Ontario records, DMC’s Emmy, & teen pregnancy on the rise

With open adoption records in the news in Ontario … a situation we’ve looked at here and here recently … this take from the editorial board of a news organization in the Province may be of interest.

Pleased that the Ontario Superior Court struck down the new law that opened adoption records, the article goes into some detail on their position.

Adoption can be an emotionally wrenching process for all parties involved. Both parents and children should be free to deal with it in the way they choose. Wednesday’s decision will ensure that those seeking privacy in regard to this most intimate matter will continue to have their choice honoured.

“This is the real reason hip-hop was created — to change lives.” So said star of the style, DMC, or Darryl McDaniels to some, and now “Deliver My Children”, after winning an Emmy for his VH1 documentary “My Adoption Journey”.

With no little confidence and an admirable agenda, DMC adds:

“I have to go and fight so all those foster kids, homeless kids and at risk youth are allowed to fulfill their purpose and destiny just like me. They can’t comprehend how great they are already. And for my fellow adoptees I am going to remove the guilt and the shame from the triad, birthmom, adoptee, and adopted parents, and thus will remove the pain.”

I wish him luck.

And a couple of stories about a bump in teen pregnancies have me thinking along those lines this morning.

The first, this one out of Utah, suggests that schools aren’t doing the job they should be doing when it comes to educating teens on unwanted pregnancy, then goes on from there.

I don’t know how helpful it is to insist that “twenty years ago, most teen births in Utah were to married couples”, and set that against present day figures that show that more than half the births from kids 15 through 19 are to single moms. I’m thinking that this has more to do with fewer shotgun weddings rather than less pregnant teens, and having done that wedding thing myself at 17, it seems an improvement to me when folks are less prone to add insult to injury.

The info that adds that only 4% of these teens relinquish for adoption today and that many more did in the ’60s sounds like more to do with progress, as well.

On the ‘no progress’ front, however, and possibly having the most to do with the fact that the number of pregnant teens is rising, could very well be that under Utah state law, no person under the age of 18 can receive any information about family planning services from state-funded agencies.

Gee, that rings a bell. Sounds very much like 1969 when I got pregnant.

The number of pregnant teens is on the rise in Alabama, too.

Officials are looking at factors that might be contributing to the rise, including whether more teens are choosing to have sex and whether fewer of them are using contraception.

Well … DUH!

The Alabama Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, an organization that takes an “an abstinence-only approach when speaking at schools, as required by the state”, suggests this is an issue that “everybody needs to pay attention to.”

Can we hear that “Duh!” again, please?

And can I share a little hard-earned wisdom here? Speaking from experience as a teen mom myself, I can vouch for the fact that information does not get a girl pregnant.

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