The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is Dying

Here in America, we're still dealing with the morals police who insist that the best way to prevent teen pregnancy is to tell kids not to do it. Have them attend those creepy Purity Balls with their fathers, where they pledge to save themselves for marriage. (It's my understanding that Bristol Palin attended one of those. Guess that horse slipped out of the barn anyway.)

The latest twaddle on the Concerned Women for America site is now blaming television for the rise in teen birthrates. Not the fact that comprehensive sex education programs have been banned in many states. Not the fact that the states with the highest rates of teen pregnancy are those at the forefront of the "abstinence only" education programs in schools.

Sometimes, I think that I'm the one who's delusional. I've heard enough bullshit on television the past month to make me think that I must have dreamed the past eight years, and that the Bush legacy will be one of greatness.

But then I think of the young women. The ones who are being raped every day in the Congo and in Darfur as a result of wars there. The teenagers here who, for various reasons, are pregnant before they want to be. I think of the so-called "conscience clauses" for doctors and pharmacists that basically say, "Hey. You're a slut. No, you cannot have the morning after-pill because it offends my conscience. Oh. Mr. Jones, here's your prescription for Viagra. Have a great weekend."

"The State of the World's Children 2009" says that the younger a girl is when she becomes pregnant, the greater the health risks for her and her infant.

Worldwide, more than 60 million women who are currently aged 20-24 were married before they were 18, with the most child marriages being in South Asia and in Africa.

If a mother is under the age of 18, her infant's risk of dying in its first year of life is 60 percent greater than that of an infant born to a mother older than 19.

In addition, the report says adolescent wives are susceptible to violence, abuse and exploitation. Young brides are often forced to drop out of school, have few work opportunities and little chance to influence their own lives.

According to the report in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available, 9.2 million children died before reaching the age of 5, down from 9.7 million the year before.

Half of these deaths occurred in Africa, which remains the most difficult place in the world for a child to survive.

Africa is also the continent with the highest rate of maternal deaths, with women having a one in 26 lifetime chance of dying during pregnancy or childbirth. This is four times higher than in Asia and more than 300 times higher than in industrialized countries.

Here in America, the CWFA continues to exist-despite all the evidence to the contrary-beginning with the Waxman report-that abstinence pledges work.

To whit:
We need to face some negative facts: One widely publicized study reported that girls, on average, lose their virginity at age 15, and over half of them use no contraception. They left the impression that "everyone is doing it, so all teens should join right in." Another study reported that virginity pledges don't work. That study actually compared religious teenagers who took the pledge with religious teens who didn't, rather than comparing religious teens who took the pledge with non-religious teens who didn't - quite a distortion! So the media went crazy over a finding based on an erroneous comparison.

It's crazy-making. Listening to the flaks spin so much dross that anyone attempting to extricate the facts find themselves stuck.

Sometimes, all I need to know I can learn in the local graveyards. If the CWFA doesn't believe that being pregnant is risky, that we all need to be making an effort to provide ALL women with proper pre-natal care, contraceptives, access to abortions, and assistance in leaving abusive marriages, I'd be happy to walk them through any of the dozen or so graveyards around here that have way too many graves for young women and their newborns. First wives, second wives, third wives, all buried with their husbands, who outlived his wives because childbearing killed each of them. The saddest markers, of course, are the ones where the mother and newborn are buried together.

So, I've vented my spleen. As I've said, I'm sick unto death of reading these same damn statistics year after year after year.

Do you want to help? Here are a couple of suggestions.

I met a young woman about a year ago who graduated from Wells College 2 years ago and now works at a school for orphans in
Kenya. She is fund-raising so that they may buy land and expand the school so that they can take in more of the children who need their services: education, a meal, a place to sleep. You can check out what she's doing and then feel free to donate.

If you want to educate yourself on the situation in the Congo, this year, Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues, is focusing attention on the women of the Congo. TVM events this year will go to support efforts there.

Marx once said that "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." Sometimes, in my most weary, cynical state, I think that forces conspire to keep us from ever rocking the cradle. We fill it and then we die.