Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 7, 1995 TAG: 9509070101
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This newspaper had helped focus attention on the city's high rate of out-of-wedlock teen pregnancies - at the time, the highest rate in the state.
There seemed to be broad consensus on the need to ``do something.'' A task force - similar to ones that had addressed such issues as homelessness, drug abuse and racial tensions between black residents and police - was the city's response.
That was 21 months ago.
Twenty-one months is time enough for a teen-age girl so inclined to give birth to two babies. It's time enough for a teen-age boy to have impregnated numerous sex partners.
Yet, during this time, the teen-pregnancy task force appears to have gotten no further than agreeing on a mission statement. And that was more than six months ago.
Statistically, it could be argued, Roanoke no longer confronts a ``crisis.'' It's hard to say for sure, since statistical ratings are in constant flux and usually behind the times. But it appears the city no longer has the dubious distinction of having the highest teen-pregnancy rate in Virginia.
Does that mean the problem, or the need for a more concerted response, has gone away?
Hardly.
Ratings aside, various agencies in the region that deal with pregnant teen-agers are seeing no shortage of clients. Many human-services personnel, educators and others who are trying to address the issue believe the city still needs to ``do something.''
No one, we hope, expected the task force to find a magic bullet. No policy response is going to prevent all out-of-wedlock teen pregnancies or the broad swath of human and social problems that so frequently follow - including increased incidence of drug abuse, crime, poverty and welfare dependence.
The lack of a magic bullet is made poignantly evident by the sad phenomenon of teen-age girls who have babies because they want to. It is also evident this is a regional issue - for that matter, a state and national issue - not the city's alone to worry about.
Even so, in part because teen pregnancy contributes so significantly to other social pathologies, this community needs a better-organized, broader and more sustained response.
So what is the task force doing? No one expects it to provide the answer. But we should be able to expect something in the way of recommended strategies for action from a committee in which time and energy and hopes have been invested.
If current task-force members can't agree on a reasonable way of addressing the problem, much less on specific recommendations, they ought to pass the torch to others who can.
It's not enough to appoint a study commission, call that an ``action'' and declare victory.
by CNB