The Christian Right Cultivates Teenage Childbirth
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This is perhaps the least surprising finding of social science to date: "Rates of births to teenage mothers are strongly predicted by conservative religious beliefs, even after controlling for differences in income and rates of abortion." In 2008 the larger public got a taste of what watchers of the social conservative movement have known for a long time, which is that they've quietly started to celebrate teenage motherhood, albeit while falling short of openly encouraging it. When Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston were trotted out as American heroes for the Big Knock-Up during the Republican National Convention, that was a wink and a nod to this growing enthusiasm in the Christian right.
Another example of the trend comes from the deliberately misnamed Feminists For Life, which sponsors a college lecture series that exhibits young women explaining why having a baby in college was the best thing that ever happened to them. Wild promises are implied: The boyfriend will make a romantic proposal straight out of a storybook, parents will be ecstatic, studies will be manageable, life will be darn near perfect. Perhaps Bristol Palin's lack of a storybook ending, which cannot be covered up with any number of People magazine covers, will help expose this lie that's been building within this subculture.
Don't think that the Christian right wanted it this way. It's in response to the impossible situation they've put their young people in. Mark Regnerus—himself an evangelical Christian, but one who takes his academic fealty to the truth seriously—wrote a book demonstrating that all the admonishments to evangelical youth to wait for marriage not only didn't cause them to wait longer to have sex, but that evangelical teenagers have sex at even younger ages than pretty much all other groups of teenagers. (He theorizes that their fear that stopgap behavior like oral sex and mutual masturbation is perverse drives them to intercourse sooner.) Add to that the levels of misinformation about contraception fed to them in an attempt to trick them out of having sex, and what you have is a situation where, to quote the researcher on this most recent study, "religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself." Nature beats God most of the time.
There's only one solution, and evangelicals such as Regnerus or Michael Gerson have started to promote it strongly: early marriage. Of course, what that means is up in the air. Regnerus suggests 19-20, Gerson plays it safe by suggesting one's early 20s. This cynic points out that both are still many years past the average age of sexual debut, which is close to 17 (though younger for evangelicals).
The on-the-ground compromise that evangelical Christians seem to be coming around to is quietly encouraging—or at least, not discouraging—sexually active teenagers to get pregnant quickly, so they "have" to marry, because they know that just asking kids to marry young won't fly when their kids, like most kids, have college and career goals that marriage could interfere with. Getting pregnant and married young will never be as well-regarded as abstaining for a decade plus after puberty before marrying, but teenage motherhood is quietly becoming a way of life for evangelicals, and a compromise position between the sexual needs of actual human beings, and the strongly anti-sex attitudes pushed by the Christian right.
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Killing the Messenger
By: mtdoy | Thu, 09/24/2009 - 17:14
Okay, maybe the point did not come through clearly in my last post. Here's another try: if the current zeitgeist's guidance is (1) "wait for a serious, loving relationship," then how many teenage couples are going to say: "we are NOT in a 'serious, loving relationship'?" -- You are already lowering the bar for entrance into sex even if both kids are 13 years old. Steps 2-4: "if you think you are in a serious, loving relationship, then go ahead and have sex and just become an expert at using contraception perfectly when you do." Step 5: "None of us wish this turned into a pregnancy, but it did. Let's blow by an honest discussion of how this crappy situation occurred and whatever conflicted feelings you may have about terminating (and how both you and I possibly contributed to getting to this point) and just get rid of the problem pregnancy. In addition, let's hope and assume that there will not be any emotional consequences of having gotten too sexually serious at a way too immature age. Let's simply move on."
That is the cynical, under-reflected part of the guidance you trot out so easily. I may not agree with the Evangelicals touting that teen motherhood is a good thing, but I do agree with their premise that getting teen buy-in that going slow on teen sex and full intercourse may be a way to advance self-responsibility and maturity toward the undeniable connection between sex and pregnancy, as well as the real possibility that if they become pregnant, they may start getting attached to the baby (or simply attached to the "thought" of this pregancy being "their baby") and have genuine emotional pain in deciding to abort it. Facile advice about consistent use of birth control to a teen looks worse than useless if the birth control method of pregnancy prevention fails.
A "full abstinence" message may be hard to sell to a teen, but a "no intercourse" message seems to me a very serious and honest way to address the bigger message about deliberation and choice and responsibility for the life ahead of them, and perhaps should be given a chance prior to caving in to "go ahead and boff; but try the birth control thing; and if you fail, the abortion 'out' is still there." How does that message NOT get interpreted as: "you are an uncontrollable, pile of hormones; I expect that you are going to screw up; but there are technical solutions to ameliorate/hide your screw-ups. There might be some crappy feelings associated with gaining all this experience about "what not to do in the future," but I didn't know how to talk to you about trying to do things in a way that would have asked more self-control of you than I thought you were capable of"?
Teen pregnancy, teen abortion and teen marriage are all regrettable and take a large emotional toll on those involved. But your POV only seems to be willing to admit that teen child birth and teen marriage are regrettable enough to speak up about and try to avoid. Asking teens to do a little more to avoid the pregnancy and the abortion (and the STDs) are also worth speaking up about ("safe, legal and rare").
Some evangelicals spouting dubious ideas about the wonders of teen shotgun marriages doesn't make all sincerely religious conservatives "hypocrites" and "looneys." In fact, the customary claim is that when religious conservatives' teens do get pregnant, thay all choose abortion and giving up their so-called principles rather than face the inevitable shame and humiliation. So those teens from religiosly conservative backgrounds who get pregnant and carry the baby to term because they are sincere in their beliefs are anything but hypocrites. There is something to be said for admitting there are people who do follow their prinicples instead of dismissing their existence.
