Teen pregnancy is a story people don't want to hear, but need to
I am the founder and former publisher of L.A. Youth, a newspaper by and about teens. For 25 years (1988-2013), our teen reporters learned they could be more than bystanders in the affairs of their peers and the world.
Most young people responded with utter candor when we invited them to write about themselves. In one issue, we published highly personal accounts from three teenage girls who found themselves facing the biggest crisis of their lives — unwanted pregnancy. Each described the excruciating emotions and conflicted feelings that swept over them when they received the news, and the decision-making process that followed. One kept her baby, one had an abortion, and the third gave her baby up for adoption.
Subjects like these came with the job. The most common complaints from readers were in reaction to stories about sex — birth control, homosexuality, abortion, AIDS, and other consequences of teen sex.
One of our most vitriolic critics was a high school English teacher who declared that he was withholding L.A. Youth from his pupils because it contained articles that he "simply did not want them to read." The article was about Planned Parenthood.
Crystal joined our writing staff while she was living in Skid Row. She was a runaway and confined to juvenile hall more than once. She sent an email: "I'm staying with friends, five months pregs and tomorrow I'm 18. I want to finish my story." She was tearful and frantic about the "mess" that her life had become. She couldn't find a shelter for pregnant teenagers in L.A. County. She had nowhere to live.
I drove her to the train station for a shelter in another county. She shared some stressful secrets. She was unsure who fathered the baby. It was too late for an abortion because she had a sexually transmitted disease.
I took a deep breath, tears welled in my eyes, and I could barely look at her. I needed to think happy thoughts. "I'm going to be a grandmother tomorrow. My son and his wife are having a third boy."
At the train station, we said our goodbyes. I drove away filled with sadness. Two babies coming into the world — my grandchild, secure with family, friends, all the loving support a baby would need, and the other entering the world in the arms of a teenage mother without a friend or family member by her side.
Crystal's life continued down a rough path. After becoming a mother she told a counselor she was worried about money, finding a job and permanent housing.
Her baby was put in protective services for several months and temporary foster care. He was replicating her childhood with no happy ending. The Supreme Court's decision to ban abortions means more children will be born to teen mothers with no resources to sustain them.
Donna C. Myrow of Palm Springs is the author of "Don't Print That! Giving Teens the Power of the Press." Email her at donnamyrow@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Teen pregnancy is a story people don't want to hear, but need to
