STI’s and HIV/AIDS in Adolescence

Teens and young adults are the most “at risk” of contracting a STI or HIV/AIDS. Therefore, there should be more resources available to teens that are sexually active. If teens were more aware of the specific consequences of the various STIs they would be more enticed and motivated to use protection. This issue is also very gender based. Aside from the various facts, such as, women are three times more likely to contract HIV, the issue presses deeper, into issues within society: the double standard. When it comes to sexuality, women are raised to protect their purity until marriage, while men are raised to pursue and access as much “experience” as possible. However, when conception and proper protection are presented, the most convenient solution lies within the male’s authority.  Men receive more pleasure without a condom than with one. Therefore, most men would rather not use one; by combining this lack of desired necessity and the pressure/ motive to sleep with as many women as he can, the spread of STIs and HIV are eminent.

The show, 16 and Pregnant, can do a much better job of providing more information about STIs and HIV/AIDS. Whether it be through certain commercial advertisements (through condoms, birth control, etc.), the cast members can be asked certain questions, such as “When you weren’t using a condom, besides the risk of getting pregnant, did the thought of contracting a STI or HIV ever cross either of your minds?”

Here is an article I found with six steps to help decrease the spread of STIs and HIV throughout adolescence:

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/child/PublicDocuments/teensti.authcheckdam.pdf


Portia K. 

The Promotion of Abstinence from a Teen Mom

I can remember back in the 6^th grade we had a class period where some lady from a sex education program came in and spoke to the class. The message that she conveyed to us students was that we should be abstinent and that we should not be focused on the opposite at this time. To a six grader that goes in one ear and out of the other one. She also spoke about pregnancy and STI’s but to a six grader, there is an illusion that will never happen to them as if they are invincible to any and everything. After listening to her lecture about sex and the do’s and don’ts, I can now say that the only thing that I can vividly remember was that she told us to practice putting on a condom by rolling up your sock in a condom shape then sliding it onto your foot as if you were putting on your sock. That really confused me at the age because her underlying message was” don’t have sex but if you do make sure you use a condom”.  What was the point of you lecturing of you lecturing me about what I may contract or the possibilities of me getting pregnant only to tell me later that it’s okay if you don’t but make sure you are safe. What happened to teaching about your self-worth and  how to save yourself for the one you will marry?

                The abstinence programs today are using figures like Bristol Palin to speak about abstinence. I found a YouTube video of her on Good Morning America and she was speaking about her situation and how the only way to prevent teen pregnancy is abstinence. The story of Bristol Palin is just as those of the girls on 16 and pregnant but besides the fact that her mother was a Senator of Alaska she still made the same decision to have sex knowing there would be a  possibility of becoming pregnant or catching a STI.  I cannot out right say that she had unprotected sex but she knew what risk she was taking. So, to me her speaking to others about abstinence would not have effect on the teen pregnancy rate nor will it stop teens from having sex. Some teens make look at her as a hypocrite because on many of her other debuts her answers are contradicting.  Here is an example of a commercial that she did that showed contradiction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnkt_0E0zy4. Please comment on what you thought she meant by pause before you play.

  

This is the video of her interview on Good Morning America:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=banUnW8CA68

India M.

No Easy Decision

As we discussed in class, many people are involved in a teen mother’s decisions on parenting and even on whether or not to even have the child. In many states the parents of the teen has just as much say if not the final word on whether their teen can start the adoption process or have an abortion. The age at which teens are getting pregnant puts a financial strain on the entire family especially if the teen is still allowed to stay with his/her parents. In this case the financial strain is put directly on the parents of the teen if not all the responsibility. Therefore should parents have a determining vote on their child’s decision?  

On the other hand, when there is a pregnant teenager who has not been relying on his/her parents for a while. Or who has grown up in the orphanage system with an assigned guardian that they maybe see three times a year. In that case who has the right to have a determining vote on what she/he should do with their child? Should they have to go to a court to plead for their independence when they maybe financially independent?

In Markai’s case (as far as we know) she didn’t have to have permission from anyone but she voluntarily asked her friends and family for advice. I believe taking multiple opinions from family and friends is a great way to explore your options.  Although when everyone is against the decision you think is best for you and your child, shouldn’t you have the final say?

At what point does a guardians influence or permission cross the line? Are teens totally incapable of making their own decisions?

Brief outline of abortion laws:

http://pregnancy.adoption.com/pregnant/laws-regarding-abortion.html


Kristi H.

Uninformed Teen Moms

The topic of many of our blogs has been about how teens are uninformed.  The film "The Business Of Being Born" showed us that teens aren't the only misinformed moms and moms-to-be out there.  We have all watched episodes of teen mom where young women receive pitocin and epidurals but none of them are shown researching these drugs.  We have also seen the episodes where the doctors are not even present until right before birth.  I don't know about the rest of you but I certainly cleared up a lot of misconceptions this week.  Here are a couple of backup references to support the class reading and film:

1) http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/feeding/breast_bottle_feeding.html
This article talks about breastfeeding vs. formula but one of the first lines says that breastfeeding is better for the baby.

