How pregnancy is tied to violence
How pregnancy is tied to violence

At age 14, the girl was routinely choked when she refused to have sex with the boy she was dating.

By age 15, she was pregnant by a 24-year-old man who claimed to be 20.

Another 15-year-old girl had classmates at an Oklahoma City high school who brought guns to school just for protection.

"It's too much. We're kids. We don't need to see all this,” she said. "Gangs. Violence. Dudes beating up on females. It's all too much.”

A year ago, the same girl lost a friend to gun violence. Her young friend was shot dead while standing next to her.

Now, at age 15, the girl is seven months pregnant.

Researchers say there is a direct link between exposure to violence and teen pregnancy.

A study released by the University of California-Davis indicates that teenage girls in abusive relationships are being coerced into "getting pregnant” by those abusive partners at an alarming rate.

"In addition to forced sexual relations, a refusal to use condoms, now it is even going a further step,” said Elizabeth Miller, a pediatrician and co-author of the study, which targeted about 60 sexually-active girls with abusive partners in a poor, urban Boston neighborhood. Many of the girls reported to be involved with gang-affiliated partners. About 43 percent of the girls interviewed reported their partners were actively trying to impregnate them either by manipulating condom use, sabotaging birth control use or explicitly telling them they were trying to get them pregnant.

"We were floored by what these girls told us. You think of forced sex as an aspect of abusive relationships, but this is taking reproductive control of a young woman's body,” Miller said. "For the girls whose partners were gang involved, there appeared to be some symbolic meaning to having many children, as if it were some notch in their belt.”

The study is the first in the general adolescent health literature to document the role of abusive partners in promoting teen pregnancy.

"Physicians are trained to think about domestic violence in adult terms,” Miller said. "Our study suggests that health care providers... should ask about the possibility of abuse in the relationship.”

Seven years ago, while working as a volunteer physician at a Boston clinic, Miller gave a pregnancy test to a 15-year-old girl.

It came back negative, but the young girl was pushed down a flight of stairs two weeks later.

At the time, Miller assumed all the girl needed was education, but she has since dedicated her career to better understanding how to detect the red flags of teen partner abuse.

Many who work with at-risk teens say violence is primarily about control.

"Men who are out dating young girls, they are simply predators,” said Linda LeBelle, director of Focus Adolescent Services, an international teen violence clearinghouse. "The very nature of being a predator is to abuse. It's a control issue.”

Many assume it is primarily teenage boys who are the fathers. However, men older than 20 are responsible for five times as many births among junior high girls as are junior high boys. Men over 20 are 2

times more responsible for births among high school girls as high school boys.

In 70 percent of these cases, the relationships end before the birth of the child.

"It happened. It happened. But she's here now. And I love her,” the 18-year-old said of being a parent.

Pregnant teens at Oklahoma City Public Schools balance college prepatory classes with vocational training and learning parenting skills. The Oklahoman is not identifying the teenage students quoted in this story because of concerns for their safety.

For many young girls, having a child is a life-changing experience, said Sandra Bennett, a local teacher.

One critical gap in counseling, educating and preparing young adults for parenthood is that it is limited to the young girls.

"We give support to the girl. The baby is a huge motivation for her to change her life,” Bennett said. "But there's a whole other half to this problem that we do not even address.”

Expecting teen fathers, she says, also need support and education. This stress, she says, likely contributes to them violently acting out.

"I think the young man so often sees her moving on,” Bennett said. "And that makes him angry. Getting her pregnant then becomes a way for him to hang on.”

Another dilemma of the teen pregnancy problem is the young women who quit school once they get pregnant.

About 41 percent of teens who begin families before age 18 never finish high school, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy.

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