TEENAGE PREGNANCY

Teen pregnancy is associated with negative consequences for both adolescents, and, when pregnancy is
carried to term, their children. The great majority of teen pregnancies (82 percent in 2006) are
unintended. In 2006, approximately 37 percent of unintended pregnancies to teens ages 15-19 ended in
abortion, and almost 60 percent ended in a live birth. Overall, as of 2010, 26 percent of teen pregnancies
end in abortion.
Even after accounting for the fact that teen mothers tend to be from disadvantaged backgrounds, teen
parenthood is linked to greater welfare dependence soon after birth, and to poorer long-term educational
outcomes, as well as instability in family structure. Moreover, research finds that children of teen mothers
fare worse on cognitive and behavioral outcomes than their peers with older mothers.
In 2010, the teen pregnancy rate reached a new low in
the modern era. It declined by 51 percent between 1990 and 2010, from 116.9 pregnancies per 1,000
females, ages 15 to 19, to 57.4 the lowest rate reported since estimates begin in 1972. Among females
younger than 15, there was a 66-percent decline from 1990 to 2010 (from 17.6 to 5.4 pregnancies per
1,000 females aged 14 years). Over the same time period, rates for teens ages 15 to 17 declined by 59
percent, from 74.2 to 30.1; and the rates for teens 18 to 19 declined by 44 percent, from 172.4 to 96.2.
growth rate population





Family planning


Family planning is the planning of when to have children,
[
and the use of birth control
[2][3]
and other
techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality
education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception
counseling

and management, and infertility management.
Family planning is sometimes used as a synonym for the use of birth control, however, it often
includes a wide variety of methods, and practices that are not birth control. It is most usually applied
to a female-male couple who wish to limit the number of children they have and/or to control the
timing of pregnancy (also known as spacing children). Family planning may encompass sterilization,
as well as abortion.
Family planning services are defined as "educational, comprehensive medical or social activities
which enable individuals, including minors, to determine freely the number and spacing of their
children and to select the means by which this may be achieved".

In the Philippines, the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 guarantees
universal access to methods on contraception, fertility control, sexual education, and maternal care.
While there is general agreement about its provisions on maternal and child health, there is great
debate on its mandate that the Philippine government and the private sector will fund and undertake
widespread distribution of family planning devices such as condoms, birth control pills, and IUDs, as
the government continues to disseminate information on their use through all health care centers.