A Government that doesn’t know where babies come from

Telegraph [UK]:

Teenagers know very well how babies are made, partly because they have been repeatedly instructed on the topic since they were six. They also know how to stop them. The reason Britain has such a high rate of teenage pregnancy is because we have so many teenagers who want to get pregnant: they don’t do it out of stupidity or ignorance, but knowing full well what the consequences will be.

Why is this happening? Part of the answer is painfully low ambitions and expectations. Teenage pregnancies are heavily concentrated among the least well-off. They know that having a child will damage their education and seriously hamper their chances of getting a well-paid job. But to those who do not think they have much chance of ever getting off the dole, that is not a disincentive. Aspiration is the best contraceptive: our high rate of teenage pregnancy is testament to the dismal level of ambition of many of our teenagers.

But it is also a testament to the British state’s success in reducing the penalties involved in single parenthood. It is striking that in the 1930s, during the last major depression, the fewest births out of wedlock occurred in the poorest London boroughs. At the time, there was virtually no economic support from the state for unmarried women who had babies, which must have acted as a very powerful disincentive. There were also strong social sanctions against unmarried mothers, of course, but those were just as powerful in the richer London boroughs such as Chelsea, where the illegitimacy rate was four times as high.

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