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Teen Pregnancy And The United States

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Teen Parenting in the United States Raising a child as an adult can be very demanding at times, but can you imagine how difficult it would be to raise a baby as a teen, when you are still a child yourself? Although the teen birth rate in the United States has been on a decline for the past decade, teen pregnancy is still a significant issue affecting many people (Teen Pregnancy and Childbearing). Teen pregnancy has been considered morally and ethically wrong in the United States for centuries (Sprague). Taxpayers all across the country, the parents and the child are all stakeholders of this social epidemic and are affected in many ways such as economically, educationally, and martially. Thinking clockwise the most broadly affected stakeholders would be the taxpayers, which are indirectly affected by teen pregnancy. According to the Office of Adolescent Health, teen pregnancies cost the United States taxpayers $9.4-$28 billion a year though public assistance payments, lost tax revenue, and greater expenditures for public health care, foster care, and criminal justice services (Teen Pregnancy and Childbearing). There have also been many government-funded programs with the intent of preventing teen pregnancy. Until recent years the government’s thoughts were that the only way to be sure there are no teen pregnancies is to promote abstinence until marriage (Melby 1). With in the years of 2001-2009 3.1 billion taxpayer dollars were spent delivering this message to American

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