Thursday, March 20, 2008

That just my baby daddy. You don't get a lot of marriage advocacy going on these days outside of the Religious Right, but here's a controversial suggestion from Emily Yoffe: Get married, then have babies. Wow!

The rate of out-of-wedlock births among women 23 to 29 is now higher than the teen pregnancy rate. Yoffe argues that women who find themselves pregnant and don't marry the father are putting themselves and their children at a disadvantage both economically and psychologically. Part of what contributes to this problem is the lack of foresight and committment displayed by both men and women. Some of it is a class issue: College-educated men and women are significantly less likely to get divorced than their high school-educated peers.

I would take this a step further and say that a big part of this problem is that people do not use contraception. Whether it's because of a lack of affordable and available family planning services, lack of proper sex education, or discouragment from their social and religious communities, women aren't choosing to protect themselves. Consequently, the rate of unplanned pregnancies among poor women rose 44% from 1994 to 2001.

The problem isn't that people aren't getting married. The problem is that people won't buy condoms. Honestly, I know they're not so comfortable, but it's so much cheaper to buy a bunch of condoms than to raise a kid.

1 comment:

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