Talk:Teenage pregnancy/Archive 1

pregnancy rate vs. birth rate
The introduction is comparing pregnancy rates to the low birth rates of Japan and South Korea, but the low birth rates could be due to high abortion rates (with birth rate + abortion rate = pregnancies, see also the 1996 table). Thus, it looks like apples were compared to oranges, since the referred source is only showing birth rate data and not the overall rate of teenage pregnancies 95.112.148.121 (talk) 05:47, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

World View tag
This article doesn't do a good job of showing how other 3rd world cultures don't really care about teen pregnancy. It only gives it a small mention pielover87 22:07, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree. If anything, that's the you're offering an understatement.  The article speaks most of the UK, and a bit about the US, but not much else.  It also doesn't say much about health issues. Alienus 22:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Seems to have an overly UK-oriented focus. Perhaps more info can be provided about teen pregnancy in the United States?


 * Well, now it mentions the US quota on every Absatz prior to any other stats. It's OK to mention South

{lyin} Korea for it's exeptionally low stats for instance, but there's no need to do it for an extremely normal and unextraordinary country as the US or UK. There are subsections for diff. countries and all that stuff should be shoveled thereto. I've added a corresponding tag.Turkmenbashy 00:52, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Why...
are there two exact same tables twice shown in the article (1996 global per 1000 birth/abortion rates)?--Airplaneman (talk) 23:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Statistical Data
Statistical data would be an absolute necessity here. Isn't teenage pregnancy a worldwide phenomenon? KF 07:34 18 May 2003 (UTC)


 * See sex education for some data. --Eloquence 07:43 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Need more historical data
This article is woefully underdeveloped as it is confined to the present historical period. While what is presently there about how the phenomenon is seen in the present is just fine, it should be acknowledged in the article that in the past the marriage of young teenagers was seen as completely normal; for instance, in the early days of Detroit, it was not uncommon for the combined ages of the bride and groom to total less than thirty. Whatever we may think of this now failing to include this in the article is un-NPOV. --Daniel C. Boyer 17:16 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

POV criticisms, is this article too liberal?
Even I must confess (even though I agree with the author that abstance doesn't work) this article is very POV, toward a liberal side. Comrade Nick

It's not POV if it's true

Just because there is controversy over a subject does not mean that a NPOV gives equal weight to both sides. If all (or nearly all) studies on a subject support one POV (as is clearly the case with abstinence; see Sex Education), then while we should note that there is a controversy there is no reason not to write the most objectively true statements we can about it.

Eshear

To say abstinence doesn't work is POV. In fact, studies have suggested that abstinence education does work. Abstinence education, for example, has been successful in Uganda. The Family Research Council has a few studies on this issue. Sure, the FRC is a conservative think tank but that doesn't mean its findings don't have validity or merit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.20.204.92 (talk) 14:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Law Section needs work
The section on laws appears to be complete rubbish. I've attempted to rewrite it to make sense and be somewhat meaningful but it needs references, timeframes etc. Who says that laws like this only reduce teenage pregnancy by 0.92%? When did Texas pass its law? Is it still valid? What does the Texan law state are the punishments for teen-teen sex? Give a case history where the punishment was as unequal as this article says. What has been the effect of this law?

The original section said something about many goverments, states etc trying to pass these laws but they got killed(?) because of something to do with age of concent laws and human rights. Give specifics. Cite a Country/other body (and date and preferably leader of government) which tried to pass these laws and what happened. Where such laws have been repealed give good examples.

Personally I'm tempted to remove the whole Laws section pending something more meaningful being written. I'd fix the section myself but I don't have any information on what laws have been passed in this regard.

