Jane Fonda: Activist Against Teen Pregnancy

by Jessica Bernhard

Teenagers are lucky that famous actress Jane Fonda has adopted a cause that benefits their well-being. Certainly being in the public eye helps draw atten-tion to worthy causes. Ms. Fonda has been a well regarded advo-cate for many wonderful, worthy causes ranging from the environment to human rights. She has worked very hard to create public awareness for all of the causes she deeply believes in.

Recently, she has lent her support and solid efforts to teenagers. Ms. Fonda is the Founder and Chair for G-CAPP, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. G-CAPP was creat-ed to help prevent teenage pregnancy by helping teens develop a sense of self esteem as worthy members of their com-munities, raise money, and fight for legislation which would benefit teens who become pregnant.

Ms. Fonda is a wonderful role model for all young women concerned about the issue of teenage pregnancy. A knowledgeable spokeswoman, Ms. Fonda has one biological daughter and two adopted daughters, and confessed that she has seen the terrible circumstances that can occur when teens have children too young. "Life is hard anyway, but when a young person has a baby, then it becomes really hard to take advantage of opportunities and lucky breaks that may come along."

According to Ms. Fonda, one of the primary reasons teens have children before they are ready is because they don't feel that they will ever amount to anything, that they don't see a future for themselves. Two thirds of girls, aged 15 years or younger who have become pregnant, have been sexually abused. The average age of the girls when they were abused was ten years old, and the average age of the abuser was twenty seven. "When a girl has been abused, she has also been brainwashed," Ms. Fonda said. "A message has been sent that she is only of value as a sexual being. She has caught what Oprah Winfrey calls, 'the disease to please.' She is robbed of a sense of identity, she is robbed of a sense of having her own boundaries, a sense of ownership over her body."

Sexual activity has changed a lot since Ms. Fonda was a teen. "Kids are surrounded by a different culture and different social expectations," she told me. When she grew up, it was unthinkable to have a baby while you were still young. "Girls who did get pregnant and had babies would be sent away to a home for pregnant girls where they would have their babies and then they would give their babies up for adoption. Even in the movies, married men and women would sleep in separate beds, which differs a lot from what we see in the movies today. The problem is, today's movies don't show teens what actually happens if you have unsafe sex; they make it seem as if sex is very relaxed, as if there are no risks that go along with it."