Teenage pregnancies go back in time. And, pending the advancement of sex education efforts across and beyond Nigeria and Africa, the challenge is likely to persist.
For context, besides the baby’s welfare, a young girl’s response to a teenage pregnancy can have life-or-death results.
These teens both had unexpected pregnancies. However, each one resulted in two very different outcomes.
Danielle Yonemura could have been considered a poster child for abortion, but instead became a mother at the tender age of 14. Disregarding advice that a baby would ruin her life, Danielle rejected abortion and gave birth to a little girl named Leilani.
This young struggling mother graduated from high school in the top ten per cent of her class. And just last month she received a degree in nursing. It wasn’t an easy road. At one time Danielle was homeless. Even so, she beat the odds and became a success story.
The naysayers were wrong on two counts. Not only did Danielle achieve her career goal as a teenage mother, but Leilani was the reason behind her success.
Danielle Yonemura Facebook
As Danielle embarked on her academic journey, she came to the realization that her baby’s future depended upon her making it in this world. Through thick and thin it was her daughter who spurred her on. She called Leilani “my light in the darkness.”
The choice Jessie-Maye Barlow made was starkly different from Danielle’s – and sadly, so was the outcome.
Not wanting to have given birth a second time by the age of 19, Jessie and her partner, Daniel chose abortion and she opted for the chemical abortion pill.
Jessie experienced one of the most common complications of chemical abortion – part of the baby and/or placenta was retained in her womb. In Jessie’s case, she contracted streptococcus B.
Despite both surgery and medicines, Jessie wasn’t able to fight off the aggressive infection and she lost her life.
Though widely rationalized, abortion should not be a response to an unexpected pregnancy, even under the most stressful circumstances, like Danielle’s, who became a mother at 14. In spite of others declaring Danielle’s pregnancy a ticket to failure, the opposite was true. Her baby was the motivation behind her success.
And the further good news is that Danielle isn’t an exception. There are several triumphant stories of many women facing and overcoming the challenge of unexpected teenage pregnancies.
Finally, expected or unexpected, children can be experienced as a blessing, not a curse, and if you know someone currently at this juncture, you can remind them that human life should always be welcomed, either through parenting or by making a good adoption plan, as it suits them.
