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Preface No human experience is at once so transiently private and lastingly public as an unintended pregnancy. When the mother herself is a young adolescent, only partially educates! anti almost wholly economically de- pendent, the pregnancy is inevitably enmeshed in a raggec! tapestry of personal, interpersonal, social, religious, ethical, and economic dimen- sions. The peculiarly human gap between reproductive maturation ant! social self-sufficiency sets the stage for the problem. Many factors beyond the controleven the kenof the young people involved complicate the scene. At every point, external expectations batter on newly emerging drives, challenging young adolescents to balance immediate satisfaction anal long-range consequences radically disproportionate from anything they have previously hac] to deal with. It is little wonder that in this very complicated arena research has been difficult and social consensus elusive. Our pane! was convened to collect, review, and evaluate the data on trends in adolescent pregnancy and childbearing and on the antecedents and consequences of this phenomenon and to initiate proposals for the evolution of potentially helpful programs. We had the generous support of five foundations: the Forc! Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Robert Wood lohnson Foundation, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, all of which have clemonstrated a long-stancling interest in issues associates] with adolescent pregnancy and chilclbearing. Many have macle substantial investments in a growing body of relevant research anal a lengthening list of targetec! programs. Their interest in this study and indeecI, as a panel of scholars and experts, our interest in undertaking it is a concern about the prob- Xt
xii PREFACE lems of early unintended pregnancy ant} parenting in our society and what is known about how to effectively acIdress them. Our sponsors were models of what scholars hope forgenerous, supportive, ant! never intru- sive. The project officers were consistently helpful, but at no time was any of our work constrained by the foundations nor behoIclen to them. The staff of the National Research Council was consistently supportive, ant] our study director, Cheryl Hayes, who also serves as executive officer of the parent Committee on Child Development Research and Public Policy, was at once a colleague, a paragon, and the principal drafter of the report. Few people can approach the problem of teenage pregnancy dispassion- ately. Becoming sexually active, using contraception, considering abor- tion or adoption every step is investec} with a panoply of moral and religious questions, ant! these decisions are often undertaken alone by a frightened and immature young woman who would be considered a child in nearly any other context. A consciousness of this poignance pervades our report, and deliberately so. The panel believes that at each step- however much one may wish for a different outcome of a prior clecision- the potentially or actually pregnant teenager should be treated kindly and warmly and should] have a complete set of options available without the interposition of moral hounding or economic barriers. In general, we believe preventive strategies shouIc] be given more public ant] private support than is now available. An international comparison stucly by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, of which the pane] was benefi- ciary, proviclec! valuable insight into the role of preventive services in countries of comparable levels of teenage sexual activity. Many social circumstances are closely relater! to the problem of teenage pregnancy and childbearing. Youth unemployment, poverty, poor educa- tion, single-parent families, television content all these anti more are accompaniments and very likely determinants of the high rates of acloles- cent pregnancy in the United States. The hope for a solution to the problem of teenage pregnancy is illusory without simultaneous ameliora- tion of some of these contributing factors. Pencling such comprehensive change, the panel urges prevention rather than denial, kindness rather than exhortation, and research rather than doctrine. DANIEL D. FEDERMAN, Chair Pane} on Aclolescent Pregnancy and Chilclbearing