Abstinence section
The absitnence section is still suffering badly from POV problems (both before and after an extensive editing in the last two days). The discussion of the debate about education belongs in Sex education, particullarly as this is very US-centric at the moment and there is a section there for that (it may be broken out to it's own article as well). I've tried to edit the article on the whole to improve POV, but some help is still greatly needed --Ahc 22:07, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Added UK-specific details
I've added quite a lot of UK stuff to the article: perhaps someone from the US could add some more detail about contrasting US policies? I've tried not to touch the bits about the causes of TP, so I hope the new stuff's not too POV. I've also deleted some stuff about marriage - I couldn't see what it added. I'm really up for doing some more work on this article, if someone wants to get in touch to discuss some of the issues. Tonibella 18:51, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Under 19
It may seem illogical, but teenage pregnancy is only considered as such if the mother is aged 18 or under at the time of conception, hence "under 19" not "under 20" - government interventions in the UK and elsewhere take this age bracket as the location of the "social problem" to which this article refers. It's not a copy-editing mistake, so I've reverted the previous change. I'm also interested in the comment that "the term used to apply to girls under 13 becoming pregnant" - I've never heard it used in this way in the UK, could you enlighten me? Thanks. Tonibella 19:39, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I wish it was 21. I don't think it's possible to be ready for parenthood nowadays at that age, espeically with the rising cost of living. I also think that technically nineTEEN is still a teenager. They are also young adults, but they are still a teen. Most 19 year olds probably won't consider themselves teenagers and THAT is ok, but they are technically still that..a teen. Punkymonkey987 (talk) 21:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, it doesn't matter what you think (and I personally think it varies from person to person: obviously MTV and Barbies and Nicole Richie killed the modern world, but there are a few exceptions here and there, such as Namie Amuro and Le Ly Hayslip). The definition doesn't go by "ready [emotionally/mentally/financially]" or not. It's the age, and age of consent, and all that. Generally, a teenage parent is an adolescent girl who gives birth before the legal "invincible" age in her state (generally eighteen, although they range from fourteen to even twenty-one). After the age of eighteen, "teen parent" seems kind of a tricky label to place on such girls, it's more like a young mom at that point (unless it's in one of those countries where the legal age, absolutely, is not, until twenty or twenty-one). But yes, almost always when people say "teenage parent", they mean a person under the age of eighteen who has a child of their own. ★ Dasani ★ 04:56, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Under 18
18 is an age when most countries consider people to be adults. Therefore I would exclude pregnancies of 18 or 19 year olds from category "teenage pregnancy".

88.114.18.18 18:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Please read my comment above in the "Under 19" section or discussion Punkymonkey987 (talk) 21:18, 8 December 2007 (UTC).

Eww
It's possible that I've had the bad timing of catching someone in the middle of a slew of edits, but this page is UGLY right now. I'm going to fix it. Matt Yeager 00:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Can someone stop
Someone keeps on editing my change. Teen pregnancy can result from teens participating in sex with contraception measures. Contraception fails and it fails often. Sometimes due to the inexperience of a teen to how contraception works.


 * Agreed Matt Yeager 01:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Disagreed. Teen pregnancy results from teens having sex, yes, but it's misleading to pretend that contraception -- when it's actually used -- somehow fails to prevent most pregnancies from occuring.  And contraceptive methods that you can't forget to use, like Norplant, work extremely well.  I've read that a woman who uses Norplant and has sex frequently is less likely to get pregnant that one who uses nothing.  This makes sense because the former have a pregnancy rate approaching zero, while the second still have sex, although it may be unplanned or involuntary. Alienus 23:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Disagreed. Perhaps suggest an inclusion on inexperience of teens with contraception, but certainly not to word it that the contraception itself is the main reason for failure as this is misleading. [joplin]


 * I am president in an association for teen mothers, and I can say that some became pregnant because the pill or preservativ didn't do its work. So you can say that some teen pregnancies are the fact of contraception failure. That is not the most cases but enough often to mark that in these pages. Pill and antibiotica, for exemple, could affect the incidence of pill, and some others failures, exist!


 * Agreed Punkymonkey987 (talk) 21:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It's well documented that contraception is not 100%, even companies that make contraceptives admit it.

Regarding Non-POV views on England's Teen Pregnancy approach
This paragraph seems to make it look like the UK is some kind of progressive wonderland, the UK in fact has among the highest rates of teen pregnancy in Europe and it's still rising.

Agreed. I think UK has the highest rate in Europe, just because it is below the US doesn't mean it is low. [joplin]

Teenage Fatherhood Section Added
I thought that this page required it but since I am a rather untalented writer the section which I produced was not immensely insightful or informative. Anyone wishing to add and/or clean up the already existing text (such as it is...) should feel free.

