Teenage pregnancy is a very serious problem in California. A majority of the teenage girls who became pregnant state that their pregnancies were mistimed, unplanned and unexpected. According to the CDC (Centers of Disease Controls and Prevention) many teenage girls are unaware of their chances of getting pregnant. On January 20 researchers interviewed 5000 teenage girls in 19 states and after the interview they reported approximately one third of teenage moms did not use birth control because they didn’t believe they could get pregnant.
According to the Guttmacher Institute teenage pregnancy rates and abortion rates has dropped dramatically since the 1990s. According to the repost, teenage pregnancy rates dropped 51% between 1990 and 2010 and the reason for this drop is because fewer teens are getting pregnant. However, in 2001 more than 53,000 teens aged 15 to 19 gave birth in California. Even though teen birth rates are dropping in California teen birth rates are between 4 and 12 times higher when compared to rates for Spain, Italy, France, Japan and Netherlands.
These early pregnancies affect community in many ways. Teen pregnancy is the primary reason many teenage girl single parents sight this as the reason they drop out of high school. Many teenage girls have less stable income and face many pregnancy problems and they are most likely to smoke during pregnancy because of which they have less healthy infants. Another issue that affect the community is the cost. According to Constantine, the average costs related to each birth to teen mothers age of 15-19 is $2,129 per year and the annual taxpayer cost for each birth to teenage mothers is $3,108 per year. It is estimated that the cost of the each teenage birth an average will be $4,750 per year and the annual net costs to taxpayers will run to $1.7 billion, however the net cost for the society will run up to $3.8 billion.
The U.S Centers of Disease Control and Prevention is offering sex...