welcome to the big picture i'm coming to south and i'm ali thanks for joining us over the past year we have covered many topics that are of concern to teenagers in our community from morality to drug abuse today on the big picture we'll be discussing an issue that has been in our community our country and around the world today shows on abortion we'd like to welcome guests from the senior class jackie schaefer who is a member of our basketball team megan begala who's a member of the cross country team and  coffee ready jones who is also a member of the cross country team and also katie smith who is president of the thespian troupe let's get this question out of the way are you guys pro or anti abortion and let's start with randy come from weird weird you get the like you all seem to have a pretty strong conviction you know we asked you so where did that where do you get that from hi guys well i think if you want to get to the family or item and my mom was always shelly's told me you know like i myself would never have an abortion but i was spec the right of choose and i think that people have the fundamental right to do what they want with their bodies and i think that's part of the way our country is founded and the way i think it should be people should have the right to choose what they want to do with their own body kit we are parents the same way or was it yeah my parents kind of foster an idea that it's just a basic right that women should have made what do you feel like do you get were you influenced by your parents too or was it were also yeah for the most part based on just you know everybody has a chance to live and life above all and a lot of it also comes from my religion so i mean it's beliefs that i have like learned and i've come to understand i've come to accept it's also important to know that jackie is the only guest on our show here who went to a procul school she went to st louise did they talk to you about that kind of stuff in school oh yeah we definitely talked about a lot every year in january when the march for life comes up we all get really excited we all wanted to go on that so yeah like me are pro choice in the church while others are have more of the catholics you know so the pro life stance on it so i don't really get it from that i think it's just religions do try to set up a stance or a dog position on the issue but i honestly believe that most people make that choice personally i mean not according to the religion the certainly personal choice yes and that will mean i'm sure it's going to be influenced to a degree in the religion but when it comes where you know some girl was raped and she got pregnant or you know she finds out that the baby is not going to live or is going to have some kind of like mental retardation or something like that how absolute are your views on abortion  more like what do you feel like there's an there's an instance that justifies abortion yeah i believe there's there's always the dop sion so even if you are right you should have the baby and if you feel you can still look the baby in the eyes and love your child just the same as if you had it with somebody that you loved then you should keep your child abortions i do understand that there you know a lot of issues with you know if there's great woman if you go through a lot of emotional damage but a woman can go through a lot of emotional damage just by having an abortion as well so it's kind abortion but we also took our cameras out into the halls of peter south of high school and we interviewed other students and asked them how they feel on the issue of abortion so let's see what they had to say abortion should be allowed because the teenager is seventeen and has a child what is she going to do she's able to give it up and she has that option i think it's the woman's choice abortion is something that should only right we're going to take a short break and when we return we'll be talking about teens and birth control s help the big picture we're talking to piers to our surprise school students about their views on abortion and teen pregnancy with their share of abortion comes teen birth control jackie do you think that abortion is a form of birth control most certainly i think a lot of women use it as a full birth control and i've read that ninety five percent of abortions are done as a form of birth control well when you say form birth control once you elaborate on that term and mean all the woman you know becomes pregnant does not want the child and almost uses it like she would a contraceptive just to eliminate the child kind of see i disagree you're saying your peer group in it in the same way as you are grouping at a contr e condom whether it be a condom or a birth control pill or any other form of contraception it's a conscious choice beforehand use knowing full well the consequences of you know having sex could become pregnant and taking steps to eliminate that people don't use abortion in that same way they don't understand full well ok yes i'm very well going to get pregnant i'm totally ok with getting pregnant having an abortion and i choose t as my preferred method i'm going to have multiple abortions as my preferred method like i'd rather have an abortion and use a condom people don't think that way now i agree that obviously people are going to say oh i don't feel like going to get a condom such as abortion but at the same time if you are having unprotected sex well if you don't want to have a child you will have protected sex if you want to have a child you have unprotected sex i don't think they use abortion i don't think it is i don't think it would be like you think like yes kind of after that like oh i made a mistake i need to correct it and i think that it's irresponsible actually when you engage in an activity that has consequences such as pregnancy you should be responsible enough to take that extra step to use a contraceptive right i agree and you said you know well it's an afterthought that i mean it's not really a form of birth control but it is big in a way because they're using it to get rid of a child or to not have the child would use a condom so you do not have a child yeah but it's a totally different situation i still think that the woman has to be held responsible if she's having unprotected sex i mean unprotected that's warren but you want to child protective sex ones that you do not want to child what if the contraceptives don't work well but then we're getting into hard to try to take measures to prevent it but then to not have it work and then to be stuck in the situation of having a child or having an abortion it's kind of it's kind of like you're saying like it's not it's not like the thought of it as an afterthought but it's kind of an alternative to yeah and i actually think like if like if you engage in any on activity where you don't recognize all the consequences and then something happens you did not want to you're going to be expected to take responsibility for what happened right and there's always that case where you know you can use a condom and you know there's a percentage that chance that it's not going to work so even if you took that precaution possibly there's still a chance that you might get pregnant and so i see where you're would agree that that's not really in the same league other contraceptive it's really not i mean to say that when someone makes a choice to have an abortion that's a major choice no one i've never heard of anyone who was like man i'm glad i had an abortion no one wants to do that it's a bad thing it's a bad situation and when you talk to people who have pushed things the most the most the time they say are oh i made a mistake i didn't realize this it's my fault i didn't