Specific Purpose: To persuade others to help prevent teen pregnancy. Thesis Statement: Teen pregnancy is one of the most difficult experiences a young woman passes through. The stress of pregnancy, revealing of the pregnancy to parents, and moving on despite the shame and worry can be terrifying. Some may say they did not use protection because they weren’t planning to have sex.

These kinds of life altering choices must be considered in advance in order to prevent teen pregnancy. Introduction Attention Material: Has anyone seen, or heard of the Reality television show “The Baby Borrowers?Well, if not, this show follows five couples in their late-teens, of various social and ethnic backgrounds, who want to experience the process of raising a child. Each week, the couples are given a new person to care for, their ages ranging from infant to elderly. A major message is communicated: Parenting is really hard! But did we need a TV show to tell us that? Pregnant teens have many decisions to make. Options include abortion, adoption, and raising the child; possibly alone. Regardless of the decision, the pregnancy will have a lasting effect on the teen’s life.Credibility Material: I was amazed when I read the Fundamentals for Behavioral Statistics Book, and it stated the birth rate among teenagers is a continuing trend from the early 1990s. The rate is now about 40 births per 1,000 females, ages 15 to 19.

Also, the U. S. teen birth rate is still the highest among industrialized countries. This speech is designed for teen girls, and the people around them who care to help them seek the education and support they need for self-awareness and self-confidence.

We want them to make the best decisions by not getting pregnant at a young age, and enjoying life to the fullest while they are still young. Preview: Teenage pregnancy and childbearing have considerable, long-term consequences for teenage parents and their children. (Transition into body of speech) Body I. Main point #1 (statement of problem): Teen pregnancy remains a challenge. According to The Statistical Handbook on Adolescent Sexual Behavior, each year approximately 870,000 teenage girls become pregnant. A een pregnancy can impact a teen’s life so much that they could lose their ability to excel in school and graduate to the next level because teenage parents are more likely to drop out of school, putting their lives and their unborn child’s life at the risk of poverty. A. (Description of Problem): Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school, less likely to get married, and more likely to go on welfare than their peers.

And the odds are stacked against the children of teen parents from the minute they are born.Their health is poorer, their cognitive development is slower, and their behavioral problems are worse than their peers. Teen pregnancy robs teens of their childhood and their futures as productive adults. It also robs their children, and their children’s children.

1. (Signs, Symptoms, effects of problem): Signs of pregnancy are seen in teen girls as young as 15 years of age. Their newborn’s health is at risk of being unstable, low birth weight, and their child’s behavioral problems can be worse than their peers. 2. (Example, narrative, or testimony): Can anyone recall June 2008?There was an allegation that a teenage pregnancy pact may have existed at a High School in Massachusetts – resulting in 17 pregnancies in a school of 1200 students, and the previous year the school had 4 teen pregnancies. B.

(Importance of problem): Teen pregnancy is one of the most critical issues facing America today. These out-of-wedlock teen births are a crisis that threatens to overpower our nation if we don’t take action. 1. (Extent of problem): According to an article in Newsweek, “A Teen Pregnancy Epidemic,” aside from the 870,000 teen pregnancies each year approximately 175,000 of them has given birth to their first child.As a result, the United States now has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the Western World. a) (Facts/Statistics): The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (NCPTP) suggests approximately one million teenage girls get pregnant in the United States each year, eight out of 10 are unplanned, and out of all teenage pregnancies, 29% are terminated by abortion. b) (Expert testimony): Dr.

Douglas Kirby PhD, Field-tested and research-based materials about whether violence in the lives of pregnant and parenting teens was the cause of the matter, and he discovered, “as many s 60% of teen mothers have been abused as children, the average age when they were sexually abused was nine years old, and half of their abusers were family members. 2. (Who is affected): The teenagers, family members, friends, and even our communities are affected by teen pregnancies. A dependency soon develops for agencies and social services to financially bail out the teens unprepared for child bearing, and also, some “Grandmas” are often times considered to be the child’s mother once the child has learned to walk and talk.This usually stems from a young absent mother leaving her child to be cared for by her parent(s). a) Facts/Statistics: According to a report, issued by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, In the United States, one of every ten births involves a teen mother, and almost one-sixth of all U.

