down and impact school-based health centers and ultimately, America’s young people?
Sang Leng Trieu, Senior Program Manager for the California School Health Centers Association, said that emergency contraception is more effective the sooner one takes it. “We stress to students, anyone trying to avoid pregnancy, obtain it asap,” said Trieu. Therefore, the decision to make Plan B harder to obtain, will impact its efficacy. “Youth already have a more difficult time accessing reproductive health. They already have more barriers, like transportation,” she said.
According to Trieu, the most popular times for students to access health centers for reproductive care are Friday afternoons and Monday mornings. “If you have unprotected sex Friday night, and your provider is closed over the weekend, you have to wait until Monday morning,” she said.
Overall, Trieu said the decision is very sad for those in the public health field who have been working on this issue for a long time. “The fight is about increasing access in anyway we can,” said Trieu.
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The California Pregnant and Parenting Youth Guide was just released by the National Partnership for Women and Families. The guide is for young people under 18 who are looking for answers to basic and complicated questions regarding being a new mother or father, or making decisions during pregnancy.
Sections in the guide include:
- Can I stay in school if I’m pregnant?
- What are the father’s rights and duties?
- What do I do if I’m homeless?
- What kind of health care should I get if I’m pregnant?
- What if I have no insurance?
The guide is presented in a question and answer format, with simple cartoon scenarios on the side. There are also resources and companion guides for healthcare providers, educators, and social workers on the website.
Diamond Bell, 18 and a new mother, previewed the site and had mixed feelings. “When I look at the page, I see the quotes and questions, but it’s not telling me why the quotes and questions are there, it’s just going straight to the answers,” she said.
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UNICEF released its State of the World’s Children 2011 report today, entirely focused on the teenage period of transition. According to the report, this focal switch is urgent because while the world has seen drastic improvements in the quality of life and survival rates of children under the age of 10, teenagers still face overwhelming hardships.
The introduction of the report demonstrates this imbalance. “In Brazil for example, the lives of 26,000 children under one were saved between 1998 and 2008, leading to a sharp decrease in infant mortality. In the same decade 81,000 Brazilian adolescents aged 15-19 were murdered.”
In addition, the report states that after primary school, education for teenagers in developing countries is absent, which makes teenagers more vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and violence.
Statistics about the teenage pregnancy rate demonstrate another barrier that adolescent girls face as they try to advance out of poverty in developing countries. For example, the study reports that complications due to pregnancy and childbirth are within the leading causes of death for girls between 15 - 19 years old.
The report talks about a study done in Orellana, an Ecuadorian province in the Amazon Basin, "Where nearly 40 per cent of girls aged 15–19 are or have been pregnant, found that the pregnancies had much less to do with choices made by the girls themselves than with structural factors such as sexual abuse, parental absence and poverty.”
In 2008, Viacom launched a show on MTV called "16 and pregnant," which was followed by "Teen Mom." These shows were produced to show audiences around the world what it would be like for a teenager in high school to accidentally become pregnant and have to take care of a second, delicate life while attempting to balance their own. Read more...
Teens seem to be utilizing condoms more now. According to a new study by California's Department of Public Health births among California teens were at a new low in 2008. Approximately 35 babies were born for every 1,000 teen females, down from 37 births per thousand in 2007. Although two babies sounds very small the shift brought the state's teen birth rate to it’s lowest since 1991.
"This is the lowest teen birth rate for 15- to 19-year-olds as long as we've been tracking it.” The Los Angeles Times quoted Laurie Weaver, chief of the department's Office of Family Planning.
During the last 10 years, birth rates decreased among both younger and older teens. The decline was largest among younger teens. For teens ages 15 -17, the rate declined 39 percent from 31.1 in 1998 to 19.1 in 2008. The birth rate in the age group 18 -19 years declined 27 percent from 81.9 in 1998 to 59.6 in 2008.
(via the Department Of Public Health)
The study also showed a decrease in Latina teen pregnancy. In 2006 the birth rate amongst Latina teens was 65 percent and in 2008 dropped to 56.9 percent. Birth rates with African Americans, Asians, whites, and Pacific Islanders have been decreasing through the years.
I’m glad teens are handling their business by bringing these numbers down. But can shows like “Teen Mom” or “16 and Pregnant” help reduce these numbers more? The purpose of these shows are to demonstrate how being in school, being a teen and a parent is not the best combination. Let’s just hope teens continue to wrap it up.
(Updated on April 28, 2010)
The following was broadcast on KUNM FM, Albuquerque as part of a series Youth Speak Out, a collaboration between Youth Radio, Youth Media Project in Santa Fe, KUNM’s Youth Radio in Albuquerque, and New Mexico's Youth Alliance, made possible by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information about Youth Speak Out go to www.youthradio.org/new-mexico.
by Bethany Trujillo
The first time I had sex, I got pregnant. I was fifteen years old and I didn’t have any feelings for the guy. We weren’t in a relationship and there were no emotional connections. I had sex with him because two weeks prior my best friend lost her virginity and I wanted to have the experience, too. It took me two weeks to finally get a hold of the guy, and when he found out he didn’t take it very well. He said that he didn’t want to be stuck with me for the rest of his life.
You can't imagine how hard it was to tell my mom that I was pregnant at the young age of fifteen. It shocked my mom because we had never discussed sex before. But, it went better than I expected. She was mad, but understood. She told me that she would support me regardless of my decision. She was afraid that I wouldn’t graduate high school or be as successful as I could be if I was raising a child.
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(Updated on April 26, 2010)
The following was broadcast on KUNM FM, Albuquerque as part of a series Youth Speak Out, a collaboration between Youth Radio, Youth Media Project in Santa Fe, KUNM’s Youth Radio in Albuquerque, and New Mexico's Youth Alliance, made possible by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information about Youth Speak Out go to www.youthradio.org/new-mexico.
By Patrick Chavez
The turning point in my life was finding out I was going to be a father.
It wasn't exactly good timing when it happened. I was only 18 years old. My girlfriend Megan and I were living in Española, New Mexico. It's a beautiful rural town but provides very little employment. The blemish of drug abuse and poverty contradicts its natural beauty. We were both high school dropouts and I was working odd jobs doing hard labor.
Megan and I had been excommunicated from our families because of our rash decision to drop out of high school and our lifestyle, doing drugs and attending parties and raves. We lived all over New Mexico, moving from friend's house to friend's house, sleeping on beds, couches, floors...whatever was available. We never knew for sure if we were going to eat or have a place to sleep. I guess you could say we were nomads or hobos. Read more...
When newly appointed spokesperson for the Candie's Foundation, Bristol Palin, went on the morning television circuit urging teens to "wait to have sex," my first thought was, "Till when? Tuesday?". Palin, daughter of Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin, became the object of national focus during the governor's ill-fated campaign for the White House in 2008 for getting pregnant at age 17 by then boyfriend, Levi Johnston. Read more...
