I suspect that this happens a lot in the same families and it doesn't make headline news. Wasn;t there a programme on about teen pregnancy, perhaps a year ago, and there were two sisters age 14 and 15 competing to see who could get pregnant first.
Babies are the only things that give these girls status, so, if their sister or friend has one, they are likely to want one too.
I agree with MP - I don't believe there are that many accidental teen pregnancies. I believe there are a lot of pre-meditated teen pregnancies.
I don't know what the solution is though. I wonder if those benefit amounts are accurate - the amounts do sound excessive? Perhaps more babies should be adopted out to childless couples() and that would start to have a knock on effect on the types of teenagers who purposely get pregnant because they want a baby to play with. It would be unfortunate, however, to penalise those teenagers who do accidentally get pregnant and who aspire to study and work and look after their child.
Perhaps dads should be made to pay (why is this so imposible to achieve?) for the consequences of their few minutes of reckless fun so that they would start to take charge of contraception use to avoid being out of pocket (from salary or benefits) for the following 16 years of their life.
How do we start to give these types of teenage girls aspirations? When society doesn't even appear to respect the teaching profession anymore, how do you make young girls feel good about themselves if they are destined to work in a shop or factory. Doesn't everyone just want to be a footballers wife or a pop star these days?
Certainly, teacher and school bashing needs to be given a rest by the media. It must be so demoralising to educators to have to read this drivel time and time again. Teachers are NOT these kids' parents.