Teenage pregnancy report evaluation

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This paper will attempt to evaluate the Teenage Pregnancy Report and critically analyse its contents. Due to the word limit constraints the essay will concentrate on the eight main risk factors for teenage pregnancy identified by the writer and look at how they are addressed within the report. It will also seek to demonstrate how the writer has approached the report in a negative way and has failed to explore any positive outcomes of being a teenage mother. It is clear that the report was written in order to back up policy decisions made by the government and does not offer a true reflection of the teenage pregnancy situation. In order to discuss the issues surrounding teenage pregnancy it is firstly necessary to define the term and the relevance of its use in the context of the report. What is teenage pregnancy and what does the use of the term mean? ‘Teenage pregnancy’ is a generic term used to describe young girls (under the age of 18) who become pregnant. The use of the term ‘teenage pregnancy’ raises issues as it immediately brands all girls under 18 who fall pregnant into the same category. It does not take into account those girls who may be married or in stable relationships, or where a young persons religion and culture may involve teenage motherhood as common practice. The term creates a situation where teenage pregnancy is automatically seen to be a problem, thus categorizing and potentially socially excluding a group of young people. What does the report see as the main factors related to teenage pregnancy and does it fairly analyse these issues? The report states that the ‘problem’ of teenage pregnancy affects almost all parts of the country. It states that even affluent areas of England have higher teenage birth rates than many European countries (DfES, 2007) . The fact that teenage pregnancy is seen as a problem suggests that a negative

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