First off, I read several years ago about a study or studies which found that most sexual activity among teenagers occurs in the afternoon, when parents are at work. I don’t know if that is true, but would anyone be surprised if it is? The best way to make sure that young teenagers don’t get pregnant is to closely supervise them. That isn’t always possible, and even when it is, some parents just won’t do it. In a perfect world, we would never be faced with a 14 year old girl getting pregnant, but in the real world, it happens, and it always has, and it always will. That scenario is a big part of the reason why some support abortion. Having personally known at least 3 people who got pregnant and gave birth at very young ages, I don’t see it as a total disaster. The three situations I am personally familiar with involved very different people, and they all took different paths, but no one’s life was ruined. It was difficult for all them, for sure, but having a baby wasn’t the life ending tragedy that we are so often told it will be.
The first case involved a gay waiter whom I worked with. He was in his late 20’s at the time. I was shocked when he started talking about his teenage daughter. He got a girl pregnant when they were both 13. According to him, neither of them even really knew what sex was, or what they were doing, but they knew enough to get pregnant. I can’t remember whether she was 13 or 14 when she gave birth, but either way, she had the baby, and she kept the baby, and the waiter’s Dad payed child support until the day the waiter turned 16. At that point, the waiter started paying child support, and he told me that in over fifteen years, he had never missed or been late on a payment, and there had never been even one cross word between him and his child’s mother. He was always very involved in his daughter’s life, and it was clear from the way he spoke about her that she was the light of his life. Knowing him, I suspect that he would have decked anyone who suggested that his daughter was a mistake. At the time I knew him, his daughter was getting straight A’s in a local high school, and seemed by all accounts to a happy, well adjusted girl.
The second case is a woman I know who gave birth at age 15. The father of the child totally disappeared when he learned of the pregnancy, and she gave the baby up for adoption. She then went on to graduate from high school, and she did at least some college-enough to have a management position in a bank. When she was in her twenties, she married a guy who owned his own business, they had a baby, and she now has three grandchildren. She was thrilled to meet the baby she gave up for adoption. He is doing very well.
The third case is one I just learned of recently. I know two women who are sisters. They come from a family of 7 kids. I always knew this, but never thought anything of it, until I learned that their mother died at age 54. The youngest kid in their family was around 30 at that time. I was speaking to one of these women, and I said to her that he parents must have had kids very young. She nodded and said, “Yes, my mother was only 14 when she had my oldest sister.” She didn’t say how old her father was, and I didn’t ask. Her father stuck around, married her mother, and they had seven children by the time her mother was 25 or so. Many people would view this a nightmare scenario. I don’t get the impression that it was. These women speak of both their parents with incredible love. If you put a gun to my head, and asked me to name the smartest, most well adjusted women I know, it would be these two sisters. They are remarkable in both intelligence and virtue.
Obviously, if you asked any of the people described here if they want their 14 year old to become a parent, the answer from all of them would be a resounding No. However, if you asked them if a 14 year becoming a parent is such a disaster that it justifies abortion, their answer to that would be a resounding No as well. All of them are very pro-life, and the don’t just talk the talk, they have walked the walk.
How did we get to a place where having a baby-the most natural thing in the world-is considered by some to be the worst thing that can happen?
ST UnWoke! 
I think it’s all about the timing. I doubt I would have been able to accomplish much early in life if I had given birth at age 14 (college, career, etc.) that I could have if I’d waited until I was married and at least in my mid twenties. (All the women in my family did not give birth until their early 30s.)
Secondly, I’ve read that 14 yr old bodies are not often mature enough for the grueling process of labor and undergo far more pain and complications than older females.
Most importantly, unwed teenage pregnancies often become a recurring cycle in families and it’s not uncommon to find three generations of illegitimate children. Regardless of the experiences of your specific friends, it is generally not a positive thing for society at large. It still remains a fact that the number one cause of poverty in America is illegitimacy.
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Everything you say is true. I don’t know anyone who would suggest that having a baby at age 14 is ideal. The question is, is it so bad that it justifies abortion?
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Just to clarify, I am totally against abortion unless the mother’s life is at risk. Even in cases of rape, but I also totally understand why rape is often considered justification for abortion. It’s horrific to be sexually assaulted, but to then give the birth to the child of the monster that assaulted you? It’s too much to bear. Yes, the baby is still a baby. Yes, the baby has a right to live, but still.
I don’t feel that way about young kids who get pregnant through consensual sex. It’s very difficult, but I think the main reason why some view these situations as justifying abortion is because some people are control freaks who freak if everything in life isn’t totally perfect and ideal.
