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ILLEGITIMACY:
TEENAGERS LARGELY ACCOUNT FOR STARTLING
INCREASE
The rate of illegitimate births in the United States has nearly
doubled during the last decade, but the causes of this
phenomenon remain elusive.
Not the immediate cause, of course; but the fact that more
unmarried women are having intercourse without using
contraception is a correct answer without being an adequate
explanation.
And all other popular explanations -- such as the decline in
religious or economic or social sanctions against unwed mothers
or the lack of sex education in schools -- are simply inaccurate,
according to Dr. Phillips Cutright, a sociologist who has spent the
last five years studying the causes and cures of illegitimacy here
and abroad.
The facts are, he says in a report in a recent issues of Planned
Parenthood’s FAMILY PLANNING PERSPECTIVES that the
nation’s teenagers, who are more sexually active than ever -- and
who have contributed most heavily to the rise in illegitimacy --
generally do not realize how easy it is to become pregnant, and
even those who do, do not have medically-prescribed
contraceptives readily available to them. Nor do most have
abortion as a ready option should they find themselves pregnant
out of wedlock.
“For years we’ve tried to use fear of pregnancy as a deterrent
to illegitimacy and it hasn’t worked. It’s time to try something
else,” say Dr. Cutright, of the Joint Center for Urban Studies of
M.1.T.-Harvard, and a professor of sociology at Indiana
University.
Carol D. is just one of thousands of American teenagers who
illustrate Dr. Cutright’s findings. An intelligent girl from a
religious, middleclass white home in the West, Carol became
pregnant at the age of 15 following two acts of unprotected
intercourse with her high school sweetheart. Asked why she had
“taken a chance,” she replied: “There’s nine years difference
between my brother and me. I never knew I could get pregnant so
easily. 1 thought it was something you had to work on and plan.”
Her attempt to get an abortion failed, and she was forced to bear
her illegitimate child. Two years later -- still ill-informed about
effective contraception - she became pregnant again.
Just how important the teen-age contribution is to rising
illegitimacy cap be seen when the statistics are broken down into
age groups. From 1965 to 1968 (the latest date for which figures
are available), illegitimacy rates actually declined for the first
time in a quarter-century among adult American women. But this
decline was offset by a tremendous increase in illegitimacy among
teen-agers, who comprised about 70 per cent of the un-married
population. To Dr. Cutright, the decline among the older groups
reflects the growing availability of effective contraception to f
adult women regardless of marital status.
But to the unmarried minor, who in many cases must get
parental consent to obtain medically prescribed contraceptives,
(not necessary in Georgia) the pill and the IDU are just something
she hears about.
Dr. Cutright’s investigation has exploded many of the myths
that supposedly explain rising illegitimacy, among them:
1. The increase in welfare benefits. No link was found between
illegitimacy rates and the number of families receiving welfare
benefits or the amount of these benefits. Illegitimacy rates rose
dramatically in the early 1940’s while welfare roles declined by a
third, and illegitimacy increased at about the same rate in states
that pay high welfare benefits as in those that pay low benefits.
The same holds true for Canada and other countries. (Maximum
benefits in Georgia are $164 per month for a mother with four,
five, six, seven, eight or nine plus children).
2. The decline of the authoritarian family. Families became
increasingly permissive during the first 40 years of this century,
while illegitimacy rates declined in nearly all developed countries. ■
3. The lack of adequate sex education in the schools. By
themselves, Dr. Cutriglit says, school programs that tell young
women about contraceptive will do little to increase their use.
Sweden, which adopted a national policy to provide sex and
contraceptive information in schools 30 years ago, has
experienced a rapid increase in illegitimacy among young women
during the last decade.
Dr. Cutright also predicts failure for any program that tries to
teach American men to use condoms. He notes that ever since
1940 men in the U.S. Armed Forces been exposed to “the most
intensive form of education in condom use one can imagine.”
Yet, the illegitimacy rate continued to soar following World War
II and the Korean W?r, and today at least 15 per cent of
American servicemen in Vietnam have contracted venereal
disease, which could have been prevented by the use of condoms.
Further complicating the problem, the sociologist believes, is
the fact that the growing emphasis on female contraceptive
methods has made men less willing to assume responsibility for
preventing pregnancy in out-of-wedlock coitus.
What is the solution? Dr. Cutriglit urges the establishment of
Government-financed family-planning clinics that would serve
any woman who comes in, backed up by abortion on request to
deal with contraceptive failures. The schools, he says, would do
best to simply post the location of the nearby clinics. And
without “condoning or condemning non-marital sex,” the school
might also try to give teen-agers a realistic picture of the risk of
pregnancy. One way to do this, he suggests, is to fill a bowl with
marbles of two different colors in proportion to the risk involved
and have students pick blindfolded. A young fertile woman
having unprotected intercourse twice a week stands a 35 per cent
chance of being pregnant at the end of the month.
