Under 18, and pregnant by design

Globe and Mail, by Siri Agrell, June 26, 2008

For many people, the narrative of teenage pregnancy seems fairly set: A young girl has sex, misses her period, takes a surreptitious pregnancy test and receives the shocking news.

She then must decide whether to terminate the pregnancy or carry the child to term, both options often devastating to deal with. But there is another scenario that is alive and well, despite decades of access to sex education and contraception: Some teenage girls welcome the news.

"I think one thing that people don't realize is that there's definitely some girls [who] intend to get pregnant," said Sharon Lorber, a social worker who runs the Young Families Program at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Over the past 25 years, the percentage of planned teen pregnancies has stayed steady. Last week, Time magazine reported that 17 girls, none older than 16, are expecting babies at Gloucester High School in a small fishing town outside Boston.

While news of the group focused on contested reports of a "pregnancy pact," in which the girls allegedly planned to get pregnant together, the story offers insight into a group of young women who see pregnancy as a calling, not a mistake.  More..

Teen mothers, older fathers

Inside Bountiful's baby boom: Pregnancy rate among polygamous Mormon sect's young women up to seven times average, yet B.C. officials watch and wait

Vancouver Sun, Vancouver, British Columbia, by Daphne Bramham, April 21, 2006

Kendall says "social values of this community differ from the norm."

"It may be questioned how voluntary a young adolescent female's participation in a marriage to an older man in this community would be," he writes.

But since no Bountiful girl has stepped forward to complain, Kendall says there's been no reason for the Ministry of Children and Family Development to investigate.

As for polygamy, the chief medical health officer says that's an issue for the solicitor-general, the attorney-general and the Canadian government -- not health officials.

So, what have we got? A policy of watchful waiting by the ministry that is supposed to enforce the Child, Family and Community Service Act that says "a child needs protection if the child has been or is likely to be physically or sexually abused by the parent or another person and the parent is unwilling or unable to protect the child." More ..

A national policy on adoption remains elusive

Provinces keep track of adopted babies in their own ways

National Post. June 09, 2005.

.................Adoptions have declined largely because single motherhood is no longer stigmatized, and the young, unmarried women who are pregnant are more likely to parent their infants, says Mr. Grand. At the same time, infant adoptions have become rarer because of the declining teenage pregnancy rate.

In 1974, teens between ages 15 and 19 gave birth to about 55 babies per 1,000 population; by 1997, the number dropped to just over 40 per 1,000 population and has continued to drop.

More recent data from Statistics Canada found that in 1997, with the decline in births to teens, abortion surpassed live births as the most likely outcome of teen pregnancy for the first time. Just over half of pregnant teens chose abortion, compared with just under half opting to give birth. In 1974, about 65% of teen pregnancies resulted in live births, while about 25% resulted in abortion............  More..