If there’s anything that scared pregnant teens don’t need, it’s to be shamed by advertisements plastered all over their city of babies telling their moms that they shouldn’t have them. New York City’s latest attempt to drop their teen pregnancy rate is more likely to raise their abortion rate, which is already at the top with 40% of pregnancies ending in abortion.
But New York’s political team is more concerned with whether or not children drink soda, than they are with whether or not teens get abortions without parental consent. In fact, Gov. Cuomo is actually working diligently to increase access to dangerous late-term abortions in the state. It’s no surprise New York would want to run an ad campaign that holds to power to push pregnant teens towards abortion rather than steer teenagers away from sex in the first place.
Take the slogans for example. Cleverly placed alongside photographs of adorable but sad babies and toddlers, they have a collective voice that shouts, “You will never succeed at life or at being a mom! Abort now, before you have a baby, go broke, and raise a fatherless child who hates you!”
One ad shows a little girl with the caption, “Honestly Mom… Chance are he won’t stay with you? What happens to me?” It asks
if the teen mom is ready to raise a child by herself. Not only does it sell guys short, but it leaves the young mom feeling utterly alone and as though she can’t trust a person whom she may very well be able to trust. It validates many of her fears rather than alerting her to the fact that substantial help is available and accessible.
Another says, “Got a good job? I cost thousands of dollars a year.” As in, if you aren’t making tons of money, which most teens aren’t, your baby isn’t worth it because money is more important than a child’s life.
A third shows a little boy crying with the words, “I’m twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen.” This clearly tells teen moms that their babies’ lives are ruined before they are even born. It offers no help or hope for making a great life for their children.
And finally, another ad says, “Dad you’ll be paying to support me for the next twenty years.” Again, babies aren’t worth it, they take all of your money that you’d rather be spending on video games and new televisions.
These ads don’t teach teenagers that abstinence is the answer to keep from becoming a teen mom. They don’t say that premarital sex isn’t worth it because it will make it more difficult, though not impossible, to achieve your dreams. And this ad won’t be what teenagers are thinking about during their hormone driven make out session that gets out of control. This ad campaign says that our children aren’t worth our love, our time, our money. It depicts a lifetime of suffering for everyone involved if a teen girl chooses life for her child. Any young girl considering abortion, would likely be pushed in that direction by these ads. So once again, rather than helping her and her baby, society is shunning them and telling her that her baby’s life isn’t one worth living.
