Touting Teen Pregnancy

Carol Platt Liebau | October 07, 2009 12:40 PM

Apparently, Teen Vogue's cover features an unwed, pregnant teen model.

Teen Vogue didn't realize that "Jourdan" was pregnant when the cover was shot, but when the higher-ups learned about the baby, they

hastened to interview the glamorous unwed mom and concluded, airily, "It definitely won't be easy, but Jourdan is also in a unique position for someone her age. Not many nineteen-year-olds have CK Calvin Klein campaigns to fall back on."

Ah, well, then. I'm sure it will all turn out great, then, thanks to CK Calvin Klein. At least now we know that all one needs to be a capable unwed teen mother is a steady source of income.

What an unfortunate message the entire matter sends to the young girls who read Teen Vogue and base their own aspirations on the lives of the glamorous girls they see in its pages.

The AOL story discussing the pregnant model includes the following paragraph:

When such life-altering situations like this one arise, we believe it's an opportunity for magazines to have a bigger dialogue. We're wondering: Was Dunn using birth control? If not, why not? Did she consider having an abortion or putting the baby up for adoption? Or keeping the pregnancy secret?

And you know what "we're" wondering? Why no one considered even raising the issue of whether engaging in sexual activity is a healthy and wise decision for "Jourdan" and millions of other girls like her.

Of course, in today's world, one would have to be a hopeless naif not to realize that a girl like Jourdan is going to have plenty of opportunities to do whatever she wants with whomever she wants. But by not even raising the possibility that refraining from sex is one viable option for avoiding the problem of unwed pregnancy, the AOL piece effectively brands as deviant the idea of exercising self-restraint rather than using birth control, having an abortion, putting a baby up for adoption or "keeping the pregnancy secret."