THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 3, 1996 TAG: 9602030011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
When children have children, the results are a staggering array of social problems ranging from increased crime rates to dependence on welfare. Every taxpayer ought to be concerned about this issue.
About 1 million American teenagers give birth each year, according to information provided this week by the White House. This rate is twice as high as Great Britain's and six times as high as in France, Italy and Denmark.
Virginia accounted for 16,511 of those pregnancies in 1994. That same year Hampton Roads saw 3,383 teen pregnancies and 2,246 live births.
At first blush teen pregnancy seems a nonpartisan issue. After all, who could possibly favor it? But it's not that simple. Enter the politicians.
President Clinton, with one eye on the November elections, has seized on teen pregnancy as an important national issue. True to Clinton's form, he's shot himself in the foot by appointing the controversial doctor, Henry W. Foster Jr., to serve as his ``senior adviser'' on the problem.
We don't argue with Foster's credentials, but his mere presence is a red flag to conservatives who successfully fought his nomination last year for surgeon general. No sooner was his name mentioned than conservative Republicans denounced the Nashville obstetrician as being ``soft on abstinence'' and presumably strong on contraception. Their heated response will most likely be used by Clinton against them during the presidential campaign.
Yet the conservatives who shout so loudly for family values are equally unrealistic in their teen-pregnancy views. Abstinence as the sole solution would prove as ineffectual in reducing teen pregnancy as Nancy Reagan's ``Just Say No'' to drugs campaign was in solving the drug problem.
Foster's appointment to the unpaid post coincided with and upstaged the formation of a privately funded National Campaign to Reduce Teen Age Pregnancy. Unfortunately, the controversy over Foster threatens to undermine what was intended to be a truly representative approach to the problem. The group includes former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean (R), former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, actress Whoopi Goldberg and Katharine Graham, former publisher of The Washington Post.
It seems clear that the politicians don't have the foggiest notion how to curb teen pregnancy. They see the issue as a vote-getting appeal to their disparate constituencies. Perhaps they ought to leave teen pregnancy alone until someone comes up with a coherent plan that goes beyond narrow political ideology. by CNB