Being an adolescent undeniably sucks.

First and foremost, there’s puberty and all of the splendid goodies that go along with it: cracking voices, B.O., pants that fit snugly around the waist but are six inches too short, acne, and ridiculous padded AA-cup bras. Teens are too young to do anything fun — that is, besides use drugs and have sex.

The good news is that drug use among pre-teens and teens ages 12 to 17 has decreased.

The bad news is that now all there is to do is have sex.

According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited by Andrea Kane, the birth rate among teenagers ages 15-19 increased three percent in 2006 after having experienced a steady decline since 1991.

Following in the footsteps of the great role models of the 21st century such as sassy Juno MacGuff, God-loving Mary and teen idol Jamie Lynn Spears, girls all over America are apparently hitting the sack and getting pregnant (interestingly enough, there is no mention of Jamie Lynn’s pregnancy or delivery of daughter Maddie Briann on Spears’s website). Even good girls like Bristol Palin and the entire senior class of Gloucester High School cannot think of anything better to do than have babies.

So who is to blame for this epidemic?

The first candidate is the abstinence only sexual education ideology that receives funding from the federal government. This philosophy adheres to the unimpeachable logic that kids who are never taught about sex will never have sex. And if teenagers somehow find out about sex and decide to try it, condoms come with instructions so there’s no chance for error.

On the other hand, you can also blame teen pregnancy on safe-sex education that, according to dissenters (but not statistics), puts ideas in innocent minds. Access to information, protection, tests and treatment at places like Penn’s Office of Health Education and Student Health Service is detrimental to our well-being. And everyone knows condoms cause sex.

And, of course, if all else fails, blame the mothers.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.