Dr. Cutright recalls the response of this lesson of his
10-year-old daughter who was thrilled after picking three green
marbles in a row, indicating she was not pregnant. Then she drew
a red one. Her face dropped and she whined painfully, “But
daddy, I don’t want to be pregnant.”
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bE’ I I ■ IF
‘SECURITY SAYS IT ALL.” theme of 1971 National Insurance Week. May. 10-15.
sponsored by the National Insurance Association, will be broadly displayed on
posters and leaflets by black-owned life insurance company representatives across
the country as they increase their efforts to place economic security within the
reach of all American families.
Nat’l. Insurance Week
Spurred by a SIOO million
goal in new business to be
attained during National
Insurance Week, May 10-15,
1971, more than 8,000 agents
of black owned and operated
life insurance companies are
spearheading an attack to bring
black American families closer
to the national average
protection of $19,500 per
family.
In proclaiming the 37th
annual observance of NI Week,
sponsored by the National
Insurance Association, its
President, L.R. Taylor,
associate actuary, North
Carolina Mutual Life Insurance
Co., stated, “I urge each
member o 4 the insurance
community to emphasize to all
families the benefits of life
insurance, thus affirming our
dedication to the principle of
economic security for all.
people.”
The 1971 theme, “Security
Says It All,” was selected by
Nl Week Chairman, Ray Irby,
CLU, newly elected vice
president-agency director,
Supreme Life Insurance
Company of America. It
stresses the unique position life
insurance occupies as a hedge
against inflation and as a
protection against the
economic pangs of disease,
disability, death and old age.
Field representatives of the
44 member companies will
spread their message through
34 states, the District of
Columbia, and the Virgin
Islands using special
promotional programs and
materials and stepped-up
personal contact.
NIA companies, with nearly
$435 million in assetsand $1.5
billion insurance in force, pay
out more than SIOO million in
benefits and wages every year.
Traditionally, they invest an
average 25 percent of total
assets in mortgages in order to
BE
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encourage home ownership and
property improvement.
Other NI Week committee
members are: J.G. Cooper,
USMCR, vice president-agency
director, Christian Benevolent
Burial Assn, of Mobile; Alonzo
Gary, Jr., agency director,
Dr.OlinToSpeakAt A.C
The National Science
Foundation and the American
Anthropological Assn, has
notified the Augusta College
Dept, of Sociology and
Anthropology it has been
selected to host a Visiting
Lecturer May 6-7.
On campus to meet with
faculty, students and members
of the general public will be
Dr. Michael David Olien, Dept,
of Sociology and
Anthropology at the University
of Georgia.
Dr. Olin will lecture at noon
May 6 in Meeting Rooms One
and Two of the College
Activities Center on the
problems and contributions of
ethnic minority groups in Latin
America today.
On Friday, May 7, he will
address the Cultural
Anthropology Class of Mrs.
Ernestine Thompson at 9 a.m.
in Room One, Academic 1 and
at 11 a.m. Archaeology Class,
Room Five, Fine Arts. All
lectures are open to campus
and community personnel.
Dr. Olien earned the B.A.
degree from Beloit College;
M.A., University of North
Carolina and the Ph.D. degree
from the University of Oregon.
Ethnology is his field of
specialization and Latin
America, especially Costa Rica,
is his area of specialization. Os
special interest to the visiting
lecturer are the complex
societies, ethnohistory, and
the Latin American Negro,
Central Life Insurance Co. of
Tampa; A.Y. Miller, agency
director, Golden Circle Life
Insurance Co. of Brownsville,
Tenn., and Lenet Smith, vice
president-agency director,
Majestic Life Insurance Co of
New Orleans.
He is the co-author of
ANTHROPOLOGICA L
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
ABORIGINAL PANAMA,
1965; ANTHROPOLOGICAL
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
ABORIGINAL NICARAGUA,
1965; ANTHROPOLOGICAL
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
ABORIGINAL EL
SALVADOR, 1965;
ANTHROPOLOGICAL
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
ABORIGINAL HONDURAS,
1966. He is the author of
“Levels of Urban Relations in a
Complex Society: a Costa
Rican Case,” in URBAN
ANTHROPOLOGY;
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES
AND STRATEGIES, 1968;
and THE NEGRO IN COSTA
RICA; THE ROLE OF AN
ETHNIC MINORITY IN A
DEVELOPING SOCIETY,
1970.
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WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT I GOT’ Flip Wilson, star of NBC Television
Networks “The Flip Wilson Show” proudly displays the George Foster Peabody
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NEWS-REVIEW May 6, 1971,
" SARAH COVENTRY
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To Mother
’ V i with Love
2 Mother s Day is Sunday May 9th, 1971 ...
2 and selecting your “just right” gift for mother
for her day can be much easier if you shop
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« for making all sorts of tasty dishes, as well as (
• chopping and grating many foods that mother
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■ End Dishwashing by Hand... i
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