Clearly what we are doing today is not working. Let’s try something different.
Hold onto your hats…
I’d remove the safety net every teen knows will catch them. It is time for everyone to pay for their own mistakes.
In NY, the age of consent is 17. If you are younger than 17 and are pregnant, you and your boyfriend (identified by mandatory DNA analysis if you request free medical treatment) have broken the law and will be prosecuted. If you are unable to support this child, defined as having a combined income of 50% of poverty level at the time the child was conceived, you will be offered one of thre options:
1) A state funded abortion
2) You may have the child as long as one of the two participants agrees to state funded vasectomy or tubal ligation.
3) Or, incarceration for the offense per NYS law (typically Rape 3rd is 1.5 -3 years.)
Harsh as this sounds I predict there would likely be very few abortions. The Assistant District Attorney would only have to prosecute one case and every kid in the school would immediately get the message via text, tweet, FB, and word of mouth. That would change behavior and make a difference. Maury “who da baby daddy?” Povich would be off the air in 5 years. No longer would we be hearing that Jamaal fathered 14 babies with 13 girls. Or seeing Shen’equa for the 10th time trying to ID the father of little Tyquando.
That is how I’d end the problem of kids having kids having kids. (And I consider myself a liberal!)