2) http://www.firsttimepregnancy.com/262.html
This article looks at the location selection for birth.  Just as in the film, this web site says that avoiding interventions is extremely difficult in hospitals and most of the people entering and leaving the room are strangers.

My real question is: why is the show 16 & pregnant not highlighting these important issues?  Is this kind of information not as important as showing the relationship between teen mom and dad?  Is a conversation about what type of birth control that the teens used/didn't use more important than one about how to raise the child?  These questions are never-ending in my head, what do you think?

Megan Z

Choice

Choice...

There are so many different facets to the word. What I think of when I hear the word choice is women and thier lack of choice with issues pertaining to thier bodies. As we have learned in class and through the readings there are very little choice when it comes to pregnany, birthing, and the raising of a child. Due to the medicalaztion of womens bodies, and the public nature in which pregnancy in general is framed, women have very little choice in matters dealing with thier own bodies.

Our need to police other people's actions and bodies in problematic, and in my opinion, is a systamatic way to take choice away from wome. Why you ask me? When we take reproductive choice away from people, women are disproportionatly affected. Thier bodies are directly involved, yet their bodies are completely removed. When choice is taken away from ways to parent, when we begin to ascribe a value system to parenting, we disproportionalty disadvatage women. Since women are considered in society to be the primary caregivers, removing thier choice from child rearing creates a higherarchy of parents, and allows us to justify the sterilization of women of color and poor women.

A large portion of choice, especialy dealing with the topic specific to our class, is reproductive choice. In my mind that means allowing women, and thier partners, to explore all options when they find out they are pregnant. It is also being able to persue any options without the fear of stigma and issues of ligality. Choice is also being able to reveive affordable health care, including well women exams. Right now we have a war going on agaist women and choice.

http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/get-involved/2011-congressional-attacks-womens-health-care-1024.htm

Certain conservative groups are fighting to remove federal funding to Planned Parenthood. As of right now Planned Parenthood is able to provide health care to women, men and children at a sliding scale, and often times for free. This is choice. Abortions, while in my opinion are a vital part to womens choice, only make up 3% of the services provided to PP and are not federally funded due to previos legislation passed. The removal of federal funding to PP would do nothing but force PP to stop providing free and low cost health care. This is a war on women and a war on choice.

https://secure.ppaction.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=pp_ppol_ws_I_Stand_with_PP

Brittany W.

Marriage & Family

Marriage and family play such a significant roll throughout a child's life. Family is the primary institution where a child learns and develops his or her morals, personality, and character. A healthy marriage of two partners will provide a more secure and stable environment for a child. However, most teen relationships aren't even the most committed relationships; and definitely not stable enough to endure the challenges of raising a child.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbDLoh7bEVM&feature=related

Marriage should definitely not be the solution to handling teen pregnancy, because most of the time the male may only stick around "for the baby's sake," as stated by Andrew (In Janelle's episode). Although, today's society is more egalitarian, men are still expected to be the provider for the child. However, the completion of education is a main obstacle for a teen parent to overcome. Without a degree it is much more difficult for the mother or father to obtain a decent job and provide for their child. Let alone, both, the mother and father, of the child would face a consistent struggle trying to juggle his or her social life with the responsibility of motherhood and fatherhood. And to top things off, young men face the obstacle and "need" to defend his masculinity; through flaunting is level of status, power, and control (examples: girls, money, cars, clothes, etc.).

I feel that the comparison the Tyra Banks made with the band-aid can easily related to this. By two teens marrying, as result of a pregnancy, is like putting a band-aid over a gun wound; it only covers the initial issue, but doesn't cure it. Eventually, the wound will only get bigger and make matters worse.

Not to say that a family is only possible through marriage, I feel that as long as both parents are able to tolerate one another for the sake of the child, the better choice is to not get married. 

Portia K.

How Taboo is Teen Fatherhood

During that last class period we were lectured on teen fatherhood. To me teen fatherhood is not a common phrase the one would really hear about. It almost seems taboo for people to speak about teen fatherhood. This is because father is mostly ignored or assumed to be absent. But the only way to change the opinions of others on teen fathers is to step into their shoes and understand not from the mother's point of view but form the father’s point of view. I can say that I am guilty of assuming that most teen fathers are not a part of their children's lives because of the stereotype that society has placed on them. But then i had to sit and think that how can these teen fathers be a part of this when most of the teen mothers live at home with their families. Present within the Teen Mom episode of Markai, her mother did not allow the child's father to be around to help Markai with the baby. This was an example of how the teen father was not allowed to help and do his fatherly duties. 

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1074862-2,00.html

I have found this article that may reinforce the lecture about teen fatherhood. This article talked about how the teen father is seen in a negative light because people assume that the situation between him and the mother was a "hit it and quit it" scenario. But in some cases it is totally the opposite. This article also talks about how the mother is not the only one that has to give up everything to take care of the baby, the father does also. Not only do they have to stop their lives to help with the child, they have to provide for the child and the mother. The guy goes from one mouth to feed to three mouths to feed. This article helped me to see the teen father’s point of view and I hope that it would change your opinion also.

-India M.

