Meet the Guy Who Loves Teen Births
Teen motherhood often leads to lifetime poverty, but Missouri's attorney general wants teens to have more babies so his state can get more federal dollars
I thought everyone of all political persuasions wanted to see fewer teen pregnancies. But once again, I’ve given conservatives far too much credit.
I learned how wrong I was by reading the work of the wonderful Substacker Jess Piper who writes The View From Rural Missouri. From her, I learned about some reporting done by the Missouri Independent. Give it a read.
You’ll learn Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is very concerned that if enough teenagers don’t give birth, their state will suffer “diminishment of political representation and loss of federal funds.”
You heard them, Missouri kids!
Y’all have got babies to make. Yes, you may have been hoping to finish high school or start college. Perhaps you planned to have a wonderful career.
It may be that you’re not entirely sure the person you’re dating right now is the person you want to be with forever. It’s true that the kind of person you’re attracted to at 16 is not necessarily the kind of person you’d choose to marry if you waited until you had a bit more life experience under your belt. But let’s just gloss over these things, because the Missouri GOP needs you!
Babies are cute
You’d like one of your own, right? Well, what’s stopping you? Whereas if you tried to adopt an infant — or heck, even a puppy from a shelter — you’d be told you’re too young and immature, you can probably make a baby of your own anytime you want. Truth to tell, it won’t take very long. Five minutes in the back seat of Jimmy’s mom’s car should do it.
Missouri’s AG Bailey wants to restrict the abortion pill mifepristone because it decreases teenage births, which, confusingly, turns out to be a bad thing now.
Missouri successfully closed most abortion clinics, but in response those rascally teenage girls began ordering abortion medication through the mail or driving to other states.
Thus the drive to restrict mifepristone. Whatever it takes to make sure teen girls will do their part to stop that “diminishment of political representation and loss of federal funds.”
It all makes sense now, though
For a long time, I wondered why so many conservatives fought against comprehensive sex education. Young people whose sex education consists mostly of “don’t do it!” have a lot more teen pregnancies than those who learn about relationships, consent, anatomy and physiology, contraception and birth. Personally, I don’t just want to prevent teen births; I’d like to help prevent teen pregnancies altogether. I naively assumed everyone was on board with that.
We Could Learn a Lot About Sex From the Dutch explains the high rates of birth, abortion and miscarriage among U.S. teens, who often get substandard sex education, vs the low rates of these things among Dutch teens, who get high-quality sex education. (That viral story is the most-read thing of my entire career. Check it out!)
I had long thought that conservatives who don’t agree with comprehensive sex education were uninformed; that they believed that educating young people about sex would make them more likely to try it.
But come on. Human beings require no sex education at all in order to desire sex. And even people who intend to have sex for the first time on their wedding night would benefit from some solid sex education. (I know of one elderly lady whose wedding night was … less than ideal. Her mother died when she was young and nobody else bothered to give her The Talk. It turns out she had absolutely no notion of what sex was. Her new husband had to go out and buy her a book the morning after their wedding. True story!)
Does teaching a young person about something make them more or less likely to do it? Funny thing: The people who believe drug education discourages kids from doing drugs are often the very same people who believe that sex education encourages kids to have sex.
Ironically, DARE didn’t work. I remember my son, in junior high, coming home and telling me, “Hey, did you know you can use (common item for sale at any drugstore) to get high?” Not helpful, DARE!
Also ironically, comprehensive sex education does work. The American Academy of Pediatrics endorses it.
That we ignore facts and insist we tell kids all about drugs but not about sex always confused me — until today, when it all started making sense.
Some people were never against comprehensive sex education for any moral reason. They were against it because they wanted girls to get pregnant young.
A young mother without money of her own is pliable and easy to control. You can pressure her into getting married just as a matter of survival. Do you know what a young mom busy with a baby is far less likely to do? That’s right — continue her education and get a career that allows her to support herself without having to get married or stay married to a man she doesn’t want to be with or who is outright abusive.
An early pregnancy helps funnel young women into the traditional role of homemaker. It might be the only possibility open to her.
Of course, some women do manage to claw their way out of early impoverished motherhood and get a college degree while caring for their child, but we don’t make it easy for them. If we wanted to help such mothers, we’d have all kinds of free daycare available for them in high schools and colleges.
But we don’t want to help them. The system is working exactly the way some people want it to.
Sex, drugs and immigration
So Missouri wants to put teenage girls in charge of increasing the state’s population. That’s one way, sure. But you know what else works really well for increasing population?
That’s right, immigration! Anytime we choose, we can set up a system in which we welcome well-screened immigrants into a work program. Many of these people are interested in working in food production — hello, cheaper groceries! — and in home construction — hello, cheaper housing! We can choose to open a path to citizenship for those who maintain a clean record and learn English.
It sounds like a win-win all around to me. Our teenage girls could grow up and decide whether they want to have kids once they’ve completed their education and launched a career, and we’d have all the workers and population we need.
The downside, however, is that some of these young girls would no doubt be much harder to keep in their place. That’s what this all boils down to.
I wish I could explain this to every 14-year-old girl.
About Michelle Teheux
I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My new book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class.
This is absolutely nuts. I can’t believe a politician actually said that… out loud. (Well, ok, I suppose I can…)
Still, I’m enthralled that this topic has come up since, coincidentally, I just wrote about my own teenage pregnancy in my last article.
It is a tricky balancing act to support teen moms & avoid shaming them, but also help towards the cause of reducing the number of teen births.
You’ve done a great job of highlighting *respect* for the young women that could be affected by this craziness. 💗
So this dude from a party that has stigmatized the hell out of "welfare moms" and ridicules government handouts....want pregnant teens to be his Cash cows for, uh, government handouts. That he clearly wants to spend on...not them. Fun times.