Teen pregnancy, the good and the bad

First the good news: those of us who deal with abortion obviously deal with teenagers, both from the standpoint of procedures and contraception. The teen pregnancy rate has come down dramatically between 1991 and 2004 by 35%! The reason is not clear, because half of all teens are having intercourse. It may be that there is more widespread use of contraception, a fear of AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases, or other factors. Still, teen pregnancies pose a tremendous problem because of the social, emotional and individual consequences that acompany them. The following paradigm may illustrate this. Social disorganization, such as lack of parents, lack of positive family influences, or poor socioeconomic status, lead to teen pregnancy, which in turn leads back to social disorganization. It's a vicious cycle. For the moms, they're very likely to lead a large portion of their lives in poverty. Of course this is not an argument in favor of abortion, but favoring contraception and a war on poverty. Hopefully, these battles will be successful and see the decrease in teen pregnancy go even further. Teen pregnancy costs all of us about 30 billion dollars a year, so the savings to society can be considerable.