S. births are to teenage women. Also, pregnant teens are less likely to attend college than teens who do not become pregnant. b) (Example/Narrative): I have an aunt that was scheduled to have surgery, and needed to go to one of the local diagnostic centers to have blood work done.Upon her arrival there were several young girls there, teenagers with the appeal of pre-teen status. Once my aunt began to talk to one of the associates at this center, she informed my aunt of a 12 year old girl in the lobby getting blood work because she was pregnant. C.

(Consequences of problem): Children born to younger teen mothers may also experience higher rate of adolescent childbearing themselves when compared to children born to older mothers. Also, teen mothers are more likely during their lives to have a larger number of children than are non-parenting teens. .

(Expert testimony): According to the research of Dr. Haber Audrey writer “a balanced, realistic sexuality education—which includes information on both abstinence and contraception—can delay teens’ onset of sexual activity, increase the use of contraception by sexually active teens, and reduce the number of their sexual partners. ” 2.

(Example/narrative): A high school friend of mine was 15 years old when she became sexually active with her boyfriend. Soon afterward, they began to fight a lot and she started feeling she was losing him.She actually thought if she got pregnant she would be able to repair their failing relationship. She had always loved babies and had been employed as a babysitter for a few years. Once she got pregnant, she moved out of her parents’ house, her and her boyfriend broke up, so she applied for welfare, and never finished school. (Transition into main point 2) II.

Main point #2 (Statement of Solution): We can help prevent unwanted teen pregnancy through open communication, and by providing guidance regarding sexuality, contraception, the risks, and the responsibilities of a possible pregnancy.A. (Description of solution): A solution to teen pregnancy can be this product that I found called Baby Think It Over, the “infant simulator,” it is said to be the newest weapon in the war against teen pregnancy. This product is designed to look, sound, and act as much like a real infant as possible. This doll can give teenagers a hands-on dose of reality and can help many of them rethink the challenges of parenthood.

Rather than “Preaching” to our teen girls about the difficulty of unwed teen parenthood, “Baby Think It Over” allows them to experience motherhood for themselves.The doll contains an internal computer that cries loudly and unpredictably at intervals around the clock. The teen “parent” wears a feeding plug strapped to his or her wrist with a tamper-proof armband, so only the parent can “feed” or “comfort” the baby. Instructors can tell by a light on the back of the doll if it has been neglected or abused by the teen.

1. (How solution fits problem): This solution fits the problem because the teen has a close to real life experience at caring and nurturing a newborn child.Often times, people have new perspectives on certain situations once they’ve had a hands on experience. Conclusion This is the cause that I stand for today, “The Prevention of Teen Pregnancy,” and with the support of family and plenty of love, we can really help a pregnant teen, or one that may be taking these risks.

The more teens know about parenting, the more likely they are to be responsible when they do have children and perhaps, the more likely they will be to postpone parenting until they can handle it.Works Consulted1. Adler, J.

A. , “A Teen Pregnancy Epidemic” 2003, Newsweek, 105:90, Mt. 5, 85.

2. Mosher W, Chandra A, Jones J, The Statistical Handbook on Adolescent Sexual Behavior 2007, New York. 3. Alan Guttmacher Institute 2006, “Teenage Pregnancy in Developed Countries: Determinants and Policy Implications”, Family Planning Perspectives, 17 (2).

4. Bunyon, Richard P. and Haber, Audrey PhD, Fundamentals of Behavioral Statistics. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley Publishing Co.

, 2006. 5. Furstenberg, Frank F. Jr. , Lincoln, Richard, and Menken, Jane, Teenage Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing 2004. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.