by Patrick F. Fagan

About the author: Patrick F. Fagan is a fellow in Family and Culture Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy research institute.

The major change in teen pregnancy is not the numbers or rates of teen pregnancy but the massive abandonment of marriage among older teenagers, as well as among adults in their twenties. Ages 19 and 20 have traditionally been the highest fertility ages of women. That has not changed. What has wreaked the havoc is the abandonment of marriage, both before and after the birth of the child, and the abandonment of virginity and abstinence. The effects of the abandonment of marriage are major for the new offspring:
• Lowered health for newborns and increased risk of early infant death;
• Retarded cognitive, especially verbal, development;
• Lowered...