Teen Pregnancy Shows Coming Soon

There are two new television series that plan to tackle the issue of teen pregnancy from very different angles, reported Reuters. The issue was already gaining more attention from the recent pact made between high school girls to get pregnant together and teen pregnancy on the rise.

NBC just debuted its new show, The Baby Borrowers, which is giving teen couples a "Scared Straight"-style introduction to the realities of child rearing, according to Reuters. The other show that is coming is ABC Family's drama, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, to premiere Tuesday, and avoids showing any sort of social-message agenda, according to Reuters.

Jane Brown, a professor of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, runs the Teen Media Project and said that the portrayal of teen pregnancy is having an effect that some have called "The Juno Effect." She told Reuters, "It may have had a kind of agenda-setting effect, and that's what may have happened with Juno, Knocked Up, and the celebrity baby-bump watch we're on - all that is glamorized pregnancy."

Brown told Reuters that because parents these days are reluctant to talk to their children about sex and government-approved programs are heavily leaned towards abstinence, the media has filled the void and become the sex educators. The creator of American Teenager, Brenda Hampton, countered by saying, "Teens have been getting pregnant for a long time, and without watching television."