The price we pay?

Assalamualaikum wbt… Bismillahirrohmanirrohim…

To start with, the decent looking girl came to my clinic accompanied by her ‘boyfriend’. I was absurd by the way they acted because they looked like a just married couple if not more than that. I questioned her about her last period and she said that it had just passed one week ago. Her abdomen looked normal and apart from the fact that she looked a bit pale, she appears to me as being normal. I then asked her further about her boyfriend and stated that their relationship is very inappropriate for Muslim, unmarried couples. I stressed that she should have come with her parents or guardian rather than that friend of hers. She had objections at first but later she agreed to what I just said.

I ordered a urine test on her and to my dismay both of them entered the main door to the toilet together. It is a separated gender toilet behind the laboratory but the main door to both is the same. I had to instruct my nurse assistance to go investigate. Finally we managed to send one of the staff from the lab to observe the girl and kindly escort her friend to wait outside. There were no dramas.

She finally entered my room about 15 minutes later and the result of the test was positive. Despite this, she still denied of any sexual relationship with anyone before this. At that time my Specialist was not around and we could not manage to do a pelvic ultrasound of her. I then called the nearest klinik kesihatan to her house and informed them to follow up this young teenager with her unborn child.

This case saddened me a lot and I must admit this was not the first time I encountered such patient. I used to work in a Neonatal Unit and there were many babies born from unwed pregnancies. Because my patient looked decent, I questioned her further and found out that she currently lives with her aunty because both her parents were separated. She has left school and is still in touch with her parents who are both working in suburban Johor Bahru.

Thinking about the case, I guess as teenagers the price of growing up nowadays is huge. Especially with the advance of technology which has turned the world into a no boundaries territory. Physiologically, when a child reaches puberty, the surge of hormones internally prepares their body for further human developmental stage as well as uplifting their emotions in preparation for a relationship and later on being a parent. When this development is not guided by Iman to Allah, a teenager becomes lost and tend to follow what their colleagues do or what is portrayed by the society as being ‘normal’. To add salt to the wound, society today, being far from Islamic teachings and adherence has portrayed a lot of immoral activities as being acceptable. Society has turned away from being guided by Al Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet saw to laws of ‘human rights’ and the Western culture, in the name of modernization. They fail to realize that Islam offers the greatest human rights and modernization with the sole inspiration of being the khalifah of Allah. We may remember that the wahyu was sent onto the Prophet SAW, at the time when Saudi Arabia was not developed technologically or culturally compared to the adjacent mighty Roman Empire. However, as soon as the understandings of Islam spread, Islam reached a civilization that has never been achieved by Rome or any other civilizations before or after that.

When we talk about society, we need to remember that the grassroots of society is the family unit. And this is where my interest lies. As I have stated before, when I explored the background of the patient, we can clearly see that she grew up in a disordered family setting. And therefore she is not the only one to blame for what has happened.
Dear parents, we need to realize that in this challenging world, a child has to grow up knowing who they are and what is their purpose of life in this world. Without this ‘agenda’, time and tide can ruin a child life as they have to face with a lot of influence without knowing which way to go. In the pressure of costly living, parents need to make sure that although both need to go to work, the children does not get abandoned. I don’t mean insufficient clothing or food but insufficient – Iman.

We need to realize that if we equip a child with Iman, that child will gain success of the hereafter as well as being successful in this world, however on the other hand, failure to do this, may result in a child that is only successful in this world but not the hereafter or a child that is defeated in both – na’uzubillah. I hope to see better familial ties in our society that is guided by Iman to Allah. Only then can we become a strong society and build a strong nation, Insya Allah.