Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 1, 1994 TAG: 9405020144
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As difficult as those problems were, the challenge facing a new task force announced last week - to develop an effective community response to teen pregnancy - is extraordinary.
How, for example, do you get to a young girl from an impoverished, dysfunctional family who wants to make a baby who will unconditionally love her and define for her a future as mommy? Health and social workers see such girls all the time. They don't come in for birth-control information or condoms. They're disappointed when their pregnancy tests are negative.
And how do you get to young boys who see in producing babies a rite of passage to manhood, but feel no responsibility for the girls they impregnate or the babies they make? Sex-education classes to them are a joke. So are Sunday sermons against promiscuity - if they ever hear one.
Clearly, the city manager's task force has a daunting mission, notwithstanding the news that Roanoke city's teen-pregnancy rate, by last estimate, may no longer be highest in the state. It is still way too high, still more than twice the state average.
The task force must consider strategies for overcoming not just pregnant teens' alienation from the larger community's norms, but also the larger community's alienation from teens who get pregnant.
For all the concern generated locally by this newspaper's coverage of Roanoke's high rate of teen pregnancies, for all that unwed teen mothers have become the focus of national efforts to deal with poverty and other socioeconomic wrenchers, Herbert did not have an easy time filling the task force.
He heard that government should stay out of this problem, that it isn't the city's business. As if government, meaning taxpayers, isn't now picking up the costs of welfare programs, health problems, school failures, drug abuse, bloating prison populations - all seeded in part by unwed teen pregnancies.
Herbert heard reluctance to get involved because it meant discussing matters dealing with s-e-x. Which is one reason we have this problem. He also heard, "it's not my problem" - which is another reason we have this problem.
All of which is only more to the credit of the citizens who have agreed to serve on the task force - 18 so far, a few more still to be appointed. It is encouraging that others - including residents of Salem and Roanoke County - have also stepped forward to volunteer their services.
Herbert will be wise to seek involvement beyond the city limits, to make the task force a valleywide effort. After all, teen pregnancy recognizes no jurisdictional boundaries. By the same token, the task force will do well to coordinate with Planned Parenthood's recently announced teen-pregnancy prevention initiative.
The city manager's is a diverse group joining various perspectives: doctors, social workers, educators, ministers, Planned Parenthood, abortion supporters, abortion opponents and, yes, teen-age mothers. It has now begun its work, which won't be easy. There is no magic bullet.
But despair is unacceptable. No one should believe that an energized, organized community response can have no effect on teen pregnancy. Look at the success of campaigns to reduce smoking and drunken driving.
Good luck, then, to the task force. Its members deserve the community's support, as well as gratitude, for the tough task they have taken on.
by CNB