I read an article on msnbc.com yesterday that I can’t get out of my mind. The headline read: “Fewer U.S. teens are getting pregnant; But more unmarried women in their 20s had babies, study found.” This study was conducted in 2004, and it revealed exactly what the headline suggests: nearly 38 percent of pregnancies in 2004 were to women under the age of 25; that’s down almost 43 percent since 1990. Interesting.
Quote - ”Overall, there were almost 6.4 million pregnancies in 2004 among U.S. women of all ages, down 6 percent from 1990. Out of these pregnancies, 4.11 million babies were born. There were 1.22 million abortions and 1.06 million stillbirths and miscarriages. That means 64 percent of all pregnancies resulted in a live birth.”
Reality Check – I’m glad 64 percent of pregnancies resulted in life. But I’m really sad about the other 36 percent, representing over 2 million babies, that didn’t have a chance to experience life.
Quote – “There is some evidence that contraceptive use (for example, at first intercourse and at most recent intercourse) was increasing among teenagers through 2002.”
Reality Check – It’s tempting to get excited that fewer teens are getting pregnant. But we have to remember that these kids are still having sex…outside of marriage, at such a young age. It’s not that fewer teens are having sex; they’re just getting better at using the birth control and condoms.
Quote – “While 45 percent of all pregnancies are among women who are not married, the typical ‘unwed mother’ is no longer a teenager but in fact an older woman…About 3.5 million pregnancies were among married women and 2.98 million were to unmarried women.”
Reality Check – Again I’m glad that teens aren’t getting pregnant as often as they used to, but let’s not run past the first part of that sentence too quickly. Forty-five percent of pregnancies are to unmarried women? That’s nearly half of all babies being born without a family structure. When God created the world, he united Adam and Eve and told them to “be fruitful and multiply.” The whole concept of a family was his idea. And I don’t think this family unit was just a suggested way of doing things; I think God started things off this way on purpose. The family unit was designed so that moms and dads could have a safe place within which to bring up their children in the ways of the Lord. So what’s going to happen to when half of America’s population grows up outside of this family unit?
