The Pregnancy Project

Though many parents will find the premise of THE PREGNANCY PROJECT questionable, it's hard to deny the merit of confronting damaging stereotypes about teen pregnancies. Here, it's done in a way that touches on poverty and Hispanic communities that statistically deal more with these issues. At its core is a brilliant question that is only touched upon and never quite answered: To make a point about the risks inherent in teen pregnancy, do we have to throw teen mothers under the bus? That is to say, must we see them as tragic victims with no options, their lives squandered? Must we paint them as pathetic? Or can we show them as young women facing obstacles but not insurmountable ones? The film spends most of its time showing how hurtful these assumptions are to the women experiencing such circumstances, and near the end it finally heads in the direction it ought to get to sooner: It's just as important to provide resources for teen mothers to help them weather this obstacle as it is to preach prevention.

Exploring this topic requires navigating some mature subject matter: Sex is not discussed very explicitly, but there are lots of references to being "knocked up" or to the type of girl who finds herself there, condoms are mentioned, and one is dropped in class and handed back to a student by a teacher. A class shows teen mothers learning about gestation. The couple at the center of the film is very affectionate and presumably is sexually active. The focus here is far more about the relationships and depictions of pregnant teens and the way they're shamed and shunned than it is about providing young people with facts, so although there is a strong don't-get-pregnant-too-young, safe-sex message, this is not a good source for sex education. Better for watching with teens to bring up a more challenging level of thought surrounding all the safe-sex talk that's hopefully already happening.