You may have seen these posters around the subway and on bus shelters. They’re part of a NYC campaign from the Human Resources Adminstration, “Think Being A Teen Parent Won’t Cost You?” And they’re drawing mounting criticism from reproductive health advocates, women who had children as teenagers, youth advocates and others who say they stigmatize teenage mothers without offering any information to help girls prevent unplanned pregnancies. Planned Parenthood has emerged as a leading critic of the campaign, saying it “ignores the racial, economic and social factors that contribute to teenage pregnancy” and creates “stigma, hostility and negative public opinions about teen pregnancy and parenthood rather than offering alternative aspirations for young people.” The New York Coalition for Reproductive Justice (NYCRJ) has launched a No Stigma! No Shame! Campaign in response, calling for a teen pregnancy prevention campaign that doesn’t shame and blame teen parents, particularly teen parents of color. Criticisms of the campaign are summarized on this Storify.
What do you think? Will this campaign be effective in lowering teen pregnancy rates? And what about the effect on young people who are already parents and the children of young parents?
alatos100
alexdee01
aquinoangeline
domj82
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gilmaman2
groussine100
jenn0411
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lavirone
Nicole Hala
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Deviance & Social Pathology 
I don’t think that this campaign will be effective at all. In the society we live in, it seems like having children at a young age (teenage) is a trend. Young women today are growing up in single family homes by mothers who birth them young. You can preach the usage of contraceptives but when you have shows like TEEN MOM on MTV, then the message you try to send is worthless.
I’ll have to agree with Domj82. I don’t think this campaign will be effective either. Teenagers already know the consequences that come with having sex; let alone getting pregnant. As a female seeing these type of campaigns aggravate me. Why? Because their main audience are females whom as they say have it hard already (assuming they got pregnant at a young age). Besides if you look at their posters they don’t only stigmatize teenagers overall, they specifically stigmatize colored teenagers…since the babies they use are mostly black or spanish.
I often see these posters while im taking the bus and train. I am not a fan of them and I don’t believe they are effective. I believe that there has been an increase in child birth among young adults. I believe it’s like a trend to most. These young individuals are having unprotected sex and having children not realizing the seriousness of how a child changes your life. Most have fallen victim to what they see and hear in the media about having children. So these young parents just fall in love with the “idea” of carrying a child but never think about the struggle or having a family.
I don’t think this campaign would be effective at all. Like “domj82” mentioned, it is almost like a trend for teenagers to have babies now. They are aware of what they are doing, and some of them just choose not to take precautions to avoid pregnancy. Most high schools inform you how to stay safe if you’re sexually active, but it seems as though teenagers today don’t even care. It’s really unfortunate that so many of them assume it won’t happen to them, but there are already so many informative commercials and posters, why would they listen to this campaign?