Condemning all ideas that come from the religiously conservative as retrograde and dismissible on their face seems to be both disrespectful and oversimplistic. That kind of logical fallacy in the author's and many of the posters' arguments is called "ad hominem." It is a cheap, emotional short cut to avoid substantive and possibly clarifying discussion between groups with differing insights about the complex subject called human sexuality.
An ex-Evangelical Perspective
By: teaspoon | Wed, 09/23/2009 - 21:08
I remember that a particular night of youth group, an older couple that was active with youth activities gave a guest "lesson". The husband, no doubt the Man of the House, told the boys that their job was to make as much money to provide for their family as possible. The wife, obviously a homemaker, told us girls that we could go to college and get a degree as a "fallback", in case something happened to our husbands. But our primary focus should be in the home, as a wife and mother.
I nearly laughed, even then, at this barefoot-in-the-kitchen scenario. But when I carefully read Paul's letters in the New Testament, they were so misogynistic that I ultimately lost my faith. Remember that this is a religion based on the presumption that Woman deceived Man, and not only did we earn the curse of pain through childbirth, but in 1 Timothy we will also be saved through childbirth.
In the Christian religion, it is a woman's duty to make good Christian babies.
I'm With Jersey Girl on this One -- It's a Control Thing
By: mandycat | Wed, 09/23/2009 - 16:11
It's no wonder right-wingers might consider teenage girls having babies a good thing. (Assuming they don't wind up on public welfare; then they're nothing but wanton hussies and let 'em starve.) It helps social conservatives in the good fight to keep women out of college, out of the military, out of positions of authority in any aspect of life. It diminishes their chances for self-determination and impairs their ability to support themselves financially.
Hoo, hoo -- a double win!! Powerless women and more little evangelicals to fill the pews. What could be better?
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It is funny, though.
By: Barker | Sat, 09/19/2009 - 17:47
It is funny, though. Probably, my beliefs would be described by some as evangelical, while those that share my beliefs probably would reserve that term for another set of beliefs. But in general it's a good choise because when I was pregnant i've also got a yeast infection itching. It was terrible.
People go all haywire when it comes to descriptions of their particular interpretations.
I think it's quite
By: RalphS | Fri, 09/18/2009 - 23:23
I think it's quite interesting that Evangelicals have sex at younger ages than most other groups. I have some doubts about the "stopgap" idea, but who knows. Another possibility I'd suggest is that maybe Evangelical teens simply have more friends of the opposite sex - those who I know seem to have huge networks of male and female friends they got from youth groups and other church-related activities.
I'd also like to know how much of the greater pregnancy rate is due to more and younger sex and how much is related to different patterns of contraception use. It seems the study is only looking at correlations by state though so maybe it can't even answer that (or say definitively that it's the Evangelicals in the more religious states having more babies, though I think I've seen that relationship in other places). I also wonder if Evangelical parents are more supportive of pregnant teenage children, particularly those who don't want to abort. If nothing else I think they are probably more likely to think of a baby as a good thing irrespective of how it came to be. I've never heard an Evangelical talk about someone being "punished" with a baby. On that note, for the author of this blog post to characterize Evangelicals as being "anti-sex" seems to imply real unwillingness to seriously look at their viewpoint. Why not force down the bile that rises in your throat when you think about Evangelicals and try to really understand things from their perspective? It might make teasing out further information from studies like this easier.
From a different religious point of view - I'm Catholic - I think the Evangelical approach to sexuality lacks depth and has some logical contradictions to it. But I know enough of them that it really blows my mind that anyone can think that their perspective on sex is a deep conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen or (as a poster here suggested) to keep the white population as large as possible. Especially when there is a far simpler explanation available - that it has something to do with that book thingie they are always reading.
Don't kill the messenger, mtdoy!
By: jerseygirl | Fri, 09/18/2009 - 17:26
This blog post is reporting on by now well publicized studies showing strong correlations between "conservative religious beliefs" and teen pregnancy. I don't see that Marcotte is saying that anyone is a better or worse parent -- but you've got to admit there's some irony in the high teen pregnancy rates among a population that preaches abstinence. So, either the messages they are sending their kids are decidedly mixed, or their messages are simply not being heeded. Either way, it's a point worth discussing.
And as for what we secular liberal parents tell our kids: 1. wait for a serious, loving relationship; 2. use birth control; 3. use birth control 4. use birth control 5. if birth control fails, abortion is a reasonable option.
Kudos
By: prismtrail | Fri, 09/18/2009 - 17:26
Absolutely right-on analysis.
Thank you!
xenophobia and race war
By: juliesunday | Fri, 09/18/2009 - 16:37
I'm an admitted conspiracy theorist, but after a long convo with my dad last night about the state of affairs in France and other european countries where "immigrants" (read: brown people) keep coming in and doing their darndest to, you know, live their lives and participate in democracy, which sometimes includes having babies. These nations are desperate to increase fertility of their "natural" (read: white) citizens lest they lose control of their countries. I can't not connect the dots here with evangelical acceptance (or tacit promotion) of young pregnancy and a perceived threat of loss of white power in the US. The Quiverfull movement and the clear financial links between crisis pregnancy centers and adoption agencies as revealed in The Nation last month provides even further evidence of this happening stateside.