Shame From All Angles: Why Doesn’t Anyone Seem to Respect Teen Parents?

A new article by Echoing Ida member Gloria Malone was just published at RH Reality Check, about the lack of respect shown to teen parents. An excerpt:

While right-wing anti-choicers hog the spotlight when it comes to judging personal decisions, people of all political and ideological persuasions perpetuate the idea that teenage pregnancy is inherently terrible, and confuse supporting teen parents with encouraging teen pregnancy.
Even among those of us who agree people should be able to make their own sexual and reproductive decisions, we’re often on different sides when it comes to how we can best support teens’ bodily autonomy. While some advocates use tactics meant to scare teens out of having sex, others focus on health education, and a few go further to ensure support for those who are pregnant and parenting.

 When a Ms. Blog writer wrote a post about the #NoTeenShame campaign, many of the commenters—ostensibly liberals, feminists, and/or progressives—were quick to sound off about teen parenthood as a terrible decision, and to argue that scaring teens about pregnancy is a good thing. For these commenters and others who think like them, it seems sexual freedom is great as long as you’re not a teen who becomes pregnant and chooses to parent.

Read the full article here.

Echoing Ida is a Strong Families project that uplifts the voices of Black women in the reproductive and social justice movements.