Sexual Behavior Among Teenagers and the Necessity of Birth Control

Teenagers should have access to birth control devices. The most compelling argument against this thesis is the idea that they are not emotionally mature enough to be having sex at all, in that it is a meaningful commitment that should be only taken up by adults who have the ability to consent fully and understand the consequences of their behavior. Additionally, sexual behavior contains a lot of risks of many different natures. There is the emotional risk of engaging in such intimate activity, with concomitant development of feelings that may not be reciprocated or healthy. There is also the physical risk of disease. For heterosexual women, pregnancy is an emotional, physical, and economic strain that could severely derail a promising future. This argument is dependent on the presupposition that access to birth control devices would lead to an increase in the sexual activity of teenagers. This paper will argue that teenagers engaging in sexual behavior is inevitable and that the risks can only be mitigated by allowing for open dialogue, sex education, and the devices that would allow them to protect themselves. In other words, supplying birth control devices to teenagers creates an environment where the sexual behavior that will occur can be done with lower risk to the health and safety of the teenagers involved.

Sexual behavior is inevitable and undeterred by absence of birth control devices. The research is overwhelming that sexual education that focuses on the value of abstinence until marriage do not delay the onset of sexual behavior and they do not reduce sexually risky behaviors (Lindberg and Maddow-Zimet 333). According to a comprehensive study conducted from 2006-2010, 43% of women from 15-19 and 42% of men have had sex, with 25.5% and 21.5% having had sex in the last month, for girls and boys respectively (Davis and Bridges 1). A recent study examined the prevalence of Medicaid Family Planning Waivers, which provide low-cost health insurance in order to provide birth control to low-income teens, and concluded that they “were shown to be effective in reducing teen birth rates across all races, especially among black and Hispanic teens” (Yang and Gaydos 521). People of color are far more likely to become pregnant and to become infected with sexually transmitted diseases as teenagers, meaning an already oppressed group in our society is bearing the brunt of the failure to adequately educate our children (Davis and Bridges 1). White female teenagers are about 10% more likely to use any method of contraception than female teenagers of color, indicating the failure to educate and help teenagers of those communities. Lack of available birth control leads to scenarios like the fact that 42.3% of young women use the withdrawal method, which prevents neither pregnancy nor sexually transmitted infections (Martinez et al. 21). 39.% of teenagers did not use a condom at all in the sexual activity within a month of when the survey was conducted (Martinez et al. 24). Unsurprisingly, use of contraceptives during one’s first sexual experience is associated with later age of first pregnancy, with teenagers who didn’t use any contraception being four times as likely to be pregnant by age seventeen than those who used a method of contraception (Martinez et al. 25).

Teenage pregnancy is a major harm. Engaging in sexual behavior without access to adequate birth control could be extremely detrimental to a teenager’s future. Teen pregnancy creates serious obstacles to completing school, with 30% of teen girls who drop out of high school citing parenthood as the reason (Davis and Bridges 1). The true effects are difficult to discern quantitatively, because it is difficult to obtain clean and sufficient data to create a control group (Fletcher and Wolfe "Education and Labor Market Consequences of Teenage Childbearing Evidence Using the Timing of Pregnancy Outcomes and Community Fixed Effects" 321). At the same time, most of the cutting edge research suggests that giving birth in one’s teams has severe consequences. The most reliable estimates by a recent study suggest that “giving birth as a teen is associated with a decline in the probability of graduating from high school (-0.08) and a reduction in income and total wages of $2,200 to $2,400.” It is important to note that often, this decreased economic capacity is paired with far more demands on the mother’s income, making the economic effects even more devastating. Teenage childbearing does not only create problems for the mother; using the same method as the previous paper (comparing teen couples who underwent a miscarriage against those who had a live birth), Fletcher and Wolfe determined that teenage fatherhood reduces the likelihood of obtaining a high school diploma by 15%, which is has lifetime economic effects (Fletcher and Wolfe "The Effects of Teenage Fatherhood on Young Adult Outcomes" 11).

