Community Pregnancy Project
April McCormick
MGT/522
September 01, 2014
Mark Holtzclaw

Community Pregnancy Project Teenage pregnancy is a social problem that has existed for over a century and has always been a great concern to every nation due to the numerous adverse consequences it brings on both the economy and society at large. In the middle of the 70s, teenage pregnancy had reached an astronomical height an “epidemic” by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in a booklet entitled “11 Million Teenagers” which was widely circulated at the time (Gallagher, M., 1999). In fact, put pressure on Congress at the time to pass a bill that would increase family planning fund by hundred percent as a strategy to curtail teenage pregnancy “epidemic” (Gallagher, M., 1999). The rate of Teenage Pregnancy rose from 23.9 births per 1000 teenage female in 1975 to 31.4 in 1985 and has gotten higher to 46.4 in 1994. In the last part of the 90s, the rate had dropped by16 percent. For teenagers between 15 and 19 years, the rate of teen pregnancy had dropped by 36 percent by 2002 and 33 percent by 2004 (Gallagher, M., 1999). Until recent times, Teenage pregnancy was considered an abomination and a mockery to a family. It carried a stigma and a disgrace to the young mothers and their immediate families. The young mothers were often considered sinners and the children born out of wedlock were referred to as bastards or illegitimate. The horror and the disgrace associated with giving birth to bastards or illegitimate children dropped teenage pregnancy to the lowest (Sprague, C., 2009). In the 20th Century, society has acted different toward teen mothers and their children or teenage pregnancy in general changed; society looked at them with compassion. Soon the horror, the intimidation, and the stigma that surrounds teenage pregnancy dissipated. No simple terms contributed to the