And I guess the newest episode happened after your post, but it is interesting that the characters who support the girl’s decision to abort (Tim Riggins, her mom, the football player kid she slept with) are presented as cool and rational, while the pro-lifers are presented as lunatics. Honestly, I kinda suspect that when those episodes air on NBC, there might be a bit of a hullaballoo from pro-life groups feeling like they’re being portrayed as a bunch of ignorant, opportunistic, meddling rednecks.

Well, yeah, it’s hard to be a teen parent. A lot of what makes it hard is the fact that pretty much everyone thinks it’s so goddamn awful. Of course it’s hard to be a parent before you’ve established yourself in the world, but the constant shaming of young mothers makes it harder to then establish oneself in the world.

For instance, I’m applying to colleges right now. Going to college with a child will undoubtedly be a challenge, but what infuriates me is that I know the admissions committees are going to be discussing whether or not teen parenthood is such a massive mistake that they shouldn’t accept me. If they decide it’s a mistake, then it will be much closer to having been one. If they don’t, it won’t. It’s maddening that so much of the quality of my life is determined not by my choices but by people’s reactions to their own internalized fear of my choices.

2) I agree with you that forcing someone to have an abortion is … well I hesitate to qualify actions between a hero/villain dichotomy, but it is certainly wrong and a complete removal of agency, which is why I think it was such a complex and interesting episode. The point I was trying to make, however, is that of the few times recently on TV that an older-than-teenage adult, authority figure has encouraged their child/student to have an abortion / one of the teenagers almost has an abortion, the context of the story puts the adult’s choice and action, and therefore themselves in a villainous light. The other recent storyline that I can think of, Friday Night Lights, where the teenage girl herself chooses abortion, the adult/authority figure involved makes it very clear in her handling of the situation and the way she discusses it, that the girl’s decision to have an abortion is rare and not normal, therefore abnormal, therefore marginal. In other words, the way that abortion is dealt with on TV/film usually marginalizes it in a place where either the woman/people in question who are considering it are either a) villanized (Naomi), b) abnormal/different, or c) consider it but then reject their decision (Juno, for instance, and I think maybe what you may be referring to in Secret Life – again, I haven’t seen too much of it). In other words, it’s clearly represented as the minority choice, if not the wrong one.

4) Teenagers did have babies and always will, true. I agree with the reproductive capability/sexuality, that’s why, in my own personal beliefs, birth control options and abortion should be a fully available and explained option to women and men, regardless of age. That doesn’t say that a person has to choose to use either, but for quite a lot of people, those options are either not readily available, aren’t explained, or are cast in an abnormal right, so that those who might choose to not have children, may not have that option.

5) People have accidental pregnancies all the time. I don’t know if adults have them more than teenagers, but I wouldn’t be surprised – on top of that, I think there are a lot of adults who aren’t ready or weren’t considering having kids yet, either.

Ok, so. I wasn’t trying to argue that I think abortion is the better, or harder choice. I do think that abortion is often portrayed on the media as being a really difficult choice (a lot of scenes where a pregnant woman goes to the abortion clinic, and then changes her mind; again, Juno springs to mind here), but I think that choosing to have the baby, keep the baby and not put it up for adoption, is probably just as hard if not a harder choice. And I actually wasn’t saying that more babies should be put up for adoption, or even that only white, middle class families should have kids. I emphasized the economic status and race of the people involved in most of these decisions because I think it often is telling of what the writer is thinking. Why, for instance, do they have Naomi, African American, fairly well off, and adamantly pro-choice herself, so against her daughter having a baby? Why is one of the mom’s of the pregnant girls in the pregnancy class, who they always show as pissed off (and who had her daughter as a teenager herself) portrayed as being much poorer? I think the way that sex and sexuality and pregnancy, and even teen pregnancy, carries these unspoken ideas and connotations that connect these things to class and to race a lot, and so it’s interesting and I think, important, to see who is being shown doing what, and why.

Obviously, not every teenager who chooses to have a baby is going to be unsuccessful in doing so; I don’t know your story or anything about you, obviously, but from what you’re saying it seems like you have been, and probably are a better mom then a lot of so-called adults who have parenthood thrust upon them, or even wanted that. That said, I don’t think saying that for most teenagers, raising children is going to be more difficult is an arbitrary claim. The ability to make enough money to support oneself and one’s child, the fact that (and you might disagree with this) teenagers in our society aren’t considered adults and often don’t have the same rights, and, in my opinion, often life experience are all factors in this. Then there’s just, to me, all the sacrifices a 15, or 16, or 17 year old would likely have to make in her own life to raise a kid. Again, that’s not to say it can’t be done – I have friends at school who have toddlers – and have managed to do it. (Whether they’re happy or not about it is a different story, but that’s obviously them.)

