Premarital Sex

99. 57% of all U.S. pregnancies are unwanted or unplanned. About one-third of all U.S. babies are born out of wedlock. 80% or teenaged mothers are unwed, didn't want or plan their pregnancy, and 80% of them go on welfare(Greenblatt, pg. 208). European teenagers have just as much sex as we do but their pregnancy rate is 2 to 6 times lower than ours. Unwanted pregnancy is a terrible problem for the terrified, embarrassed, and confused woman, for the panicked college coed who dreads the disruption of her life, and having an abortion or baby, for the working woman who says, "Oh my God, I don't want a child now, I cant handle it", and for the millions of American people that pay billions of dollars in aid for unwanted-at-this-time-children. Consider this: the approximately 4-6 million sexually active American teenage girls have over one million pregnancies and 400,000 abortions each year. About 40% of all American females get pregnant in their teens. That's at least double the percentage in any other educated, developed country(Greenblatt, 296). What's wrong with us? We can't blame all teenage pregnancies on innocence because 1 in 5 teenage mothers get pregnant again within two years. Two-thirds of teen mothers are impregnated by 20-year-old men or older. Many are "predators," fathering several children with several women.
             About 25% to 30% of all adult women in this country--single, married or divorced--have had an abortion (Moulton pg.137). It is a preventable trauma. But, did you know that both the anti-abortion movement and the pro-choice movement have avoided encouraging birth control? Wouldn't birth control solve the abortion problem? Of course, but the two major movements have gotten so absorbed in a futile argument over whether abortion is murder or a woman's right, the run-away accidental production of unwanted children is neglected. Why do I say it is a futile argument? Because it is based entirely on religious definitions and beliefs--on ideas that can not be proven right or wrong, just opinions.