One Heroic Woman Tackles Teen Pregnancy and Poverty—Others Need to Wake Up

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/gender/one-heroic-womans-war-poverty-and-teen-pregnancy



Claudia Haltom was a juvenile court judge in Memphis who, as she puts it, got tired of taking babies away from teenagers. The final straw came when a 17-year-old mother of three stood in front of her, pregnant. “Who is taking care of your other children while you’re here?” Haltom asked. The girl didn’t know.

During her 17 years as a judge, Haltom witnessed firsthand the hardship and pain and poverty sometimes faced by young women who get pregnant before they are ready—or better said, by both the young mothers and their little ones. She can rattle off statistics. “In 2011, 606 girls between the ages of 10 and 17 gave birth in Shelby County [the area surrounding Memphis]. Over eighty percent of those pregnancies were unintended. Almost all were paid for by TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program. Half of those babies will still be on public assistance at age 13. Less than 50% of their moms will graduate from high school or get a GED by the time they turn 22.” But what drives her are the individual stories behind those statistics—years of listening to heartbreaking testimony and looking into the eyes of young moms who wanted something better for themselves and their kids.

When girls came into her courtroom, Haltom would ask them about what they wanted out of the future. Many had big dreams. College, trade school, and travel were on their lists. But consistently she bumped up against one specific factor that made such dreams unlikely:

I always asked ‘What are your plans for more children?’ They would say, ‘I’m on the pill.’ And I would ask, ‘Have you taken it today?’ In 17 years not one had actually taken it that day. They had lots of good reasons – on drugs, just put out of apartment, no government benefits, the unaffordable price tag of $30/month pills. But what it added up to was an epidemic of unintended pregnancies.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. If people truly want to reduce the number of abortions,

this is the way to do it, not by closing clinics and limiting choices.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. K&R n/t

[handmade34]

3. excellent article...

"...when young women have excellent tools to fulfill their plans, generations of poverty will turn into generations of education and goals fulfilled."


a program even anti-abortion people can love...

The Choice Project (LARC= Long Acting Reversible Contraception)

&feature=share&list=PLg4ik20UZ7sVsEyq-K3nc6xNEVqBml8OY

[bobclark86]

6. Nooooo!

It's NOT NATURAL! ERMEHGERD!!!!

Their problem honestly is hormone-riddled teen girls are having sex.. and not with them, lol.

[Sherman A1]

4. K&R

[BlueToTheBone]

5. This is great! nt