Ever wondered what it would be like if someone actually paid you for acting sensibly?Well, based on the work of one particular youth organization, your wish might come true.College Bound Sisters is a program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro that aims to keep teenage girls in school and baby-free. The organization, which has been promoting teen abstinence and sex education since 1996, is funded both through private donations and governmental grants and targets girls between the ages of 12-18.Participants in the program attend 90-minute meetings every week during which they receive lessons in abstinence and the use of contraceptives — and they receive $7 every week they do not get pregnant, according to Fox News. If the girls choose not to take their earnings immediately, their money can be deposited into a savings fund that’s collectible when they enroll in college.Though College Bound Sisters has existed for more than a decade, it has only recently attracted media attention. Since coverage began, the program has provoked a wide-range of opinions regarding its ethical value and efficiency. But the one thing virtually everyone agrees on is that, whether the program is truly beneficial or not, people have to start looking for more efficient and innovative ways to prevent unplanned teen pregnancy.The nation’s teen birth rate, after declining for 14 consecutive years, has increased during the last couple of years and now stands at 7.2 pregnancies per 1,000 teenage girls, according to the national census. Furthermore, recent studies also indicate that three out of 10 women become pregnant by age 20, and the costs associated with teen pregnancies exceed $9 billion annually.Despite garnering support from some citizens, many North Carolinians have expressed concern over the fact that a small portion of their tax-payer dollars might fund a program that does not effectively reduce teenage abortions, but rather might implicitly encourage participants to seek abortions from less reliable sources.Far more skeptics worry that paying young girls to act sensibly sends the wrong message to today’s youth, namely that virtue can be bought at a price and that integrity should always comes with an alluring cash reward. These mixed signals, they say, primarily serve to confuse young people rather than providing them with some sort of reliable moral compass.This concern, merited or not, does present a potentially potent argument: Do programs such as College Bound Sisters attack the root of today’s problems, or do they merely throw money at them?Certainly any group or organization that intends to prevent unplanned teen pregnancy while also encouraging girls to attend college should be applauded for its good intentions. But, to be fair, we must also analyze what sort of long-term effects this sort of methodology will have on future generations, especially when public funding is involved.Once we take some of these objections into account, we should be able to recognize that the underlying problem isn’t necessarily the mere existence of teenage pregnancies, but rather the lack of a reliable and consistent ethical standard that points out the rewards of virtue rather than merely recompensing good sense.As critics rightly contend, young girls should be groomed to expect the greater reward of sound ethics rather than the immediate imbursement of blind obedience. Over time, this lesson will yield far more practical benefits for society as a whole.Besides, unplanned pregnancy is, generally speaking, a second-hand consequence of the absence of sound leadership and positive influence.
What teenage girls need, more than cash incentives or petty bribes, are reputable mentors who provide positive examples of the true virtue of sexual maturity.The fundamental lesson young girls need to be taught isn’t that avoiding pregnancy pays, but rather that it pays to act responsibly and take into account the future consequences of present decisions.Once girls start to understand the intangible rewards of accountability, they won’t have to be bought off by immediate tangible rewards.The best way to provide real incentive is by illuminating the long-term virtue of responsibility, not by hastily rewarding those who act sensibly. If young girls, as well as all young people in general, are more focused on immediate benefits rather than long-standing results, their maturity will only be stunted by a lack of judicious foresight.Practical wisdom should be the goal, not blind obedience. For today’s younger generation to truly progress, they must first realize there is an immaterial value in wise decision-making that cannot simply be measured in small cash rewards.If our focus isn’t on instilling strong moral values, our society will only wind up creating more needy children than it prevents.Scott Burns is a 20-year-old history and business major from Baton Rouge, LA.
 
 
 
 
—–Contact Scott Burns at [email protected]