Unplanned pregnancy, among both teens and adult women, is also often linked to relationship abuse -- but that's rarely shown on TV.

For example, girls who are victims of violence from dating partners are four to six times more likely than non-abused girls to become pregnant, and eight to nine times more likely to attempt suicide (Havard School of Public Health).

Forty percent of pregnant women who have been exposed to abuse report that their pregnancy was unintended, compared to just eight percent of non-abused women (American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2000; 19(4); 318-
321).

Women and teens are taking action and sharing their stories at www.knowmoresaymore.org

Allison,

This article has too much common sense to be considered "modern journalism". Most will argue with you that the various media have no real effect on people's minds, especially children. You are obviously an over-bearing right wing nut for arguing that t.v., radio, movies, and magazines have any effect on our culture. Obviously, movies like Saw never encourage any bad behavior. The Hollywood marriage merry-go-round is not noticed by anyone. All of these media outlets are only promoting harmless fun with their free speech right. And mega-stars really exert no real influence on young, impressionable people. Instead you should be focusing on the real issues: like why Jennifer Anniston is mad at Anjolina Jolie or how someone got Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake together for a show. Who cares about abuse, world hunger, or terrorism- it's time for TMZ.

Jim

Seriously, Good Article!

I suppose we should ban television sets now as they cause pregnancy...similar to banning handguns as they are the cause of homicides. That is the liberal logic isn't it?

I hear the sad stories my high school daughter tells me...

A girl in English class who talks about how she loves her small son, (and is glad she has him) but she wishes she would have waited...
Some girls she knows that never seem to be well...here she's not sure if they have STDs - or are suffering minor effects of being on birth control (which affects some women tho not all).
And some girl who was pregnant (I say "girl" because most are under 18) but now had the child removed...(aborted). How is she emotionally handling that?

Now, sex might give you cancer...The HPV virus is considered a villain in the cervical cancer crisis among young girls, women (and a 30% failure rate weak Gardasil shot offered)

Last I heard, no TV show is covering all that REALITY!!!

The true cost of sex for young girls...where do you hear about that???

Just one comment here: while I generally agree with you - quite strongly, in fact - I do find that reporting in general on the correlation between watching sexy shows and engaging in sexually risky behavior has been overstated to being a case of causality. While I agree that media has an influence, indeed a very strong influence, I also would point out that no study has shown causality here. All they have shown is correlation.

It seems quite possible to me that the girls who are engaging at an earlier age sexually are more apt to do so for the same reason that they're more apt to be watching that kind of show in the first place: the engagement (or lack thereof) of their parents. Sure, the media isn't helping anything... but it's not really the root of the problem in any sense. The root of the problem is what leaves them in the position to be watching those shows, that tells them that being licentious is okay and normal.

That's much deeper than media consumption, and much harder to grapple with. It doesn't mean we oughtn't grapple with media consumption - we should - but more fundamentally, and you touched on this, we need parents who are actively engaging with their children (sons and daughters alike) on this topic.