A 14 year old girl in Mayagüez (A city at the western part of the island), had a secret. She was pregnant, but told no one about it. Unlike the indie movie "Juno", in which the teen confides in her parents and friends and has the baby, this story does not have a happy ending. She had the baby on Sunday morning in the bathroom and after cutting the umbilical cord, she stuffs the newborn into a plastic bag. The mom notices that something is wrong with her daughter and after discovering the awful and bloody truth, takes the daughter and baby to the hospital. Unfortunately, the baby suffocated in the bag and was DOA at the hospital. Now the mother has a dead grandchild in the morgue and a daughter in intensive care, after losing a lot of blood in the birthing process. Compounding this tragedy is that if the teen mother survives, she will be charged with the killing of the baby, be it first degree or a lesser manslaughter charge.
This is what happens when there is no sex education in the schools. And no Sex Ed for parents to recognize the dangers of teen pregnancy. Advocating only celibacy and denying that teens are having more sex than ever is not the solution. People that advocate that the right for a woman to choose be abolished,in my mind, are accomplices of this crime. They like to point out the right to life. Fine. But how about a right to a life! By denying that child the opportunity to learn about the changes in her body, how to protect herself and if she chose, take care of her baby, this whole sad tragedy would have never happened. We all lose from this baby's death. We lose a part of our collective soul every time this happens. And the Road to Oblivion, keeps getting wider.
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