Teenage pregnancies becoming statewide predicament

Since almost everything in life, save the truly charitable, is a case of “follow the money,” it would be interesting to find out who is benefiting from so many teen pregnancies in the State of Texas.

According to one study, in the Lone Star State, a baby is born to a teenage mother approximately every 25 minutes. (Source: HealthyFuturesofTexas.) Also, 16 percent of teen births are to teens who already have at least one child.

If these teen births were costing the state money, stealing from its precious financial reserves ($23.8 billion budget surplus), “teen pregnancies” would surely be part of the special summer session. The one currently in session will redistrict the state to better benefit the GOP/Trump. If Democrats controlled the state, they’d be doing the same thing, but you think teen pregnancies would rank somewhere among the state’s top 10 problems that need addressing.

Apparently not.

Second on the rank of importance in this special session is regulating the vape shops spread out across the state with 0.3 percent or less of THC, which services people who have chronic pain, chronic stress, PTSD among veterans.

Implementing a mandatory minimum age for those who buy the products is a no-brainer, but our lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, really wants to shut down the shops altogether.

I say he’s doing it to protect the alcohol industry, but Patrick says he’s doing it to “protect our children.”

Still, anyone who doesn’t think teen births, teen pregnancies, aren’t a problem is probably making money off this social tragedy. Just not sure how.

A Big Problem

I ran into a woman the other day I’ve known for approximately 30 years. Hard-worker, middle-class, smart enough to only have had two children because, well, that’s all she and her husband could afford. She told me that she knew a woman, 20 years old, who now has five kids by five different men.

I was floored.

No.

“Yes.”

Then she proceeded to tell me about a local student, 13 years old, who had just had a baby.

No.

“Yes.”

Then during a later conversation I had with a local physician, while recounting to him the story about the 20-year-old mother with five kids, he told me that one of the hospitals with which he is associated had just facilitated the birth of a baby to a 17-year-old girl. On the surface, doesn’t sound like that big of a story, until he told me that this was her fourth child.

No.

“Yeah.”

And she’s only 17? I asked.

“Yes.”

When her medical team asked her if she wanted them to “tie her tubes” post-delivery so that she couldn’t have any more children, she politely declined.

If the governor and state legislature don’t consider this to be a problem, then why should she? Put sex ed back in the high schools.

Currently, Texas doesn’t mandate sex ed in high schools, but if a school district does choose to implement it in its curriculum, it must prioritize abstinence as the only 100 percent effective method to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

In the minds of the state GOP, this is called “school choice.”

While on the surface that would be true, abstinence is the only 100-percent method to avoid pregnancies, there are other ways to prevent the 13-year-old or 16-year-old from getting pregnant. Too bad they don’t know anything about it.

Can’t discuss artificial contraception in Texas schools.

Someone is benefiting off this social tragedy.

Follow the money.

I just don’t know where it leads.