December 21, 2007

Dot... Dot... Dot... Part One

Let's play a game!

See if you can connect these three things:

1) U.S. fertility rates hit a 35-year high;
2) U.S. teen birth rate increases for the first time in 15 years;
3) At least 14 states have declined sex education money, as to accept it requires the teaching of abstinence-only programs exclusively.

What blows me away is paragraphs like this, supposedly lauding the increased birth rate:

"The high-octane consumer economy, for example, helps women run households more efficiently in a number of ways, including making prepared foods more widely available, and weekend and late-night shopping possible."

And this:

"We also have a relatively high percentage of part-time jobs available," said Ronald Rindfuss, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina. "There's also more shift work outside the normal nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday schedule that enables parents to share child care."

These are good things, bear in mind. Much better than those evil, socialist Europeans who do stuff like this:

"[...]many European countries offer women incentives to have children, such as providing lengthy paid maternity leave, guaranteeing their jobs and subsidizing child care[...]"

I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? Which would you rather have?

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posted by Thursday at 5:40 pm

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