In these situations of controlling the birth control, depo seems a good solution. The girls can see the nurse once every twelve weeks. The girls have some contraception and can see health professional 4 times a year.

It's up to both sides on the subject of birth control. Not just one or the other.

Common sense.

Just doesn't make sense, but I am getting used to that feeling.

When I was a teenager, I knew several girls whose boyfriends kept their birth control pills hostage and made the girl come over every day to get their dose. Their "logic" was that since they chipped in a few bucks a month to help pay for the pills that they had the right to make sure that the girls weren't using them to sleep with anyone else. It made no sense, but surprisingly the girls went along with it.

What the hell? Assuming this is accurate -- where do people like this come from? Who raises them? Holy jeebus.

What's truly frightening to me is that somehow these girls have received no enduring message, or it's been utterly undermined by someone or something in their lives, that NO ONE has a right to control their bodies or futures.

brickbat, what doesn't make sense?

"Said he used a condom when he didn't"?

You can sort of tell - it's not like condom use is private from your partner.

Otherwise, though - this doesn't surprise me. Remember, the study isn't about the prevalence of partner violence in general, or the prevalence of teenage boys' attempts to control their partners, reproductively, in general. It's about the correlation between those things. I find it easy to believe that the sort of person who would hit their partner would also be hypercontrolling in other ways. And pregnancy is a nifty way to assert control over a young girl.

Plus, the correlation between partner violence and pregnancy was already known, in one of its aspects - women are much more likely to be a victim of DV if they are pregnant. In fact, the odds of violence beginning only after the pregnancy is known are quite high - enough so that the State of California includes information about DV and statistics about DV in pregnancy in the pamphlets they hand you after you get your marriage license.

When I was doing adjunct work at a community college, I found myself teaching a very remedial English course. In the class was a bright young woman of nineteen. Her essays were improving and I had some hope for her future. I knew she was a teen mother, but I did not know how many children she had. I found out she had two when came to me for advice on an essay. She wanted write an essay on the decision to have a child or not and what that entailed. I expected that her thesis would be something along the lines of the difficult realities that women might face once their children are born and in their care.

No such thing!

Turns out that one of her children was about to turn five and that the other was two. In neither case had she married the children's fathers. Instead, each pregnancy had been planned inasmuch as she became pregnant and bore each of these children to please the baby's father. Now yet another potential father -- her current boyfriend was trying to talk her into having HIS child with this argument: You had those other guys kids. Now I want you to have mine.

Imagine how I felt upon hearing this. As a teacher of college age students, I tried never to judge or to interfere with the students' choices. They were adults after after all. Instead, we sat down together and I helped her outline how to approach the essay as to pros and cons. I told her I would be glad to look at her first draft. I hoped at the time to guide her to see the subject as completely as possible.

I never saw her again. She dropped the class. Working, taking care of her children, and being a student had always been a struggle for her.

It says in the summary that "teen boys" are doing this... I only read the news article that was linked, but I know from other research that I've read that a significant chunk of what we call "teen pregnancies" are the result of relationships between teen-age females and "adult" men. Did this study only cover teens that were dating teens?

If so, I find it more surprising than if it includes teen females who date either teens or adults, 'cause I tend to think that a significant chunk of adult guys who want to knock-up a teenager are also going to be reasonably likely to knock her around a bit.

*sigh.*

The idea that teen boys (and girls) are averse to using condoms doesn't surprise me. (How many Catholic boys have said "The Pope says condoms re bad", while forgetting that that the pope also frowned on premarital sex!?)

Which is scary, since condoms prevent so much more than unwanted prgnancies.

But, guys who would undermine a girlfriend taking a birth control pills? That one's harder to wrap my head around. (I mean, I understand the reasons outlined in the article, but I still don't "get it").

This same girl once asked two other boys from the class to escort her to her car because her boyfriend was angry with her and she was afraid of him. I wanted to call campus security to escort her but she begged me not to.

Putting these things together in my head, I now see that the point of the article is not at all surprising.

In retrospect, I made a bad decision on that. I should have demanded campus security rather than allowing those other boys to put themselves at risk that way.

she's 16 and her boyfriend coerced her into the pregnancy-- even after she miscarried once last year. she lives with him now, and we see bruises and have called in child welfare authorities, but they've done nothing, even though he's an adult. she'll call for help, and then "call off the hounds" before we can get there. of course, he's got her isolated in the country, and her only phone is the cell her mom pays for. no access to a car. he keeps threatening to cut off contact between mom and daughter and grandchild if he disapproves of any communication to her mom. she's a very bright girl, but is so emotionally dependent on him, she can't see straight. She never knew her own father, he never wanted to be part of her life, in and out of prison, etc., so that may be part of it. Believe me, it IS real.