Stigmatizing sex and forcing teenagers to hide from authority figures in order to engage in it simply makes it more dangerous. Preventing access to birth control is associated with limiting discussion or education with teenagers and their authority figures about sexual behavior. Lack of comprehensive sex education is associated with positive sexual behaviors, including a significantly reduced likelihood of teen pregnancy (Lindberg and Maddow-Zimet 333). Specifically, teaching adolescents about their birth control options increases the likelihood of birth control usage and other safer sexual practices (Lindberg and Maddow-Zimet 337). For instance, a worrying 58.8% of young women either did not want their first sexual experience at the time, or had ambivalent feelings about it (Martinez et al. 20), indicating that young women do not feel empowered to express their desires and act on them. Refusing to talk seriously about sex and provide support to young people doesn’t prevent them from having sex; instead, it makes it so they don’t have the resources to protect themselves, emotionally and physically.

Some research even argues that we should start to take teenage desire seriously, in the sense that sexuality in teens is a problem, a health concern, a discipline issue – but it is never understood as something that teenagers actually wants. In Michelle Fine’s words, “the naming of desire, pleasure, or sexual entitlement, particularly for females, barely exists in the formal agenda of public schooling on sexuality” (Fine 32). Acknowledging that teenagers do feel sexual desire, will want to have sex and think about it, will perhaps allow adolescents to avoid some of the damning pitfalls of sexual activity. If teenagers, particularly young women, start to think about sex as something they could enjoy, it might make it easier for them to resist unwanted advances and also construct a sex life that is happy and healthy. Again, in Fine’s words, “the availability of [birth control] may enable females to feel they are sexual agents, entitled and therefore responsible, rather than at the constant and terrifying mercy of a young man’s pressure to give in” (Fine 46). Availability of birth control, in this sense, may not only help the physical health of teenagers, but also facilitate the destigmatization of teenage desire, allowing for a more healthy and liberated relationship with their bodies.

In conclusion, preventing access to birth control devices for teenagers simply makes the sexual behavior that will still be engaged in more dangerous. It turns sexual behavior, something which could be a healthy aspect of normal adolescent development, into a stigmatized and secretive behavior. Adults have the responsibility to guide the development of teenagers and assist them in making healthy decisions. However, if they refuse to engage in or discuss the decision process around sexual behavior, it won’t stop the sexual behavior, it will just increase the likelihood of disastrous consequences. The argument against birth control is on face compelling; we are all aware of the myriad negative consequences that can result from sexual behavior and teenagers have developing brains, unable to fully examine consequences. The fundamental issue is that foreclosing the opportunity for safe sex does not mean that sex will not be had; it just means that the sex will be far more dangerous for everyone involved.

Works Cited

Davis, Laura, and Emily Bridges. "School Based Health Centers Should Provide Contraception to Teens." Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk, vol. 2, no. 2, 2011, p. 15.

Fine, Michelle. "Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire." Harvard educational review, vol. 58, no. 1, 1988, pp. 29-54.

Fletcher, Jason M, and Barbara L Wolfe. "Education and Labor Market Consequences of Teenage Childbearing Evidence Using the Timing of Pregnancy Outcomes and Community Fixed Effects." Journal of Human Resources, vol. 44, no. 2, 2009, pp. 303-25.

Fletcher, Jason M, and Barbara L Wolfe. "The Effects of Teenage Fatherhood on Young Adult Outcomes." Economic inquiry, vol. 50, no. 1, 2012, pp. 182-201.

Lindberg, Laura Duberstein, and Isaac Maddow-Zimet. "Consequences of Sex Education on Teen and Young Adult Sexual Behaviors and Outcomes." Journal of adolescent Health vol. 51, no. 4, 2012, pp. 332-38.

Martinez, Gladys, et al. "Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth." Vital and health statistics. Series 23, Data from the National Survey of Family Growth, vol. 31, 2011, p. 1.

Yang, Zhou, and Laura M Gaydos. "Reasons for and Challenges of Recent Increases in Teen Birth Rates: A Study of Family Planning Service Policies and Demographic Changes at the State Level." Journal of adolescent Health, vol. 46, no. 6, 2010, pp. 517-24.