I’ll be honest – I am concerned about teenage pregnancy. What I’m concerned about is the knowledge and messages that are available to young women. So if a girl’s sex education in high school sucks, or she’s not paying attention anyway (because face it, a lot of teens just don’t really pay attention), or it’s abstinence only education, and then the other education, the one more likely to sink in, is what she sees on TV, then I’m concerned about the messages, and that those messages aren’t nuanced enough.

Personally, for me, I think abortion is a better choice, but the whole point about the “pro-choice” slogan is the choice factor. What I would choose wouldn’t necessarily be what I would choose for others; what’s more, if I had gotten pregnant when I was a teenager, I may not have gone the abortion route.

And Charlie, I think you’re right; lots of people forget that and try to force their ideologies just as much as someone who is anti-abortion might. But I think that teenage sex and sexuality, and then, pregnancy, birth control, abortion and adoption, is so, so hugely misrepresented and skewed in the media, and I think that leads to huge problems in awareness and agency. For some, abortion may be the wrong answer, but for some, it may be the right answer. (I’ve read your site, girl-mom.com, and I think it’s pretty cool; quite a few of your posters decided that abortion was the right choice for them, and they were very clear and articulate about why.)

But for those of whom it may be the right answer, the visual message they turn to often represents abortion – for teenagers especially, because I feel like for adults on sitcoms, abortion is much more casual and “acceptable” an action – again as 1) against the norm, 2) wrong, on a religious, moral/ethical, or emotional choice and 3) makes it seem like abortion can and will only result in depression and regret.

What’s unfortunate to me, is that, for as many of young women there are like you, I know of many women and men who are my age or younger, who didn’t have abortions, didn’t put their kids up for adoption, and regret their decisions for various reasons – they can’t support their kids the way they wished to, they can’t have the life they wanted, they just didn’t want a kid to begin with – and I think, and I hope you’d agree with me, that that’s a huge problem for both those kids/babies themselves, and, forgive me, those other kids – late teen and early twenty-something adults who are, in some ways, still children.

Again, that’s not to say that all teenagers are incapable or shouldn’t have babies; I just can’t seem to figure out why it’s so prevalent on TV; and if it’s going to be, then I’m concerned that, as the above poster stated, there aren’t a variety of options explored to the same extent of unbias.

Anyway, I don’t usually comment on my own writing because I think it’s taking advantage of journalistic “authority” or what have you, but I did want to respond to your post, and I hope I did it in a way that may have explained myself better.

If life then is somehow imitating “art”, or whatever we are calling television now-a-days, as Julie asserts, it is essential that teens are able to see a variety of ways to deal with this issue on the idiot box, if only to realize the extent of the choices they have in this situation.

1. Secret life on ABC does show teenagers having (lots of) protected sex. Condoms are shown, talked about etc. Abortion was also discussed and offered by a parent as a viable option.

2. Forcing someone to have an abortion is villianous and is not prochoice. This is a real issue lots of teenagers face.

3. Being prochoice means believing that people have a choice to parent, whether are not you think they are “babies”, wealthy enough or white enough to become parents.

4. Teenagers have Always had babies and always will. They are reproductively capable and are sexual beings.

5. “Adults” have more accidental pregnancies than teens; just ask your parents. But there is no uproar there.

I think this article has the tone that abortion is somehow a worthier decision/ harder decision for a teenager to make. As a prochoice teen parent that seems sort of silly to me.

Why does the author think more teenagers should give their children up for adoption? To fuel the white middle classes hunger for infants? Because they are arbitrarily incapable of parenting?

I agree that abortion should be discussed more and be more accessible but I disagree that it is automatically the “more correct” choice for a teen to make. There is no “correct choice” unless you are talking about an individuals decision of what to do with their body.

I an glad there is finally a diverse and more nuanced representation of teen parenthood in the media. And also, why is it such a sin to show a minor parent being happy/succesful?

Just some thoughts.
Charlie Rose
Previously 16 and pregnant, student, activist and mama extraordinaire.
Member and former site producer of girlmom.com