Teen Domestic Abuse Linked to Pregnancy in Boston |TODAY|

Submitted by dan. on 2007-09-28 23:55.
Community Action | Victim Support

A disturbing facet of domestic abuse has emerged from a new study of teenagers living in Boston's poorest neighborhoods.... The problem involves abusive male partners sabotaging birth control as a means of wielding power over their teenage girlfriends.

In interviews with girls who had a history of violence at the hands of an intimate partner, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health discovered that more than one in four — 26 percent — reported having partners who were trying to get them pregnant through controlling means, such as refusing or removing condoms, damaging them, or destroying the girl's birth control pills. Some girls reported that their partners made explicit statements about wanting to get them pregnant.

While the concept isn't new, the numbers are. The researchers say their work is the first in general adolescent medical literature to document the role of abusive male partners in promoting teen pregnancy.

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