Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published its most recent estimates of live births in the U.S. It showed that birth rates continue to decline nationwide, and teen birth rates specifically are at record lows. These findings have drawn widespread media attention and will certainly fuel the pronatalist movement’s concern that fewer people are getting married and having children. In fact, a senior medical analyst for Fox News explicitly described low teen birth rates as “the problem” driving overall fertility declines. He is not alone in this belief.
As a public health behavioral scientist who has spent my career researching adolescent access to sexual and reproductive health care, I felt a startling sense of whiplash upon hearing these panicked reactions. When I was at the CDC in the 2010s, during the “teen pregnancy prevention” era, these same data reports documenting declining teen birth rates were cause for celebration.
