cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45445434
Fox News Senior Medical Analyst Marc Siegel made some eyebrow-raising comments lamenting that birth rates are down among teenagers aged 15 to 19.
On Thursday, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the U.S. fertility rate fell to another record low. The agency reported that the number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age declined from 53.8 in 2024 to 53.1 last year. The latest figure represents a continuation of a decades-long decline in fertility rates.
Siegel joined Friday’s edition of America’s Newsroom, where Dana Perino said that while the continuing trend is not surprising, “the numbers might feel a little shocking.”
I remember when teen pregnancy was considered bad and a sign of a decaying morality across the country. Now the same right wing moralizers are saying they need those teen moms again. But this time it’s about money so they are noticeably quiet about morality.
Only locally it’s a bad thing. Nationally, they need those girls waiting tables in diners. How else is someone going to get their nostalgia kick while driving route 66?
before that it was commonplace though. I’m 61, my grandmother started having her kids at 16, she had 8, one of them my mother, the youngest of her kids. Many of her friends were similarly 15-19 having thier first kid. My mother was 19 with me, I was born when she turned 20. She had 3 kids, i have none, my sister none and my brother 2, so family dynamics have changed.
This is Australia though, you can read books of some of the early convict ships coming over and they arrived with all the 13-16yr old girls pregnant, or having had their kid on board and being married etc
You can see some of the effect in The Philippines, pregnant teen mothers are everywhere. Religious indoctrination in regards anti contraception doesn’t stop teens fucking (and this in a nation with no divorce)