Teen Pregnancy Is Raging Out Of Control In Texas

One thing that's not taught in Texas school systems these days is sex education. It's something people felt would be better taught at home. I learned sex education in school. It was a bit uncomfortable, but I can't imagine it's any less uncomfortable with mom and dad.

Maybe it's time we reintroduce it in schools, because some numbers I found tell me mom and dad may not be talking about it at home.

According to the CDC, Texas is a leader in teen pregnancy, and that's not something we want to hang our hat on.

I don't know if that MTV show "Teen Mom" made it some kind of cool thing, and it doesn't help that one of its most famous cast members hails from Texas, but the numbers show that teens are getting pregnant at an alarming rate here.

Teens in Texas are getting pregnant at the ninth highest rate in the country. Roughly 20 out of every 1,000 teenage females between the age of 15-19 are becoming pregnant.

The wild thing about that is it's just the beginning of what could be called an epidemic.

Texas topped the list of teenagers who give birth as a teen, but weren't becoming first time mothers. More than 1 in 6 teens who gave birth to a child in 2020 already had a child.

A couple of things seem to factor into this issue. One is the aforementioned lack of sex education in school It's not required, and if the school district decides it doesn't want to do it, they don't have to.

Another factor is that Texas no longer allows abortion, and even when it was something that was an available option, the laws around it were so strict.

At the end of the day, it's something we need to address in Texas. The last thing anyone wants to see are these teens that just aren't ready for the physical and mental stress of becoming a parent. It's tough enough being an adult and in a career, I can't imagine what it's like for these teens.