Very good to mention fathers as they are often overlooked by governments. Can I suggest mentioning that biologically speaking there is absolutely nothing wrong with teenage pregnancy, the issue is more to do with cultural, political, and sociological situations. [joplin]

Worldwide picture
I added a section on the "worldwide picture". The Europe and North America subsections need to be fleshed out, and if anyone has info on Oz/NZ or Latin America, that would be great.13:50, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Medical advantages?
I have read about a lot of medical advantages to pregnancy early in life, but the "medical outcomes" section is limited to problems or potential problems. It seems like a lot of the article is overlooking all positive aspects of teenage pregnancy. I'm aware that negatives may outweigh positives, but that is no reason to omit possible advantages of teen pregrancy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hilaryanne (talk • contribs) 01:23, 10 August 2006.
 * I'm not a OB/GYN, so I can't say for certain that this is correct, but my understanding is that when early pregnancies are spoken of as having benefits, the context is usually comparing a gravida in her 20s to one in her 30s or 40s. --Icarus (Hi!) 16:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why teenage pregnancy is regarded as a "problem". I think a bigger problem arises with women who leave it too late and then need fertility treatment. In the UK it is something of a class issue - middle-class people (especially some Members of Parliament) disapprove of working-class women becoming pregnant in their teens and label them as "scroungers". Biscuittin (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's quite clear from the article that older teenagers do not have medical issues associated with their age (although it is v different for younger teenagers, eg 13/14 year old). The social issues are a separate issue. If teenage mothers and their children are at higher risk of poverty, for example, then this can be seen as a "problem". The issue of social welfare payments is also a contentious one. Fionah (talk) 18:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality
There is an NPOV notice on the "causes" section, but nothing on the discussion page. It's hard to resolve NPOV disputes without knowing where the actual issues are. Please be more specific. Fionah 08:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Reading this section, I don't see any POV; therefore, as part of the POV backlog cleanup, I am removing. If you disagree, replace the tag (use  ) and leave a comment here. -- TrevMrgn 23:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Old data
The country by country breakdown for teenage pregnancy rates is from 1998. We could use more current data. Poweroid 13:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I found a report from the UNFPA that gives data for 2002: Indicator: Births per 1000 women (15-19 ys) – 2002. Unfortunately this only gives raw birth rates and no extra information such as abortion or marriage rates. So I updated the data where relevant. I also used the updated Guttmacher report to update the United States info. The Europe table is now a bit out-of-date compared to the other continents because it's still using the OECD data, but I preferred to keep the extra info about abortion and marriage because this does add something to the picture I think. Fionah 11:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

relationship of coerced early sexual intercourse and STD risk
Yes, this is a side matter, but ever earlier sexual initiation and "sex work" is often coerced and in impoverished areas, an amoral view could justify the economic necessity of such coercion. The fact that such activity exists may contribute to maintaining a high degree of teen pregnancy in these economically under-developed regions. Also, is there any way we could document the manner in which the men in high HIV/AIDs risk areas pursue ever younger girls/women to reduce their own risk? Homebuilding 22:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Thailand - Sex workers
This sentence seems somewhat confusing:
 * Although premarital sex is considered normal behavior for males, particularly among sex workers, it is not always regarded as such for female

I assume it's supposed to be saying premarital sex particularly WITH sex workers is considered normal behaviour. Sex workers by definition will always either be having premarital (most likely) or extra marital sex. Can anyone confirm? Nil Einne 15:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

POV
This article has the POV that "teenage pregnancy" is bad rather than simply providing reliably sourced facts. Mammals typically get pregnant at sexual maturity which for humans is about age 13. The biological basis should be used as the beginning of a neutral article about teenage pregnancy in modern humans (which is what this is; it does not cover teen pregnancy in nonhumans nor in humans in premodern times). Issues concerning the limiting of pregnancy in sexually mature but socially immature humans is important; but should be covered in a NPOV way. 4.250.168.35 20:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I made some attempt at neutralizing the intro, but I think we really need someone with ob/gyn knowledge for this! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fionah (talk • contribs).


 * Fionah has done a good job creating a more comprehensive intro. However, I honestly do not understand from where the anon above is basing his or her claim that the article is "POV." This article is thoroughly sourced. See the "References" section. It cites many studies. -Severa (!!!) 11:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

ovulation at 4 months gestation?
I don't understand this sentence:
 * ovulation begins in the womb at about 4 months gestation

