Alyssa Milano's #SexStrike won't work, but we need to talk about abortion
If ever there was a debate without end, it is this one, which pitches two of our most cherished American values, life and choice, against each other.
Back in the 1990s, I thought President Bill Clinton came up with the most diplomatic balance between the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" sides when he aimed to keep abortion "safe, legal and rare." These days, the emboldened anti-abortion side quotes the response given by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, against his state's new law that eases access to late-term abortions: "dangerous, imposed and frequent."
Yet, despite the fury of those who call our national abortion rates a crisis, it is too easy for us to miss or devalue the good news: Teen pregnancy rates have continued their steady decline in all racial groups that began in the early 1990s.
In 2016, there were 20.3 births for every 1,000 females ages 15 to 19, of which 89 percent occurred outside of marriage, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services statistics. Yes, that's higher than many other developed countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, but it's down by 9 percent compared with 2015 and down by an impressive 67 percent from 1991, when the rate reached 61.8 births per 1,000.
What accounts for the decline? The Pew Research Center cites the economy as a factor, but teen pregnancy rates have continued their decline through economic ups and downs. More decisive factors appear to be less sex, more effective contraception and more information about pregnancy prevention.
Yes, young people have been having less sex, even without an organized boycott. We need to know more about what's going right and why. But, so far, the words that a savvy social worker told me years ago still stick with me: If you want a young person to avoid pregnancy, give her a future worth striving for.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
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