“Society generally has had punitive and judgmental attitudes towards teenage sexuality and pregnancy – directed mainly at girls. There is reluctance to provide adequate sex education for fear of encouraging promiscuity, a reluctance to make contraception more easily available – lest it remove the risk of pregnancy and make sex too easy; if a girl gets pregnant she should not have an abortion but should continue the pregnancy as the price for her transgressions; if she has the baby she should have it adopted to give the child a better chance in life and to help some other woman more deserving than herself; if she keeps the baby she is selfish and irresponsible; if she cannot cope and is forced to later give up the baby she really only wanted a toy to play with – the ‘baby doll’ syndrome. She ‘goes out and gets herself pregnant’ because she is depressed or otherwise disturbed or she wants to draw the supporting parents benefit and be a burden on the taxpayer…It takes two people to produce a pregnancy but only one has the baby and bears the weight of society’s disapproval.”

[Emphasis is mine]

—Stefania Siedlecky in ‘Teenage Sexuality and Pregnancy in Australia’ from ‘Children Having Children: Global Perspectives on Teenage Pregnancy’

Related articles

• How to Have the Best Pregnancy Ever (jezebel.com)
• Diet in Pregnancy (bearthangel.wordpress.com)
• Ed Rabel: Stopping teenage pregnancy (wvgazette.com)
• Pregnancy Sex Drive Information (moulsinc.com)
• Pediatricians make morning after pill available to young girls (kdvr.com)

Categories: Quotes

Tags: Chats and Forums, Clinics and Services, contraception, family, health, Home, Pregnancy, promiscuity, Reproductive Health, sex education, stefania siedlecky, teenage pregnancy, teenage sexuality, welfare