This seems to be saying either that (a) 4-month-old fetuses ovulate, or (b) 4-months pregnant women ovulate. Neither of these scenarios seems likely in my understanding of the term ovulation, or indeed the wikipedia article on the subject. Can the author please clarify what he/she means?Fionah 09:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed this phrase from the intro. AFAIK, a female fetus does create eggs while in the womb, but these eggs are not released until after puberty. "Ovulation" is the release of ovums not the creation of them. Anyway, it didn't seem too relevant to an article about teenage pregnancy. Fionah 08:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Statutory rape
The info on statutory rape and abuse was a useful addition, but was presented in a somewhat POV way. I made the following changes: Fionah 08:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Moved it from Global Incidence to Causes.
 * Fit the info into the current structure, putting it alongside other studies.
 * Consolidated related information. For example, the Population Reference Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics studies both found that about two-thirds of teenage births were fathered by men over 20, so I put these findings into one sentence and gave both references.
 * Distinguished between coercive rape and statutory rape.
 * Explained briefly the meaning of statutory rape, in particular that its definition is different depending on the jurisdiction.
 * Removed some data that wasn’t directly related to teenage pregnancy, e.g. the Bureau of Justice Statistics about rape in general.
 * Removed or rephrased some statements that seemed NPOV.
 * The opening statement – "Contrary to the common perception that teenage sex and pregnancy typically stem from two teenagers getting caught up in the heat of the moment, research has often shown that most teenage pregnancies are the product of statutory rape" – seemed NPOV and also contradicted some other previous statements in the article. I traced this to Gracie Hsu of the Family Research Council and gave her the full attribution. Note that the article has taken a similar approach to other (potentially controversial) statements by the Guttmacher Institute, Kaiser Family Foundation, Gill Francis, and Laurence Shaw and follows general Wikipedia policy (see Neutral point of view/FAQ).
 * I noticed the same thing! Hamster2.0 01:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Limiting teenage pregnancies
Would anyone object if the region-specific info in "Limiting teenage pregnancies" was moved to the appropriate Global incidence section (North America, Europe or Asia)?Fionah 08:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this correct?
"For example, among mothers aged 11- 12, the average father was nearly 10 years older." I cannot find the source of information. 76.20.170.182 01:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Babies having Babies
I for one, find this cover to be very POV. As it has already been mentioned teen pregnancy is considered a social issue because of the "social clock" not the "biological clock". The very phrase,"babies having babies", is physiologically inaccurate not to mention quite condescending.If anything it should be moved to the "public opinion" section of the article. Can someone find something more appropriate? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.168.239.61 (talk) 21:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC).


 * It probably just a term. Don't take it so personal. Well, my opinion counts and I personally don't see anything wrong with it. I consider teens, especially pre teens as babies. And teens are babies compared to thirty somethings and older. I do see your point, but try not to take things so personally! Punkymonkey987 (talk) 21:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC) Plus, can you really change the publics opinion and numerous books and websites that carry that term?! I think you'd have to wake up pretty early in the morning for that to happen!

2/3 of boys under 18 and 1/3 girls under 16 should be in jail for child molestation or rape??

 * One of every 3 girls has had sex by age 16 and 2 out of 3 by age 18. Two of 3 boys have had sex by age 18. Does that mean 2/3 of boys under 18 and 1/3 girls under 16 should be in jail?? My source was http://www.sadd.org/stats.htm
 * Here's another one,
 * -Nationally, one-quarter of 15 year old females and less than 30% of 15 year old males have had sex, compared with 66% of 18 year old females, and 68% of 18 year old males who have had sexual intercourse. (A Statistical Portrait of Adolescent Sex, Contraception, and Childbearing, National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Washington, DC, 1998). Hamster2.0


 * Update
 * I guess so ...
 * Dig-17 year old honor student sent to jail for 10 years for getting oral sex
 * Once, he was the homecoming king at Douglas County High. Now he's Georgia inmate No. 1187055, convicted of aggravated child molestation. When he was a senior in high school, he received oral sex from a 10th grader. He was 17. She was 15. Everyone, including the girl and the prosecution, agreed she initiated the act.


 * Teen Given 10 Years For Having Sex With Girl Two Years Younger (same as above)
 * The Georgia Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a teen who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having sex with a 15-year-old. In a ruling released Friday, the court denied a motion for reconsideration filed by lawyers for Genarlow Wilson, who was 17 when he and the 15-year-old engaged in consensual oral sex
 * http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/Teen_Given_10_Years_For_Having_Sex_With_Girl_Two_Years_Younger Hamster2.0

Recent changes
The following additions have recently been made to the article:

This is good information, but it belongs in the North American secion, not the header. Imagine if the article began "Approximately 20% of young women under 20 become pregnant in Poland" (this is a made-up figure and I just picked a random country for an example). You'd think it a bit strange. The intro should take as much of a world view as possible. There's enough of a US/UK bias in the article as it is.
 * "Approximately 40% of young women under 20 become pregnant in the United States. 95% of these are unintended, one third end in abortion, one third end in spontaneous miscarrage, and one third will continue their pregnancy and keep their baby."

