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Thu September 27, 2007

How pregnancy is tied to violence

Violence Policy Center
Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault
 
 
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By Devona Walker
Staff Writer
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.


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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