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And I don’t hate anyone for being a control freak who wants everything in life to be perfect and ideal. But that mentality is a major driving force behind abortion. “Every child a wanted child” we are told, but I am not so sure about that. Most of my favorite people in the world were not planned, and were born into less than ideal circumstances. My mother desperately wanted me, and my father (I suspect) desperately wanted my mother to be happy. There is no way of knowing for sure, but I would bet any amount of money that before I actually existed, my Mom wanted me more than my Dad did. Meaning, my Mom was and still is crazy, and I wouldn’t have her any other way 🙂 I owe my existence to her insanity, and I am forever grateful, but between the two of them, my Dad was the voice of sanity. When I became old and wise enough to realize that my Mom was the one who was gunning for kids, and my Dad, before we born, could kind of take or leave kids, I didn’t feel hurt-I actually felt relieved and I thought it was funny. My Dad was the greatest father of all time, and I always knew that he loved me more than anything.
You know how they say that the people who choose to become politicians are the last people who should be politicians? I would never say that the same thing applies to parents, but it takes all kinds to make the world go around. If every child has to be totally planned and totally wanted, then at least half the human race will be wiped out, and only crazy women will be raising the kids, and I say that with total love, I am crazy myself, and I have absolutely nothing against crazy women, but I just don’t think that planning everything to the nth degree makes the world a better place.
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“Most importantly, unwed teenage pregnancies often become a recurring cycle in families and it’s not uncommon to find three generations of illegitimate children.”
This is true. We aren’t supposed to notice this, but teenage pregnancy is more common in some ethnic groups than others, and that is not a coincidence. There is an ethnic group in my local area which I will not name, in which teenage pregnancy is almost if not pretty much the norm. Most of these girls get pregnant on purpose, because their culture believes that you aren’t really an adult until you have had a child, and their culture puts a great deal of pressure on them to become mothers at a young age. There is not a great deal of cultural pressure to be financially independent of the government. This subculture is obviously dysfunctional, but abortion won’t cure the problem. If abortion was the cure, we wouldn’t be in the place we are now as a society.
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Thanks, JaC, for more wonderfully pesky facts to counter the prevailing, but slowly changing, narrative!
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Thank you, Nanda 🙂
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Sorry to keep going like this, but this just occurred to me: there are two kinds of parents in the world. Those who planned the child and those who didn’t. I don’t have children, and I am inclined to argue that anyone who would plan to have a child on purpose? Is crazy, and that’s ok. Crazy people make the world go around, and they deserve to be respected as much as anyone else, but they are crazy, and that must be acknowledged. Assuming they aren’t abusive, all parents should be honored and respected, but different parents are different. The crazy ones who wanted kids should be honored, but don’t ever forget that they are crazy. The ones who welcomed a child whom they didn’t plan and didn’t necessarily want to begin with deserve to be honored every bit as much, if not more so.
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I just want to thank you for your fine, and cheerful, defense of the innocent unborn. To match your stories of 3 young girls who gave birth to babies, I can tell you of 3 girls whose mothers arranged for them to have abortions. All went on to lead troubled lives, and all are estranged from their mothers. My guess is that this is a common, but untold, outcome.
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Thank you, aq3t. Abortion is devastating to women, and the pressure that many or most are under from other people such as parents is an often untold part of the story.
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I’m wasn’t advocating abortion in my comment but expressing my concern about illegitimacy. Frankly, that rising trend is disturbing particularly as many of these kids having kids refuse to put them up for adoption where in most cases, they’ll live a more stable life. Perhaps I am sensitive on this topic because I have two adopted cousins; one chose to find her biological parents and was very sorry she had.
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I am sorry, Liz, I know that you weren’t advocating for abortion. I am concerned about illegitimacy too-I definitely was not trying to say that becoming a mother at 14 is a great thing, or an ok thing, or anything like that.
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“The crazy ones who wanted kids should be honored, but don’t ever forget that they are crazy.”
This made me laugh but it is a normal, biological desire to want them. 🙂
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Of course it is 🙂 It is normal for people to be crazy 🙂
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One final comment on this profound post. I think that abortion would not be the issue it has become if parents did their job preaching abstinence to teenagers. My mother wasn’t always around when I came home from school but she instilled a substantial fear of shame in me. I was terrified by the possible repercussions of getting pregnant and so not interested in ruining my future!
This type of thinking is Common Sense 101, no?
I don’t think it hurts to play hardball with your kids re: certain subjects and that is where society is failing.
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