This is a really big statement to make. Which studies have shown this? Who did these studies? Where did the studies take place? How can we tell that age discrepancy is more important than early marriage, lack of knowledge about contraception, alcohol and drug use, rape, poverty, low educational goals, having a mother or older sister who is a teenage parent, etc.? Does this mean that if girls stuck to guys their own age, they would be less likely to get pregnant? Is this valid not just in the US but in Hungary, Bangladesh, Niger, New Zealand (again picking countries at random)? This statement really, really needs a reference and probably should be toned down ("Studies by the X Institute indicate that a contributing factor is...") Fionah 09:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * "Studies indicate that the number one contributing factor concerning teenage pregnancy in industrialized countries is the age discrepancy between the teenage girl and teenage/adult male."


 * OK, I removed the U.S.-specific info from the overview. I also found a reference for older partners as a risk factor; however, "the number one factor" is definitely POV so I reworded it like this:
 * "Studies indicate that an important contributing factor is an age discrepancy between the teenage girl and her male partner.Teenage girls with older partners are more likely to become pregnant than those with partners closer in age, and are also more likely to have the baby rather than get an abortion. "

Removed section regarding teens becoming pregnant to obtain benefits and what they used them for. The article that was cited did not support that sections claim —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.129.250.35 (talk • contribs)


 * Fair enough - seemed dubious for reasons of undue weight also. Zodon (talk) 23:41, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

History section?
Would this article benefit from the addition of a "History" section? This section could explore what the incidence of, as well as attitudes toward, teenage pregnancy were in the past, and whether either of these things have changed over time. -Severa (!!!) 18:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * A very good idea! But where to start? I'm guessing that in prehistoric times when lifespans were short, teenage pregnancy was the norm. Would be good to get stats or quotes about other historical eras e.g. classical Rome, Middle Ages, Victorian era. Any social historians out there? Fionah 08:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Shorter lifespans and earlier ages of marriage probably played important roles in influencing the rates of teenage pregnancy in the past. We could start by looking for historical data on birth rates by age.
 * "An 'Epidemic' of Adolescent Pregnancy?: Some Historical and Policy Considerations"
 * -Severa (!!!) 14:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * According to the Ancient Roman marriage article, upper-class girls were often married at 12 or 14, while plebians typically married in their late teens or early twenties.Fionah 08:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Would it be useful to mention historical teenage parents such as Eleanor of Provence or Lady Margaret Beaufort? In context of course e.g. “Teenage pregnancy was not uncommon among the medieval nobility, for example Eleanor of Provence was probably in her teens when she gave birth to her three oldest children.” Fionah 12:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