think this would happen to me i knew it could happen but i didn't think it is well i believe that it's a life so even so i just think that they need to take the responsibility that they made a mistake like in real life when you make a mistake you're not going to have someone else take the heat for you you're not going to have you're not going to like there's isn't always going to be a way to get out of it and i think abortion is like a way to get out of your mistakes so you believe that definitely borson should be not only that it's morally wrong but then should be legal yes ok i think if you make it illegal then you're taking like that to be the worst thing that could possibly happen you know i'm not saying if i was ever in that situation that i would choose to have an abortion but i can't stand the thought of a man in government deciding what i can and apply the same kind of principles that we've used in other government programs to such a very personal very case by case kind of basis and i mean that's the problem that i have with it because i i believe along with you i think it's it's not a morally righteous thing to do but i think that i think that intrusive government into it is also kind of a mistake well whether or not abortion is right or wrong is something that maybe we disagree on but one thing that i think we can agree on is that the problem here  begins with you know unwanted pregnancy so how do you guys feel we go about combat ing this so you know maybe one day one even be an issue but you know where where do we start educating kids or you know have they are here today i think there's not enough education and schools you know we are extremely privileged about the education we have here but you know that's not the same physical dangers and just in general i just know more i think a lot of times people which is they just don't know all of their options and they just don't know what's going on as part of the education providing these options to students or is this something the schools need to take condoms on him or whatever they're going to end up getting that girl pregnant but another thing is why have sex as a teenager anyway knowing in the back of your mind five percent there's five percent chance that you're going to get this girl pregnant or you are going to end up pregnant so why not wait until you're in a stable married relationship and you know you have money for the child you know they will be taken care of in a loving relationship what were you going to say katie before i think you know i wish that everyone would think that way honestly but i think that's a bit too utopian just to see i think control is probably a good idea because considering the alternatives for high school students the best choice some of them might not be mature enough to handle it but i think for the most part of a good decision abstinence is the only acceptable form of birth control crying is pretty good so i say it's a good idea i believe the girl should only be allowed to use birth control if used for other purposes besides pregnancy prevention yes because there's no reason i think it's ok for high school students use birth control because if a girl has made the decision to have sex i think it's important to burbank teen pregnancy i see nothing wrong with using birth control as long as this girl and her parents agree on it both sides have kind of a good point because the one side says i don't have an opinion about that i think they have a choice of what they want to do i believe what we have fewer problems if the entire population would be educated and would choose to use birth control all the problems we have welcome back to the big picture today's topic is abortion katie we just saw this statistic on this on the t v do you think that parents should be informed if their teenager has an abortion i don't think it should be a law that parents should find out but i should hope that if something about major happens in you know a girl's life that she will that her parents know but you know it's so personal that i don't think that it would be right to make it a law because part of it gets into you know medical confidentiality and that that whole issue of consent of the minor and that's a thing where do you feel how do you feel about that any well i mean it's one of those things where on one hand you know i mean i do believe that abortion is a major decision and i do believe that you ought to consult your parents at least you know and get their opinion but when you have requirement for consent i mean there are some girls whose parents simply would not agree with them and i don't think it's right for parents to force someone to carry a child for nine months and have a child if they really don't wish to do so i would say there should be informed but consent maybe not necessarily is required i think one thing a lot of people don't always think about is the fact that there's not just this mother involved there's also you know the boyfriend or whoever the fathers of the child what say do you think the father has in in his girlfriend's decision to have an abortion i i really don't think he should have that much say because especially in high school relationships like there are just so transients and i think it would be wrong if he had that much say i mean his opinion should definitely factor in but i don't know him betrays you but they're going through you know they're having sex and creating something that is very very permanent but he has is he always going to be back is he going to support you is he going to support the child that's there's so many questions the it should be something that's factored into the decision but not the deciding factor when you feel about which are you from  fathers to step in and take responsibility for their actions and take responsibility for the child i have i kind of have a hard time saying that the father of the child does not have any say when he is as evolved as a woman also on how much say the father should have because it is the woman's body but if my way is that the father once the woman to changes in society and you know like what we're seeing and what's influencing us like outside of our homes and stuff like that i think we're more careless no having sex and then there was think oh i'm so scared to tell my parents maybe i'll take my friend for me to have an abortion or think one one word i heard mentioned one hundred times you know in this little conversation we've had was the word responsibility and i think there's been a change in responsibility or in how responsible people are in america and i think that change is kind of reflected in this and this is your and my wrong well i'm you know it's a you talk about how society changes i mean yeah it's change society changes all the time i mean just saying it's not like necessarily a progression yeah it hasn't been like a progression from like the way you used to be to the way it is now going somewhere it kind of goes back and forth between different areas but yeah i mean i would definitely agree that attitudes towards a subject are different now when our parents are growing up to have an abortion was completely unheard of it was just to look very looked down upon very much so whereas now it smith for coming on the show and sharing their views we'd like to hear your views on abortion or anything we talked about today you can e mail us at p t big picture at yahoo dot com that's right we look forward to hearing what you have to say we'd love to hear what you think about this issue especially so please e mail us and please leave your name and age in the body of the e mail we plan on sharing a few of your responses on the next big picture so please make sure you do include your name and age in the