A NATIONAL health emergency, they’re calling it. Initial reaction of adults and the elderly would be to say, yes, indeed, it’s dengue, or, the use of social media is leading young people to depression, even entertain thoughts of suicide.
The emergency described by health authorities does not refer to the epidemic being spread by a mosquito, nor to the weird and wired generation but the escalating incidence of teen pregnancies. As the chief pediatrician of a government hospital observed not long ago, teenaged mothers, 16, 17 years old, were coming to the hospital for consultations or prenatal care and, of course, childbirth. Now, he’s seeing more and more of those aged 13, 14, 15.
Two short years after those words were said, how many babies have been born to girls who are little more than little girls? Popcom sees a spike in the figures. Too many, so many of them it’s now a national emergency. Poor little mothers! As the late Charito Planas used to say, every baby born is a life sentence – would that the parents realized the weight of such an awesome responsibility. Father and Mother are meant to stay together till death do them part, whereas their heirs are meant to enjoy life and outlive them, produce more branches for the family tree.
Uncannily, many parents list the unabated use of social media tools as likely reasons for the pregnancies of young girls who are not their daughters. What would the doctor say about this theory? The convention is to blame media – movies and TV and how they romanticize sex as an expression of love, magazines and books that titillate the imagination – with no mention of the role of education and that includes its moral and spiritual aspects.
It appears that the emasculated Reproductive Health Law has hardly helped in teaching the young about their health, their bodies, raging hormones and urges, learning to say “no.”
There’s no law against falling in love, though the doctor has something new to worry about. The girls who gave birth when they were in their early teens have been coming back for a second or third pregnancy – still while in their teens.
