Elizabeth Marquardt — who opposes equal marriage rights, because (she says) if we recognize same-sex couples that alters the meaning of marriage and heterosexual fathers will lose connection to their kids — writes:
New Child Trends report: 1 in 6 Teen Girls Projected to Become Mothers
And estimates are as high as 1 in 4 in nine states!
“An estimated 18% of females nationwide will become teen mothers, according to a new Child Trends research brief. The brief also finds that states vary widely in the estimated percentage of females who will have a baby before the age of 20, ranging from 8% in New Hampshire to 30% in Mississippi.”
So which 9 states are projected to see 1 in 4 teenage girls become mothers? Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Tennessee. All of those states are well-known hotbeds of marriage equality.
So in contrast, how did Connecticut and Massachusetts — where same-sex marraige is legal — rank? In the entire country, only Vermont and New Hampshire have lower projected teen motherhood rates. Oh, and by the way, Vermont’s senate just voted for legalizing gay marriage.
So apparently we can have both equality for same sex couples and low teen motherhood rates. Who knew?
Who knew? Anyone who’s ever looked at the data.
re: Vermont. While we’re very excited to be on the cusp of legalizing marriage, do not forget that Vermont was the first state to offer civil unions. Admittedly CUs fall short of marriage equality, but it was a watershed moment laying the groundwork for the successful political fights for same-sex marriage that have come (and continue to come) in its wake.
Plus, the record of those pregnant girls marrying the fathers? Not so hot. And when they do marry, I am sure those marriages are super solid, huh?
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I live in New Mexico, and was the default Prom Queen because I was the only girl in my Senior Class who wasn’t single and pregnant. The problem is really that serious. A part of it is the lack of education past abstinence, the culture that sex makes you popular, and the fact that the young boys who impregnate these women aren’t taught responsibility. Those that are, they stick with their kids. Most of the time this is not the case.
Also I said boys because my standard on what makes a man is a bit higher than just age and the ability to put the penis in the vagina and thrust like a monkey.
I live in New Mexico, and was the default Prom Queen because I was the only girl in my Senior Class who wasn’t single and pregnant. The problem is really that serious. A part of it is the lack of education past abstinence, the culture that sex makes you popular, and the fact that the young boys who impregnate these women aren’t taught responsibility. Those that are, they stick with their kids. Most of the time this is not the case.
Also I said boys because my standard on what makes a man is a bit higher than just age and the ability to put the penis in the vagina and thrust like a monkey.
BTW I love your blog!
While I’m all in favor of same-sex marriage, I must be dense, as I’m not quite getting the connection here. Why should teen pregnancy be correlated with same-sex marriage? (Be the first to make me go duh!)
I don’t see the connection between teen pregnancy rates and the arguments raised by SSM opponents either. If anything, declining rates of teen pregnancy are evidence of the decline of traditional marriage. Traditional marriage often goes a lot like this:
1) Teenagers suddenly get married.
2) The new bride turns out to be remarkably fertile, and gets pregnant on her wedding night.
3) The pregnant woman gives birth prematurely.
4) Despite the premature birth, the baby is perfectly healthy and remarkably well-developed.
The difference between “traditional marriage” and contemporary teen pregnancy is that teen births “traditionally” involved married teenagers, while the modern institution of teen pregnancy and birth involves unmarried women more frequently than in the past. At least that’s the perception; I don’t know anything about the actual historical rates of unmarried teen births.
In the modern day, there’s a high correlation between single motherhood and teen motherhood.
In the conception of SSM opponents, SSM leads to a decline in “marriage culture,” and hence an increase in single motherhood.
So that’s the connection. And I don’t think it’s self-evident at all.
If anything, refusing to allow equal marriage rights — by creating class of families who we want to treat equally in most ways, but who are legally forbidden from marriage — might weaken the marriage culture by normalizing unwed parenthood.
There’s the basic chronological problem in the causation, in that we had a spike in single mother teen births in the 1960s. Moynihan was freaking out about the “pathological” black family headed by a single teenage woman years before the Stonewall Riots, much less any serious effort toward same-sex marriage recognition.
I think the fear is that SSM allows people to believe that the male-female couple isn’t the be-all and end-all of civilization. Women will start getting the uppity idea that they can raise children without a man in the home, so long as there are two parents there. Once they get that idea, young women will no longer feel obligated to get married before having sex/children.
Thank you, Amp and PG. I knew I was dense, should have realized it was that whole decline-of-morality-o-tempora-o-mores thing.
If you will excuse me, living in MA surrounded by immorality having finally worn me down, I have to go get a divorce, marry another woman, and maybe knock over a bank. Busy day.
I never knew how relatively high the teen pregnancy rate in the US is. Here is a couple of links.
Birth Rate 15-19 worldwide
Teenage pregnancy
Here is a partial list of countries doing relatively better…
I guess all I can say is that compared too most other well off countries the US seems rather odd in this matter.
India has a lower rate of teen pregnancy than the U.S.? That surprises me. I guess it really isn’t my grandmother’s (married at 14, mother at 15) India anymore.
Hi PG,
I agree with you that the statistic appears very odd in regards to Indian. Of course the stats do not measure teenagers under 15, maybe that makes a difference. Here a description of what is measured…
These statistics are from 2002. I do not know the trend lines, but one would think that the young women (15-19) US birth rate should not be to much larger than the New Zealand or UK level or at least closing in on them over time.
The massive gap between Canada and the USA should set off alarm bells, considering the substantial cultural similarity between Canada and the US.
Well looking a little futher some of the data in the chart maybe a bit old
this site contains more update US figures US 15-19 Live Birth Rate
it indicates the birth rate for 15-19 young women is around 43 per 1000 as of 2002
By comparsion from The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality
The birth/abortion rates
in US, England and Wales, and Canada for women under 20 (15?-19?) is
is 66.2, 60.3, 26.6 per thousand. Assuming my calculations are valid, One bright spot the US did have the greatest decrease by around 36.1% from 1990-2002, While England and Wales was only decreased bt 11.3% from 1990-2004, Canada declined by 30.5% from 1990-2003.
Some people might also think that a high rate of teen motherhood is preferable to a high rate of abortion. My understanding is that Japan, for example, especially prior to the legalization of the Pill, had a very high abortion rate. There was an actual Abortion Lobby that successfully prevented the Pill’s being available until the 1990s. It’s an interesting contrast to politics in the U.S., where Planned Parenthood is just as vested in widespread availability of contraception as in availability of abortion.
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