Instead of just saying ‘wear a condom’ to our teens, what we should be doing is discouraging them from promiscuous activity. Abstinence is the only 100% effective method of stopping our teens from becoming pregnant. There should be a three step plan in order to combat teenage pregnancy. First we should teach our teens that sex is for people who love each other and that they should keep such activities to serious relationships. We should also highlight the risks of sex, both physical and emotional. If this fails to discourage our teens from sexual activity we should then encourage oral sex. This is the next best way to not getting pregnant. It is 100% effective if stuck to, but it can lead elsewhere which will cause us to have pregnant teens.

The last step should be contraceptives which are 95% effective and above. By using this three step plan, we are covering all bases to stop our teens becoming pregnant. If we just used the last step in this plan, the chances of avoiding a teen pregnancy are a lot slimmer.

Contraceptives as a whole should not be accepted as a solution to teenage pregnancy. We should narrow the category of contraceptives into one distinct group; condoms. Pregnancy, people may say ruins your life, but STDs could potentially end a life. Therefore, we should not encourage contraceptives as the solution to teenage pregnancy, but condoms. Condoms will protect our teens from getting pregnant and from getting STDS; something which other methods of contraception do not provide.

Contraceptives may cure the physical problems of teenage pregnancy by stopping it from occurring. But it will not solve the emotional problems of teenagers who put themselves in a position to get pregnant at such a young age. We have to teach these teens to respect themselves, and we need to teach them good judgement.

If we merely put our teens on the pill, then we are teaching them that they can do what they like when they like and the little pill will make everything ok. But this is not very character building! Using a condom is far more effective – along with the right education! To conscientiously think about the consequences of sex whilst in the throws of the bedroom is a display of temperance and good judgement. This is what we should be teaching our teens, not the quick solutions.