Just Say Maybe

Why is the teen birth rate highest among African-American teens, and what can be done about it?
It is sad. African-American teens were leading the declines in teen birth rates over the years, and this is a turnaround in that trend. In fact, they are leading the increase now in teen birth rates. It comes back again, at least in terms of what governments can do, to providing better access to contraceptives for those who are sexually active.

The overall birth rate for women ages 15 to 44 is now the highest since 1971. This is the first time since then that the rate has been above the level at which a given generation can replace itself. How is that significant? Does it indicate that we all want more babies, or is it a problem with birth control?
We don't know ourselves and don't have an idea of whether that's good or bad or what's working or not. In part, that's because we don't know how many of these births are wanted or not wanted. You would find that out by asking women. That information isn't available yet. We won't know the result for a couple of years.

Should we worry about the new record high rate of unmarried childbearing? Or is it not a big deal?
It all depends on how many of these births are wanted or unwanted, or the result of unintended pregnancy. If it does mean there's more unintended pregnancy, that is a problem. But again, we don't know.

What are the consequences of all these teen births?
With teens, at least historically, we know that a vast majority of pregnancies to teens are not wanted. Only a small percentage of pregnancies and births are wanted. Even for those that are wanted, we feel as a society that childbirth should happen in the context of a situation where the parent or parents are prepared and able emotionally and ready financially to care for that child. On the whole in our society teens are still growing up, and the responsibilities of parenthood are quite great. They're going to face huge obstacles. There's certainly data to show that young people who become pregnant are more likely to have poor birth outcomes in terms of low birth weight, and so it's harder on them physically. And also it's hard for them to attain their educational and professional goals. She's responsible to someone else, and that's a burden that is hard for anybody to bear, and maybe even more so for young people.

Do we have a system set up to help these teen moms?
There are certainly programs, especially for low-income teens, like the WIC program, to assist those young people. But certainly they are a vulnerable group. They're certainly disadvantaged in terms of their start to adulthood.

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