Caine
2005-09-03 23:48:35 UTC
Well, DUH. <eye roll>
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=1088943&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
CANTON, Ohio Sep 1, 2005 Thirteen percent of the female students at
Timken Senior High School in Ohio are pregnant. High school senior Monica
Selby thought she would be busy this year planning for college, not
preparing for the birth of her first child.
"I've been crying every day and every night. I keep on blaming myself for
this," said the 18-year-old Selby, who is six months pregnant.
She cries about starting classes this week at Timken Senior High School
with a bulging belly, about the emotions of planning an adoption, about
becoming part of a statistic that has snagged the nation's attention: 64 of
Timken's 490 female students 13 percent are pregnant.
The statistic at the school in the heart of this old steel city contrasts
with a decade of declining teen pregnancy rates nationwide. But teen
pregnancy experts say the problem is not exclusive to Timken High.
Experts, parents and students themselves struggle to explain why such
pockets of high teen pregancy rates appear. Are teens getting appropriate
sex education? Do they have access to birth control and are they using it
consistently? Has the stigma of unwed motherhood lost its edge?
"This might be a school that is forthright with its problems while others
are not," said Jay Green, chairman of the Education Reform department at
the University of Arkansas. "But this is a widespread issue."
Green wrote a study last year for the conservative New York-based Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research that found 20 percent of urban teenagers have
been pregnant, compared with 14 percent of suburban teens.
Urban teens as a whole don't use birth control as consistently or often,
according to his research, and often have less to lose financially and
socially than those in the suburbs.
But Green couldn't say whether those factors applied to Timken. The school
of about 1,000 students draws teens from across the neighborhood and
economic lines in the state's ninth largest city.
Eric Wilson, 18, who works at a hot dog shop a few blocks from the school
while making plans to get his GED and caring for his 2-year-old son, said
the spotlight on Timken is magnifying an old problem.
"My mom had a kid when she was in school and now I have a kid," he said.
"It goes back to how you were raised. Down here, it's not looked too down
upon because a lot of parents had kids when they were kids."
Last school year, both high schools in the city's district reported 55
pregnancies. Ninety-nine pregnancies are expected in the district this
year, most of them at Timken, where expecting students get six weeks of
maternity leave.
"This has gotten to horrible proportions. I wish I knew the answer to why
it's happening," principal Kim Redmond told the city's daily newspaper The
Repository. Redmond did not return several messages left by The Associated
Press.
Joanne Hinton, whose 16-year-old daughter, Raechel Hinton, is eight months
pregnant, said she believes the school's abstinence-based sex education
program isn't enough.
"It's time to take the blinders off and realize that these kids are having
sex," she said. "Obviously, abstinence is not working. If we have to, just
give them condoms."
Abstinence-based programs have been growing nationwide at schools over the
past few years. In Ohio, the Bush's administration and the state's health
department have awarded $32 million in grants to Ohio agencies for
abstinence education since 2001.
Hinton stresses that she doesn't condone teenage sex and that her daughter
doesn't fit the mold some may think pregnant teens come from: The Hinton
household has two loving parents with a strong relationship who asked the
straight-A Raechel "45 times a week if she was having sex, doing drugs,
drinking. We were constantly checking on her."
Raechel, who plans to return to the 10th grade at Timken after delivering
and completing an adoption, said many students are sexually active and need
more information about birth control.
"It can happen to anybody no matter who you are, not just bad girls," she
said.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=1088943&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
CANTON, Ohio Sep 1, 2005 Thirteen percent of the female students at
Timken Senior High School in Ohio are pregnant. High school senior Monica
Selby thought she would be busy this year planning for college, not
preparing for the birth of her first child.
"I've been crying every day and every night. I keep on blaming myself for
this," said the 18-year-old Selby, who is six months pregnant.
She cries about starting classes this week at Timken Senior High School
with a bulging belly, about the emotions of planning an adoption, about
becoming part of a statistic that has snagged the nation's attention: 64 of
Timken's 490 female students 13 percent are pregnant.
The statistic at the school in the heart of this old steel city contrasts
with a decade of declining teen pregnancy rates nationwide. But teen
pregnancy experts say the problem is not exclusive to Timken High.
Experts, parents and students themselves struggle to explain why such
pockets of high teen pregancy rates appear. Are teens getting appropriate
sex education? Do they have access to birth control and are they using it
consistently? Has the stigma of unwed motherhood lost its edge?
"This might be a school that is forthright with its problems while others
are not," said Jay Green, chairman of the Education Reform department at
the University of Arkansas. "But this is a widespread issue."
Green wrote a study last year for the conservative New York-based Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research that found 20 percent of urban teenagers have
been pregnant, compared with 14 percent of suburban teens.
Urban teens as a whole don't use birth control as consistently or often,
according to his research, and often have less to lose financially and
socially than those in the suburbs.
But Green couldn't say whether those factors applied to Timken. The school
of about 1,000 students draws teens from across the neighborhood and
economic lines in the state's ninth largest city.
Eric Wilson, 18, who works at a hot dog shop a few blocks from the school
while making plans to get his GED and caring for his 2-year-old son, said
the spotlight on Timken is magnifying an old problem.
"My mom had a kid when she was in school and now I have a kid," he said.
"It goes back to how you were raised. Down here, it's not looked too down
upon because a lot of parents had kids when they were kids."
Last school year, both high schools in the city's district reported 55
pregnancies. Ninety-nine pregnancies are expected in the district this
year, most of them at Timken, where expecting students get six weeks of
maternity leave.
"This has gotten to horrible proportions. I wish I knew the answer to why
it's happening," principal Kim Redmond told the city's daily newspaper The
Repository. Redmond did not return several messages left by The Associated
Press.
Joanne Hinton, whose 16-year-old daughter, Raechel Hinton, is eight months
pregnant, said she believes the school's abstinence-based sex education
program isn't enough.
"It's time to take the blinders off and realize that these kids are having
sex," she said. "Obviously, abstinence is not working. If we have to, just
give them condoms."
Abstinence-based programs have been growing nationwide at schools over the
past few years. In Ohio, the Bush's administration and the state's health
department have awarded $32 million in grants to Ohio agencies for
abstinence education since 2001.
Hinton stresses that she doesn't condone teenage sex and that her daughter
doesn't fit the mold some may think pregnant teens come from: The Hinton
household has two loving parents with a strong relationship who asked the
straight-A Raechel "45 times a week if she was having sex, doing drugs,
drinking. We were constantly checking on her."
Raechel, who plans to return to the 10th grade at Timken after delivering
and completing an adoption, said many students are sexually active and need
more information about birth control.
"It can happen to anybody no matter who you are, not just bad girls," she
said.
--
Caine
I think 'Dark Side of the Moon' is worth a hundred dead kids. - Bill Maher
Caine
I think 'Dark Side of the Moon' is worth a hundred dead kids. - Bill Maher