John Doolittle: “we face today a crisis of family disruption due, among other things, to the explosion in out-of-wedlock teenage…”

“we face today a crisis of family disruption due, among other things, to the explosion in out-of-wedlock teenage pregnancies. As this chart shows, teenager out-of-wedlock pregnancies have nearly doubled over the past two decades, and this development is causing an enormous problem that we confront every day as a country, when we talk about the problems of criminal activity, of drug abuse, of underachievement in school, etc. In my opinion, and in the opinion of experts who have examined it, these things all tie back into the problem of family disruption, much of which is due to, in addition to separation or divorce or death of a parent, out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Illegitimate births have increased more than 400 percent since 1960. We know that we can do something that makes a difference, and that something is to give teenagers the skills that they need in order to refuse early sexual activity. Now, for decades we have tried the approach of teaching about sexuality and about the pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases and so forth. And it has not had any impact.”