How will money fix teen pregnancy?
Teenage girls in North Carolina ages 12-18 are getting paid a dollar a day not get pregnant.
It’s part of a new program from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro aimed at keeping girls baby-free and in school. All the money a teen collects goes to a fund to pay for her college tuition.
The $75,000 a year program is funded by taxpayer dollars in the form of a grant from the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, according to Fox News. The program also includes 90-minute meetings every week and to participate, girls must have never been pregnant, be enrolled in school, have a desire to attend college and have had a sister who gave birth before age 18.
In the Fox News article, Brown claims that the program is successful, and said its critics should consider the “cost of a teen getting pregnant.” But many remain skeptical:
“It makes me a bit uneasy,” said Bill Albert, chief program officer at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “I do have mixed feelings. It’s hard to pay people to do something that we think they should be doing regardless. It would be like if you didn’t want young people to experiment with marijuana, you’d pay them not to do it.”
A similar program in New York City also caused some controversy. According to a June 8 article in the New York Post, students were also paid to get good grades. The Sparks program that pays seventh-graders up to $500 and fourth-graders as much as $250 for their performance on a total of 10 assessments proved to work and improved students’ scores since last year’s state tests by margins above the citywide average.
Because of the New York program’s success, other states are catching on. But is money the only way to motivate teens to do the right thing? It seems that these programs are taking the easy way out by offering money. Shouldn’t the price of making a bad decision be enough to motivate teens to make the right one? Is money really the only way to influence teens today?
When students stop getting paid, what do you think will happen? What might the long term effect be?
What about male teens? Isn’t it only fair that they pay them for not getting anyone pregnant too? After all, they too have a responsibility to practice protected sex.
If they are the kind of girl that are having sex at 12 yrs old then they may not be thinking the way people think they think….This is how they will look at this……….If I dont get knocked up at 13 I get free money for college, Thats ok, but if I do get knocked up 13 and get to collect welfare, food stamps, free school supplies for the kid, maybe later a habitat for humanity home, lets not forget the endless handouts by churches and other bleeding heart groups..
Like it or not many girl do this ON PURPOSE just so they can live off the govt their whole lives….just like their mom did…Sounds to me like getting knocked up still pays better…. THAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE. Too much money being past out as a reward.. So much free money they have no reason to be responsible and not get pregnant.
Boyd, I too, want unwanted pregnancies to stop. The problem I feel is that the parents are not being truly responsible for their actions. They must be forced (and physically, if needed) to support their children first, and then themselves second. Imagine a situation a hundred years ago where the parents have an unwanted child. There is no “government aid.” It’s not the child’s fault they were born and not the taxpayers’ fault, either. As long as there is something to fall back on, the parent’s are not worried about having more kids. I can see it now, if we have more kids we don’t really want, someone else will take care of them anyway. Also of note, I agree with helping those children who were born with disabilities since they never had a chance, unlike any people who created their disabilities later by their own irresponsibility (like if I was drunk and lost my legs in a car crash I caused, etc.) It all comes down to whether the person caused their problems or their problems were already created for them before they had a chance.
ok, sorry for the negative. Just had a thought. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just provide free abortions?
Let the cascade of anger commence.
Only a combination of welfare state bureaucracy and academic social work could come up with something this stupid. Given the unremarkable career of the current community organizer in chief, I expect we’ll see more idiocy like this.
I think abortions should be free. They are expensive to have done and if you are poor or drug addicted there is no help to come up with the money.
I really don’l have a problem with this. They have meetings to teach the girls about abstinance and proper use of birth control, they make them feel as if college is obtainable, and it’s a lot cheaper to all the taxpayers. The money is deposited directly into a college fund and can only be withdrawn for college tuition. If the girl gets pregnant, she doesn’t get the money. As for those saying what about the guy, get real! Typically guys put the responsibility of birth control on the girl, if the girl gets pregnant, the guy can walk away and continue on with his life and he isn’t going to be a burden on the taxpayers.
I am just old enough, I think, that I can remember the last days when a girl got pregnant in H.S., they hustled her out of there and sent her to a pregnancy school, where she could deliver in shame. There was one girl in my H.S. class, pretty, innocent looking thing, who a friend told me that’s the reason she disappeared for a year. I didn’t believe him at the time.
Harsh, yeah, but how many other girls didn’t get pregnant (or got abortions) because of that treatment?
Today’s “answer” is to have a day-care on the school grounds and disguise it as a day-care center for the entire community.
The question should be, what minimizes the cost and disruption to society. We have (or had) a teen pregnancy rate that is (or was) seven times higher than the NEXT HIGHEST industrialized country in the world. That’s because we fund it. We fund it because socialist, 1960’s era liberals have hijacked this country and turned it in the social chaos we’re living with and paying for. I’m not anti-sex. I’m not even anti-teen sex. I’m anti-taxpayer-pays -for-your-stupid-decisions. END WELFARE NOW.
Yes d-artagnan, clearly those liberals created day care in schools because they believed that workers should own the means of production. Who knew?
While we’re at it, why not eliminate funding for the prosecutor’s office. After all, if your family isn’t the target of crime, why should you have to pay so that some “victim” can have the satisfaction of having a perp put in jail? Why shouldn’t they have to pay for that on their own?
pay kids to go to school (which is a privlidge that we provide free education in this country) otherwise they won’t go. Pay kids so they won’t get knocked up. Should we start paying gang members a dollar every day they don’t kill someone? Heroin addicts every day they don’t shoot up?
We are controling human behavior like pavlov’s dog, and I don’t think the behaviors that are being learned are very positive at all. People won’t bother to improve upon themselves without an IMMEDIATE financial gain….as opposed to waiting for the financial gain that comes with time from having improved yourself.
What fools these mortals be.
Maybe a little shame will keep those leg together.
Instead of rewarding them with endless handouts. Shoot they make it possible for them to NEVER spend a penny of their own on their own kids.
Imagine if we actually made them pay back the welfare and take responsible for their own actions. Community service? You can bet they would figuire out a condom work then wouldnt they????