Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

How To Discuss Teenage Pregnancy Options

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Discuss teenage pregnancy optionsWe recently discussed why it’s important to discuss controversial topics with your youth – particularly if you work in a faith-based context – because it’s often those ‘hot button’ issues that can get glossed over or avoided all together.

The example we provided was discussing abortion with the young people in your youth work program or youth ministry.

Honestly, there aren’t a lot of ‘fun and exciting’ activities to help you discuss the three teenage pregnancy options – abortion, adoption or being a teen mom. Most youth will get some kind of an egg or flour bag to care of (if they’re lucky!) and then a few selected, high-risk youth will most likely be given a baby think-it-over.

However, there is a lot of information available and this can provide some useful tools to generate discussions about teen pregnancy options.

Pregnancy Prevention

Pregnancy prevention is still a youth worker’s best tool in helping avoid the whole issue of choosing between being a teen parent, putting a baby up for adoption or choosing to have an abortion. DoSomething.org has a great tool to help with pregnancy prevention – a text baby.  Teens in the US can sign up and then they and their friends will receive text ‘babies’ which will need care. This might be a great introduction to the topic of teen pregnancy and therefore the other topics associated with unexpected or unwanted teen pregnancies.

Films

There are movies and films available that your youth programs could show about teen pregnancy, adoption, abortion and teen parenting. You may just want to show clips as discussion starters or you could play the entire film. We can’t recommend many of these films personally and so suggest that you do your own research regarding the suitability of these films for your youth.

Juno

Sarah’s Choice

The Silent Scream (n.b. This film was shown to my youth group with parental permission when I was in the 7th grade. While I understand why some youth workers may choose to show this film, I’m not an advocate for shock-value or emotive tactics because in many cases I find its effectiveness to be short-term. However, I personally found this film to be important during my adolescence and so I’ve included it on the list.)

A list of other possible teen pregnancy movies

Resources

Below you will find resources that may help you in creating a session plan to talk about all the perceived or real advantages and/or disadvantages with regards to choices facing pregnant teens.

Overview of Options for Pregnant Teens from the Mayo Clinic

Possible Consequences of Options for Pregnant Teens from TeenHelp.com

The website TeenBreaks.com explores many topics including hooking up, abortion, pregnancy and much more about sex and relationships that might be worth checking out.

Teen Parents

Teaching Teen Parents

Teen Parent Resources from ABC News

Adoption

Adoption Council

iChooseAdoption.org

Abortion

Marie Stopes International

Focus on the Family

Guest Speakers

You also might reach out to local organizations and charities or within your own organization or congregation to see if anyone is willing to share about their experiences as a teen parent, someone who gave their baby up for adoption (and/or an adoptive family) and someone who had an abortion (or survived one). The closer in age they are to your teens the better but any first hand experience will always be more impactful than a bunch of statistics.

Question: Why is it important for you to discuss teenage pregnancy options with your young people before it happens? What resources would you like to share? Let us know in the comments below.

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Why We Need To Discuss Controversial Topics In Youth Ministry

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Discussing abortion in youth ministryThere are a lot of things we love to talk about in faith-based ministries – trusting God, seeking God’s will and / or direction, prayer, sex (or the lack of it until you’re married), scripture reading and faith, just to name a few.

There are a few other complex or controversial topics that we Christians generally choose to avoid. Topics like:

  • The concubine in Judges (why was she cut up and sent out to twelve tribes?)
  • Was Abraham really going to kill Issac? And why would God ask him to do it in the first place?
  • If there is a God, why is there suffering?

You know, the light-hearted subjects found in the sciptures!

And I don’t believe this is only true for the Christian faith, based on some discussions I’ve had with youth workers from other faiths. I’m talking about any faith-based ministry, be it Hindu, Sikh or Muslim. There are some areas that most of us are not interested in discussing with youth at all, but particularly not in a faith-based setting.

Here is my problem with that.

If not then, when?!

If our youth ministries aren’t the safest place in the world to explore complex issues that bump up and sometimes grind against our faith, then where can youth discuss it? Where can they learn about it? (And I’m not talking about the 1.6 youth in your ministry who have a great, open relationship with their god-fearing parents to discuss these issues – I’m talking about all the others). They’re going to figure it out on their own, at school or with their friends, who may not share their same faith.

I have a key example of this, often very controversial when I share it, so brace yourself:

It starts with an ‘A’ and it’s not the subject of a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.

Abortion

I think we should talk about abortion with our youth.

And not just in a ‘don’t do it’ kind of way. In a, ‘there are three options when you get pregnant, let’s talk about each of them, their benefits and their dangers and then make some choices that are informed by our faith’ kind of way.

Abortion is a choice for most young people in the world today – even those in our ministries.

It may not be one we want them to even consider. But it is one the world is going to offer them. And it’s going to be very seductive… an easy fix… No one would even have to know.

You’ve got all kinds of good stuff there to explore – integrity, safety, parental care and relationships, sex, choosing life over death, choices… and for people of faith God has a lot to say about all of that.

We need to talk to our youth about how decisions like these can be impacted by their faith. Every youth ministry I’ve ever been in or around is quick to point out to youth that faith isn’t just a Sunday morning / Wednesday night kind of thing, it’s an all-the-time thing. That would stand to reason that faith should have a part in the decision making process, starting during adolescence.

And not only should our faith impact our decisions beforehand; it can also carry us, hold us up, give us strength, forgiveness and healing when we make poor choices. Which we all do. And our youth are going to do that too.

Faith should also then be our compass on issues that are controversial, even when they affect others and not our youth directly. Youth ministries are a great place to learn about compassion, loving others, peace and joy.

So talk about abortion, LGBT issues, gun rights, immigration, concubines and suffering. And teach the youth in your ministry how to view them through the lens of their faith, rather than putting on the blinders that say ‘these things don’t exist for you – you have faith.’

Question: What do you think – should we openly discuss things like abortion in youth ministry? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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