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Imagine your daughter and her seven friends came over and you knew that one of them would definitely be pregnant. If your daughter went to Robeson High School in Chicago, this would be the case: of 800 girls, 115 of them are pregnant or have had a child. The one in seven rate is astounding, and there are hundreds of factors that may contribute to the school's pregnancy numbers.
These factors include a lack of access to sexual health education and pregnancy prevention and a lack of access to reproductive health resources. The school's students are largely from poor communities of color where teenage pregnancies can be high. The Principal of Robeson adds that absentee fathers may also be a factor.
At least Robeson is a school in which young women are not being thrown out or transferred to other schools. Principal Morrow notes, "We're looking at how we can get them to the next phase, how can we still get them thinking about graduation?"
So often we may be quick to blame or judge the pregnant girls in the situation, their parents, or other individuals. But Robeson's numbers are a product of a much larger institutional problem - poor reproductive health education in low-income communities. Educational classes and centers need to be set up that normalize and encourage the use of birth control methods and distribute condoms. A teen health center is being built across the street, which is a step in the right direction. But funding needs to be poured into the creation and maintenance of centers such as these so that teenage pregnancy rates go down. The health of young women of color need to be addressed directly so that they aren't struggling to raise children or give birth while trying to graduate from high school.
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Uncle B says, relax labor laws - allow American folks to compete with Chinese labor, build America! Welcome cheap labor into the world! The Corporatists of America need them - the dumber the better! They can live substandard lives as a lowest, lower class, and produce most of what we import from Asia - better for the economy! America also needs to breed cannon-fodder! As oil grows scarce in the world and only China has the population to support large armies, America is out in a difficult spot. Abortion must be forbidden as an uneconomic waste of a useful resource flow. We must accommodate these youngsters with schools jobs medical care and direction - we need the cheap labor and the cannon fodder in America. I say, breed the bastards into something useful and working, longer shifts lower wages and accommodation for a new lowest lower class of American - Hell, we can even give them the vote, as we did women when they became economically exploitable a century ago. Anyone who can contribute to the GDP, in whatever so minuscule a way is to be valued by the corporatists, the capitalists and must not be restricted by labor laws, (founded in religious beliefs,) from doing their share. I expect far-right wing Republicans to set up a support system for bastards and a swift road directly to the work-houses. America keep it clean, keep it beautiful and keep it working for the GDP!
July 10, 2010 - 12:26pmThis Comment
Repentance, sin, judgment, reciprocity, actions have consequences, I could go on and on....
May 5, 2010 - 3:55pmThis Comment
I grew up in an area like this. Sex with a boy meant you had something to give him, and maybe in return he'd love you, unlike the mother you never saw because she had to have 2 jobs or the father that left. Getting pregnant? Well that meant you'd have your own chance to have someone to love and have them love you back. And if the boy left, you didn't need him...you made it this far without one, right?
May 2, 2010 - 5:02pmThis Comment
Wow. This is an extremely interesting point, I never thought of it from that perspective. Why do you think these many women from these more impoverished areas feel the need to "give something" to these men? Is it just another way these women are looking for affection that appears to be lacking in the home? Please elaborate.
May 3, 2010 - 9:02amThis Comment
Interesting article, Nina. But you need to work on your understanding of the concept of probability. For example, this sentence is not true: "Imagine your daughter and her seven friends came over and you knew that one of them would definitely be pregnant." We completely understand what you're saying, but really, you mean that statistically speaking, it is highly probable that one of the seven girls were pregnant - it is by no means definite. Please excuse the rant from a statistics student. Nat x
April 11, 2010 - 12:37amThis Comment
@Anonymous on November 7, 2009,
I THINK CAPS LOCK SHOULD BE BANNED FIRST
March 22, 2010 - 7:55amThis Comment
"If your daughter went to Robeson High School in Chicago, this would be the case: of 800 girls, 115 of them are pregnant or have had a child."
-This is not how statistics work.
February 22, 2010 - 1:41pmThis Comment
Thank you for sharing your opinions. It is obvious and true that no matter what color, creed, nationality, short, or tall....women get pregnant the same way. I don't think the article intended to be a racial statement, rather a mission to express it's concern.
Thank you for sharing your input on the subject.
January 31, 2010 - 11:22amThis Comment
Thats crap. It's this article that's racist. You'd have to be an idiot not to know that if you have sex you can get pregnant. Six year old girls playing barbies understand this in some way. It has nothing to do with funding or color. Bringing in the fact that its a majority of black girls at this school getting pregnant is a racist commont in and of itself. Women are women. White girls can get pregnant just as easy as black girls. Its not "the health of women of color" that is the concern here. It's the cultural influence on these HUMAN BEINGS that needs to be addressed, and what these GIRLS are learning that makes casual sex an object of no consequence for them. White or black the issues are the same. Nothing is ever going to change until we realize that people are people and while everyone is different, the problems of mankind are solved by mankind, not individual ethnicites or ancestries.
January 27, 2010 - 11:35amThis Comment
I came from a poor family. I had one sex-ed class in the sixth grade... it lasted about 30 minutes. I asked my mom how long sex took and what it felt like and her answer to me was "That depends on who you're with." As a teen I saw how the boys treated and talked to the girls and I realized that I had value, self esteem an dignity and wasn't going to let myself be disrespected by them. I wasn't a virgin until I got married, and I've had sex just for the fun of it, but I'm not stupid and I DID NOT have babies when I was a teen and I've never had an abortion. I don't believe in God and I have raised two wonderful boys to be two wonderful " non-christian" men who treat women with respect and have NO illegitimate children. These girls are in an environment where they have been taught that they have no value if they are not "givin' it up" and that is disgraceful, but it is not society's responsibility to care for them, their kids or their education. In this day and age where unprotected sex KILLS, there is no reason for this. These girls ARE stupid and so is everyone who has dropped the ball during their upbringing. This is why babies are found in dumpsters and sometimes thats ok. Stupid sheep fall off the cliff... sometimes we need to thin the herd.
January 25, 2010 - 10:10pmThis Comment