History section?
I'd like to see some pics. --Vertebreaker 22:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Could you please be more specific about what you would like to see in this article? Thanks. -Severa (!!!) 09:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course, I'd like to see, in color, some nice, explicit and very, very detailed (and big, if possible) statistical graphics about the development of teen pregnancy, complete with a comparative timeline of the last 100 years. Why? --Vertebreaker 22:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Global incidence as separate article?
The current article is quite long. Maybe the "Global incidence" section could be broken off as a separate article with a brief summary on this page?Fionah 09:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Per Summary style, I think we should split the longer sections in this article into new sub-articles. For example, if we created a separate Global incidence of teenage pregnancy article, then we could write a three or four paragraph summary of the new article's content for the "Global incidence" section in this article, and link to the spin-off article at the top of the section using the tag. I've seen this done before on other broad topics, such as Astronomy, Homosexuality, and Abortion, which each sort of serve as "hubs" for summarizing information from a number of related sub-articles. Moving the bulk of the "Global incidence" section to its own article would free it up for expansion and also give us room to add new content to this article. -Severa  (!!!) 02:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Famous teenage parents and In popular culture sections removed
The "Famous teenage parents" and "Teenage pregnancy in popular culture" sections were removed without explanation. I agree that the lists were getting ridiculously long, but I thought they provided useful information and placed the issue in a cultural context. For example I had never heard of the controversy surrounding Fantasia Barrino's "Baby Mama" song, which was apparently considered by some to be glamourizing teenage parenthood. Maybe it would be better to create a separate article "List of famous teenage parents" (could split it into fiction and non-fiction). Fionah 09:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The editor who removed the content, Nandesuka, made reference to WP:TRIV in his two edits. I'm not sure whether this rationale would apply to the "In popular culture" section, because there's an "In the arts, film and literature" section at Euthanasia, and an "Art and literature" section at Homosexuality. I'm certain that the "In popular culture" section currently present in this article could be adapted into something more encyclopaedic than just a list. We could have a couple of paragraphs discussing how the subject of teenage pregnancy has been handled in arts, literature, and film.
 * As for the "Famous teenage parents" section, I can see two potential solutions: moving it to List of notable teenage parents, as you recommended, or trimming the section by removing all biographical information other than the parent's name, their age at the time of becoming a parent, the reason for which he or she is notable, and their child's name. It could certainly be argued, however, that the very definition of a "famous" or "notable" teenage parent is a subjective one, and that a list of famous teenage parents would thus qualify as "indiscriminate information" or "listcruft." After all, until rather recently in history, being a teenage parent was not something out of the ordinary, or at least not something considered especially notable. However, there's certainly a precedent for listifying information for which there isn't really space to cover in the main article, as with List of twins for Twin or List of cheeses for Cheese. I would recommend against creating a separate list for teenage parents in fiction; a similar list, List of twins in fiction, was AfD'd. -Severa  (!!!) 03:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * List of notable teenage parents has been nominated for deletion here. While "youth pregnancy" may be a notable topic, endless lists are listcruft. Throughout history teen pregnancy hasn't been anything to take notice of, it was normal. It is also unreferenced. Garrie 05:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * One thing that might help to keep it from getting quite so unreasonably large is to insist upon citations. According to WP:RS, any biographical material about a living person must have a reliable source given or it should be deleted.
 * The section on teen parents seems out of place in an article on teen pregnancy. Certainly pregnancy is a customary precursor to parenthood, but it is not required (adoption), and there are many cases of teen pregnancy that do not result in parenthood (miscarriage, etc.)  If the section is to be retained it should be Teen pregnancies (not parents), and to keep it manageable it might be well to focus on those who's teenage pregnancy was a notable event.  (i.e. don't include those from a culture where teen pregnancy is/was routine.)
 * However since the list largely seems to attract a lot of trivia, it might be better to delete it. Zodon (talk) 23:32, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

sex period
when i saw the statistics on males pushing sex on girls i didn't see whether it included condoms or not and wether or not if condoms were used that they worked or not. i am refering to the cited articles in cited. and when it says male friends, does it mean boyfriends or just friends who are boys or both?

Older male "partners"
I moved the section concerning the age discrepancy between a teenage girl and the father of her child to the sexual abuse section. I also deleted the term "partner" because the term implies equality. Since a significant age difference is usually treated as sexual abuse I thought this would be more appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ccgjjg (talk • contribs) 21:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Without the studies specifically talking about sexual abuse I think this is an inappropriate synthesis. Sexual abuse is an emotive topic an simply assigning research and findings to that category when even the research does not make the leap is not best practice.  I think the study about coercive sex with older men fits reasonable in the section, but a simple age gap = abuse approach does not.  I'm also concerned that we're using studies from just one country and then generally talking about the findings as though they were universally applicable.  I'm not a fan of big age gaps myself (or teenage pregnancy come to that) but this article does appear to approach the subject from a specific cultural world view and I don't think that gives the sort of well rounded picture an encyclopedia ought to.  If we can't find good studies from elsewhere, we ought to at least be specific about the limits of the information that is covered and the cultural norms they encompass.  -- SiobhanHansa 23:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Simply saying that the male is over 20 and the female is under 20 does not necessarily imply abuse. If the man is 35 and the girl 13, I'd say that's abusive; but if the man is 21 and the girl 17, it could be just a regular boyfriend-girlfriend thing. Fionah 08:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The first paragraph defined a teenage girl as under the legal age of majority (adulthood), not necessarily an 18 or 19 year old with a 20 year old. Whether or not such relationships are abusive is decided by the laws of the country, not neccesarily public opinion. The article has links to both "statutory rape" and "age of consent" laws that further explain the matter. Since sex with a minor girl is criminalized in almost all industrialized countries with varying pentalties from simply "corrupting a minor" to outright rape charges I think placing this data under the sexual abuse section is more appropriate. Ccgjjg 20:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you are confusing a couple of concepts. The first paragraph defines the term as "restricted to those under the age threshold of legal adulthood".  Legal adulthood is not the same as the age of consent.  In the UK for instance the age of consent is 16, but the age of legal adulthood is 18; consensual sex with someone who is 16 or 17 is not legally defined as abuse regardless of the age of the other party.  -- SiobhanHansa 12:06, 8 September 2007 (UTC)