« Better Late than Never | Main | Religious Right in Hiding? »

March 30, 2006

Texas: where you're forced to have a baby before you can get your learner's permit

Over at Blondesense, Jaye has a post about how Texans allow young girls to have babies before they can get their driving learner's permit:

Texas ranks 45th in family planning. Texas also ranks 1st in pregnancies in young women under the age of 13. Department of State Health Services says:

1 of every 11 eighteen-year-olds gets pregnant
1 of every 16 seventeen-year-olds gets pregnant.
1 of every 27 sixteen-year-olds gets pregnant.
1 of every 58 fifteen-year-olds gets pregnant.
1 of every 967 thirteen-year-olds gets pregnant.
1 of every 5,280 twelve-year olds or younger gets pregnant.

There are literally millions of women in Texas who do not have access to abortion, family planning or gynecological health care because their counties do not have family planning or abortion clinics. These women do not have health insurance and if they did there is no guarantee that they can obtain an abortion if the hospitals in their area do not perform abortions.

So we have further reduced Texas women's access to family planning centers. According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Legislature has funded so called crisis pregnancy centers while cutting funding to clinics that perform abortions and provide gynecological services.

There does appear to be abortion services in major cities within Texas. But there are vast stretches of rural geography that apparently have no family planning clinics or assistance for the poor.

And at least one study in Texas has shown that their abstinence only sex education has actually yielded an increase in teen sexual activity.

I live in Oregon by choice. I can't think of a better place to raise my kids to be healthy, responsible, informed adults.

Color me a "liberal elitist", but this basackwards idea that refusing to properly educate your populace and then denying them basic healthcare as a punishment for having sex (which is exactly what they're doing) is insanity. Why would anyone CHOOSE to live in Texas under these circumstances?

Posted by Carla at March 30, 2006 08:56 AM