Teen pregnancy politics

The oft-touted "culture wars" that have divided this country so bitterly intensified this week. Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would make it a federal crime for any adult to take a minor across state lines to have an abortion without parental consent, strengthening laws in 33 states that require minors who want an abortion to at least notify their parents. If the bill makes it through the Senate and is signed by the president, it will mark the fifth action the Bush administration has taken since 2001 to limit abortions in the United States.

Abortion has always been a high-profile issue to which Americans devote a great deal of thought. Activists on both sides march and protest; politicians have wrangled over it for years. The issues of teen pregnancy and abortion are especially sensitive, as the majority of teen pregnancies - 78 percent, according to Planned Parenthood - are accidental. Many teenage mothers cannot vote, yet it is up to elected officials to determine acceptable ways for them to deal with pregnancy.

Teenage motherhood has negative, statistically proven repercussions. A report on Planned Parenthood's Web site shows that teenage girls who bear children are more likely to be poor - nearly 80 percent go on welfare - and are less likely to be educated or married. Their children are burdened with growing up and trying to become successful in such an environment.

It is strange to me, then, that legislators focus so much on whether these young women should have access to abortions when getting pregnant in the first place seems to be the more pertinent issue. While men in suits fight hard to hold the party line on Capitol Hill either by defending or attacking abortion, teenage girls in the United States are still getting pregnant at an alarming rate. According to Planned Parenthood's Web site, about 40 percent of American women become pregnant before the age of 20 and the U.S. teenage childbearing rate is the highest in the developed world.

I propose legislators take a step back from the abortion issue and focus on addressing teen pregnancy through sex education. However, even that issue cannot escape politicization. The Adolescent Family Life Act of 1981, provides federal funding for abstinence-only sex education, which is favored by social conservatives and the Bush administration. Then there is "abstinence-plus" sex education, which encourages students to abstain from intercourse but also teaches safe sex.

The sad truth is that politicians turned this issue, along with abortion, into a political tug-of-war. So while legislators keep that rope taut and fight to hold the party line, many of us know the only way out of this mess is in the middle, somewhere in the pit of mud between the two sides. All it would take is a little initiative for lawmakers to come out of their bunkers and work together, meeting in the middle to devise a sensible solution to the problems of teen pregnancy and abortion.

Unfortunately, either side would forfeit political gain with such pragmatism, which means we will not see it any time soon.

Mark Perlman is a sophomore in international studies. He can be reached for comment at perlman.13@osu.edu.