For once, Catholic Online agrees with Planned Parenthood?

For once, Catholic Online agrees with Planned Parenthood about something. Mayor Bloomberg's anti-teen pregnancy ads are both offensive and misleading. The Bloomberg administration has unveiled several ads that highlights the costs of teen pregnancy.

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NEW YORK, NY (Catholic Online) - As Oscar Wilde once put it, "A cynic knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing." Bloomberg's ads are certainly cynical. The posters, which were plastered around the city on Monday target teens and highlight the costs of teen pregnancy.

Featuring crying babies, the posters decry the expense and challenge of being a teenage parent. Posters read:

-I'm twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen.

-Got a good job? I cost thousands of dollars each year.

-Dad, you'll be paying to support me for the next 20 years.

-Honestly Mom, chances are he won't stay with you. What happens to me?

These ads highlight to cost of being a teen parent, but they also fail to demonstrate the value of every human life and the gift that is motherhood. Having a child, even as a teen, can be a rewarding and life-changing experience. While some of those changes may be challenging, the joy of parenthood is also very rewarding.

Planned Parenthood also has its problem with the ads, blasting them because they say the ads shame teen pregnancy and perpetuate gender stereotypes. Catholic Online agrees - at least in part.

Haydee Morales, vice president of Planned Parenthood of New York City said, "The latest NYC ad campaign creates stigma, hostility and negative public opinions about teen pregnancy and parenthood rather than offering alternative aspirations for young people."

Morales then called for more education, although not of the type that will actually help with the problems associated with teen preganancy. 

Teens are best served by abstinence education and being taught the value of marriage and the virtues of chastity and patience.

Though teens can - and do - make wrong choices in life. Though they can and do engage in inappropriate and immoral behavior, God does not make mistakes. Every child is an intentional gift from God and an opportunity for his or her parents to serve as responsible stewards of new life, regardless of their youth and finances.

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