Maria Reylan M. Garcia
She was young at 17. Her brown eyes were to every girl’s envy. With one look, she can bring a one-woman man down on his knees. Make-up enhances her charm.The blush on her cheek and the gloss on her lips bring out a smile, a grin that goes right at you saying ‘talk to me’. Her hair would bring shampoo models to shame. Her dress and her shoes were in harmony to her beauty. She may seem perfect at first glance, but wait until you see the problem she bears.
Quite recently, she's been feeling weak and nauseated. Teary-eyed every night,her parents lecture her. It's because she is pregnant. She's going to be a mother at 17.
Teen pregnancy these days sounds like a female teenager’s fashion like skinny jeans, colorful bottles of nail polish, or multiple shades of eye shadows. It has become part of teen culture because the incidence of teenage sexual activities have increased over the years. Some 75 percent of those below age 19 being already, as they themselves admit, “active.”
I happen to understand that within a human’s growth and development reaching adolescence or teenage entails the heightened increase of sexual interest, sexual maturity, and well... everything sexual. The topic of peer conversations shifts from harmless arguments of who has the best Pokemon collectibles to condoms, birth control pills, abortion, one-night stands and sex.
Yet, curiosity kills the cat. Thousands of 17-year-old mothers stopped schooling, ended their social lives, isolating themselves, depressed and hesitant to start over. They are afraid of what society may brand them as. Sure, some might have a more liberated approach, that since it is rampant, it can’t hurt. Since, the father of her baby agreed to marry her and be young couples still quite dependent upon their respective parents, it can’t hurt. But, I believe that a part of their lives, a portion of their innocent youth has been piled into a bucket of regret and could have been more rewarding and less of a headache to their families.
Look at several young parents today. Some might present themselves as happy and very well adapted, but there are nights when each teen mother or father face themselves in the mirror thinking about slapping their own faces and remembering that hormone-filled and clumsy night. Look at several young parents today. At the mall, their peers seethem walking around cradling a baby in their arms. The peers pause and try to look sympathetic and tell the young parent how cute the baby is. They go separate ways, the young parent a little uncomfortable, missing out on a whole day of fun gimmick. The peers walk into a cinema, temporarily forgetting the fate of their friend. The young parent walks to the grocery store, along aisle three at the infant milk’s section.
Part of my Normal Obstetrics lectures, I have come to realize that an entire sexual intercourse can pleasurably take place in some ten minutes. Too short to risk your entire life and door-opening chances for, right? Yes, we are young and reckless and all we think about is everything that could bring us into euphoria, into what we blindly, deafly and dumbly regard as happiness and satisfaction. But, think about it while hormones haven’t got the better of you. Are you indeed willing to spend a few minutes of pleasure in exchange of a potentially problematic lifetime? And if you do have contraceptives and elate yourselves without getting tummies bloated and innocent fetuses being born out of purely “accidents”, can you still walk upright with intact morals and face your parents with sincerity? Think about it. You still haven’t finished school, you still live under your parents’ house, still cries to mom when you have troubles with your boyfriend and still have your dad paying for your monthly phone bills. Where’s your simple debt of gratitude, simple shame I might add, to simply come home and wail out to your already high-blood parents’ that ‘I’m pregnant.’
I had my duties in the delivery room and I concretely saw what pregnant women undergo. After forty weeks of nothing but mood shifts, lower back pains, distorted body image, stretch marks, and possible depression, a woman has to undergo several hours more of intense pain during increasing contractions during her date of delivery. Plus, not to mention the very possibility of developing complications that may be life-threatening. I had patients at their 30’s who still couldn’t get the hang of pregnancy and delivery. Then I wondered, how much more a 17-year old?
I appeal to you my fellow youth, there is always a time for everything. It’s hard to get pregnant when it is still not the time.
It’s hard to have a family when it is still not the time.
But, everything remains two-sided. Teen pregnancy isn’t just a result of teen rebellion. Teen pregnancy may also be a cry for help from weakly-guided teenagers. Teen pregnancy can be the outcome of the obnoxious crime of rape. I still admire the several young mothers, you’re courage to continue bearing the child, denying the very thought of abortion, is above all admirable. Yes, what else can we do if the act has been done? I am advocating for the prevention of teen pregnancy, but I am still pro-life. Teen would-be fathers and mothers, the fetus has nothing to do with the irresponsibility you have done.
I appeal to you my fellow youth, do not resort to abortion. I appeal to you parents, don’t push away your children who have gone astray. This should be the proper time and venue for you to be a parent to them. This is indeed a cry for help. You have brought them up for so many years now, and just for a single mistake you’ll give up on those many years and disown them? Please, we need your help, we had and always will.
She was young, at 17 and pregnant. Help her.
But don’t follow her example.
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