Teenage Pregnancy In The United States

In today’s world, it is still not the same to be born as a man or as a women. Starting from the mother’s pregnancy already, the environment kids live in and society’s expectations differ according to their gender, and persist during their whole life. Indeed, indicators show that inequities between men and women begin during the first steps of one’s life and augment throughout life, becoming daunting at the elderly stage of life. Parents chose a name and prepare the family environment, setting distinctions, enhancing, stimulating and orienting girls to domestic and motherhood tasks and boys to physical and vocational tasks requiring more strength and involving more risks. Thereby begins the gender disparity cycle, a prejudicial social construction

According to INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas), in Chile, out of the 20% of households with lowest revenues, 14% of women between 15 and 19 years old have at least one child, out of which 10% have more than one. For comparison, only 2% of teenage girls from wealthier households are in the same situation, none of them having more than one child. The situation is all the more worrying when taking into consideration teenage pregnancy rates across South America have not decreased significantly for the last 20 years, stagnating between 9 and 4% depending on the country. Bolivia registers the highest rate with 9% and the youngest age of teenage pregnancies, starting at 11 years old. As the majority of teenage girls interrupt their studies when being pregnant, teenage pregnancy is one of the many factors slowing down the regional poverty reduction

In South America, access to birth control and abortion is very limited. If in all 5 countries contraceptive pills can be bought with or without prescription in pharmacies, they remain, together with condoms, very expensive. Moreover, it is very common in the region for men to decide about the usage of contraceptives or not. 25% women declare to not be in the capacity to decide for their own birth control methods, as they do not dare to contradict their partner; while over 20% declare not using birth control for financial reasons or for lack of access and/or information. Mindsets have evolved quite a bit during the last years, and women are increasingly active in defending their rights. Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia have legalized abortion only under specific circumstances such as rape, incest or in case of life threat for the mom or the baby. Surprisingly, Chile was one of the handful countries in the world where abortion is illegal with no exceptions, until the 2nd of August 2017, when the Government decided to “decriminalize” it. It is important to note there is often a gap between what is theoretically legal and the actual access to abortion. Abortion can be officially authorized, but denied in many concrete cases. The difference in the overall “lifetime project” offered to men and women is well illustrated in this phenomenon; women who experienced teenage pregnancy studied less, participate