Comments on: The Link Between Teen Pregnancy and Sexual Violence

By: Pregnancy As a Sign of Intimate Partner Abuse : The Curvature

Pregnancy As a Sign of Intimate Partner Abuse : The Curvature — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:45:56 +0000

[...] It’s a part of the reason why I so strongly feel and regularly advocate that anti-rape education needs to be a part of sexual health education. Of course, sexual violence is a sexual health issue. But from a strictly practical level, you can’t teach kids how to use condoms and expect that to be enough to prevent pregnancy and STDs on the whole. The current model, the way in which we teach teens (and adults!) how to use condoms and other contraception, almost always supposes that consensual sex makes up for all of the STDs and pregnancies they’re attempting to prevent. And it just plain doesn’t, as much as we wish it did. [...]

By: Blog For Choice: Sexual Rights : The Curvature

Blog For Choice: Sexual Rights : The Curvature — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:43:00 +0000

[...] connected on a regular basis. Sexual violence accounts for a particularly large number of teen pregnancies, many of which do end in abortion. Adult women are also prone to pregnancy as a result of rape, [...]

By: SunlessNick

SunlessNick — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:53:23 +0000

For instance, why would sexually abused teenagers be less likely to use birth control at first intercourse?

Among other reasons, they’re more vulnerable to pressure not to; and less likely to assert their comfort, safety, and pleasure as important.

By: Cara

Cara — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:55:56 +0000

Ryan, it does explain in the article the phenomenon of “disembodied self” experienced by large numbers of young women who are sexually abused. They do not see their bodies as their own, give that control over to others out of lack of other options and don’t really care what happens to them. You should check it out. Also, it is very possible that the first intercourse was non-consensual, but sexual abuse does not necessarily infer penetrative rape with a penis. There are many forms of sexual abuse. Also, being unfamiliar with the methodology, they may have actually asked the girls about first consensual intercourse. And further yet, the first intercourse being a rape is of course an even bigger problem.

So no, it does not undoubtedly establish a cause and effect relationship but it is particularly compelling and matches evidence that has been found in many, many different studies that girls who are raped and otherwise sexually abused are more likely to become promiscuous and/or repeatedly sexually violated.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:52:52 +0000

The quotations from those articles do a good job of pointing out the strong correlations between sexual violence and teen pregnancy but that does not necessarily establish a cause and effect relationship. How does sexual violence (aside from the 20% of pregnancies that were the direct result of rape) result in higher teen pregnancy rates?

For instance, why would sexually abused teenagers be less likely to use birth control at first intercourse? That question assumes first intercourse was consensual, and unfortunately that may not be the case. The fact that black, Native American, and Latina women are disproportionately abused suggest to me that other factors play a large role; like poverty, and as one of the articles noted, valuations of the bodies of women of color.

By: Cara

Cara — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:23:14 +0000

AC, the abstract doesn’t seem to say anything one way or the other about the number of teen pregnancies that are the direct result of rape. It’s quite possible that this finding is in the data, but wasn’t the overall point of the study and therefore didn’t make it into the abstract.

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:16:20 +0000

“Up to 20 percent of girls become pregnant as the direct result of rape.*”

That’s not what that study says.

You can read the abstract here.

http://www.popline.org/docs/0947/070657.html

By: Lyndsay

Lyndsay — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:13:40 +0000

Wow, sounds like my mom. A random onlooker would just wonder why she hadn’t been “smart” and used birth control at 16 while I know she was in an abusive relationship. And those percentages for teen pregnancy are shocking. I wonder when it first occurs to these men that women are there for them to control as much as they want. How young are they when they start thinking this way?