A recent WHO report had the following statements:
In low- and middle-income countries, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among girls aged 15-19 years. … About 16 million girls aged 15 to 19 years and two million girls under the age of 15 give birth every year. Worldwide, one in five girls has given birth by the age of 18. In the poorest regions of the world, this figure rises to over one in three girls.
Lest you think that increased availability to contraception services are the answer, the report also goes on to state:
Education, on the other hand, is a major protective factor for early pregnancy: the more years of schooling, the fewer early pregnancies. Birth rates among women with low education are higher than for those with secondary or tertiary education. … However, even where contraceptives are widely available, sexually active adolescents are less likely to use contraceptives than adults. In Latin America, Europe and Asia only 42-68% of adolescents who are married or in partnerships use contraceptives. In Africa the rate ranges from 3-49%.
It should be noted that the WHO goes on to make the standard conclusion that increased contraception and pre-and-post natal services are the answer, even though it has already said that education actually works better than contraception. This is a bit of a case of ideology guiding your conclusions.
But, it does give me the opportunity to point out that this report does remind me of a very important service that the Church has, can, and does provide. That service is the establishment of educational institutions, from kindergarten through to advanced university degrees.
The Church has a long history of supporting education. Many missionary stories include not simply the preaching of the Gospel, but also the establishment of schools. From Cyril and Methodius through the centuries, the establishment of schools has gone hand in hand with the expansion of the Gospel.
But, I would have never thought that starting and promoting schools was actually a pro-life act! Notice what the report states. The higher the educational level of our children, the less likely adolescent pregnancy becomes. Thus, the obvious conclusion is that one good strategy for lowering adolescent pregnancy is raising the educational level, encouraging children to go to school and keep going to school through at least high school and on into a trade school or university.
In fact, it sounds to me as though we ought to be in the forefront of our society in encouraging and supporting education as a way to help diminish teenage pregnancies and, therefore, teenage abortions.
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