The choices: Abortion vs. adoption vs. raising the child.
The majority of teens who carry their pregnancy to term, (90% of European and American teens and 97% of African American teens), decide to keep their babies rather than give them up for adoption.  Trends suggest that these girls tend to chose adoption as a last resort.  On average, an adolescent girl would rather abort an unwanted child than to carry the baby to full term and then relinquish her baby to an adoptive family (2). 

The role of socioeconomic status. 
There is a marked variability in the rate of adolescent child bearing across socioeconomic groups.  Middle-class women are more likely to elect abortion as an option than are women of poor socioeconomic status.  This is, in part, due to the unavailability of birth control education, medical, and family planning  resources to the poor. As a result, the heart of the child-bearing issue is mostly found within the boundaries of low socioeconomic status (2). 

Why are babies having babies? 
National surveys have found that 85% of births to women aged fifteen to nineteen are unintended.  These same studies, having delved deeper into the issue, also found that many young women claiming not to have wanted to get pregnant are actually ambivalent, not unequivocally negative about the prospect of having a child.  Research has also shown that younger female siblings of adolescent mothers may be more likely to become teenage mothers themselves.  This is in part because their older sibling may be conveying to them an unreal picture that early motherhood wins approval and happiness (1). 

Risk factors contributing to adolescent pregnancy.
There are a variety of personal and demographic characteristics that place certain teens at risk for premature pregnancy.  These include: low self-esteem, low self-worth, difficulty with goal setting and future plans, engagement in risk-taking activities, defiance of the social norm, limited knowledge of their own bodies, difficulty using information about various birth control methods, and these adolescents may be biologically mature yet emotionally limited, and have minimal structured religious orientation (2). 

Cause for the trend.
The increase in adolescent sexual activity and the resulting pregnancies, abortions, and births can all be summed into several deciding factors: A decline in the number of teenage marriages, increasingly early onset of puberty, a change in the norms of sexual behaviors in the direction of increased sexual activity, or a change in youth culture.  Teens who are born to teenage parents themselves are also more likely to become teenage parents (2). 

2.  McWhirter, A., McWhirter, B., McWhirter, E., McWhirter, J.  (1998).  At-Risk Youth: A   Comprehensive Response for Counselors, Teachers, Psychologists, and Human Service  Professionals.  Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.