Lead Blog 3: Do Daddies Make A Difference?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1074862-2,00.html

Girls who grow up without a father present in the home are SEVEN times more likely to get pregnant during their teenage years. Girls without fathers are more likely to have children with out fathers also continuing the cycle.  But what about the father’s father??

Time did an article on the issues that the often forgotten teenage fathers face when having a child. Not only does the teenage mother have Dad issues, but the teenage father is often a child of a single parent household most likely being without a father figure. On 16 and Pregnant the teenage fathers are often not shown or barely doing their part in raising their child. This is said to be because the teenage fathers were without a father themselves and are unsure of their roles and responsibilities as the father. Time describes the young fathers as being eager to help, but not necessarily knowing how to help, or feeling it to be emasculating to ask for help. 

Overall, Daddies do make a difference but do having both parents present in the child's life make enough of a difference to prevent the teen pregnancy cycle from continuing?

Kristi H

Lead Blog Week 2: The Disconnect

The first day of class we learned that sexually active teens who are not using contraception have a 90% chance of getting pregnant within a year.  The 16 & Pregnant episode for this week "Felicia" and the discussion guide put an emphasis on how Felicia and Alex rarely used protection and in addition she has older siblings that became pregnant at a young.  She claims that she wanted different for herself and that she was not ready to be a mother.  Where is the disconnect? 

There are many opinions:
-They never thought it would happen to them
-They can't afford birth control
-etc.etc.etc.

The reading for this week: Guttmacher: "Minor's Access to Contraceptive Services" shows that in the last 30 years there has been an expansion of a minor's consent to health care, including care related to sexual activity.

I think that this information is where the disconnect occurs.  How many teenagers are aware that they have the option (most of the time) not to tell a parent that they are seeking birth control or other contraceptives in order to have safe sex.  The information on Guttmacher's article are not common knowledge to teenagers.  Google can only provide so much research, where should parents/teachers/doctors step in to make sure that teenagers know all the facts? 

Obviously there are issues with this logic:
-Information can become outdated and some parents/teachers may not be aware of changing health laws
-Personal Opinion/Bias:  Some still believe that if you provide birth control, you are condoning the action

Megan Z

Corporate Welfare

ALTERNATE ASSIGNMENT, NOT LEAD POST--NO NEED FOR GROUP TO RESPOND

"Wonder why news outlets regularly demonize low-income mothers who need small sums of public assistance to feed their children, yet very rarely report on the billions in corporate welfare (tax breaks, incentives, bailouts) raked in by their parent companies or their advertisers?"

This is a quote from the Media Literacy Article for last week.  I found this excerpt especially interesting.  MTV, while definately not considered one of the above news outlets, is a multi-billion dollar corporation and I'd be very curious to know about how corporate welfare plays a part and how that impact trickles down into their individual shows like "16 & Pregnant." 

Wikipedia's page for "Corporate Welfare" describes an instance where agricultural subsidies are portrayed as helping honest, hardworking independent farmers stay afloat. However, the majority of income gained from commodity support programs actually goes to large agribusiness corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland, as they own a considerably large percentage of production.

http://reut.rs/eLdL0y <--This article talks about some of the ways that corporate welfare are being battled on the political level but through research I could not find a connection between MTV and the Media Literacy article.

Megan Z

Hello all,

Sorry it took so long to post! You think with all this snow I would be doing homework and being productive. Sadly, not true. But here I am, ready to blog for the very first time.

I know that we are going to cover abortion in 16 and Pregnant later in the class. I'm sure we will read some literature on the subject and discuss how there have only been a few women portrayed on 16 and Pregnant who have choosen an abortion. But there is some disturbing news that has come out recently that I thought I could pair with what we are learning in class.

We have learned so far in class that 16 and pregnant, though declaired by some to be an affective form of birth control, does not accuratly portray the statistics on teen pregnancy. And obviously this applies to abortion statistics with teen pregnancy as well. According to the article on Feministing,http://feministing.com/2010/12/27/mtvs-16-and-pregnant-to-air-special-on-abortion-tomorrow/, nearly a third of teen pregnancies end in abortion. Abortion is hardly even an option discussed on 16 and Pregnant. In Kailyn's episode she briefly mentions abortion but quickly moves on from the subject. In most episodes it is not even discussed as an option. If we really want to use 16 and Pregnant as a teaching opportunity we must show the realities of teenage pregnancy, and show the options that young women have.

But abortion may not be an option for all women soon. Just recently a bill was proposed to stop federal funding for abortions for women who have been raped. The bill requires that funding only go to abortions to women who have been forcibly raped. This excludes statutory or coerced rape. http://feministing.com/2011/01/31/what-you-can-do-to-stop-the-no-taxpayer-funding-for-abortion-act/
This article describes the details of the bill. I understand that this is loosely associated with 16 and Pregnant, maybe I am stretching. But I thought it was worth getting the word out there that women are not given the option to choose what happens to thier bodies, even when they have been violated. And not having options or accurate information does apply to 16 and Pregnant.

If you want to do something, you can sign a petition at this website. http://pol.moveon.org/smithbill/?rc=fb.share.smithbill.1.2

Hope you all stayed warm!
Brittany W.

Hey
We will be blogging about the MTV show 16 and Pregnant.