The Appalling Crisis

A story about teen pregnancy states that Marion County has the highest teen pregnancy rates in Oregon, a state with nearly twice the teen pregnancy rate of the lowest state.

Here's a brief summary of an excellent book on population and our misconceptions about it (now out of print, available for free download in pdf at the link below):

Misplaced Blame

The Real Roots of Population Growth

Misplaced Blame argues that much of the population growth overrunning parts of North America originates from five rarely noted root causes: poverty, sexual abuse, underfunded family planning services, subsidies to domestic migration, and ill-guided immigration policy.

By Alan Thein Durning and Christopher D. Crowther

"In Misplaced Blame, the authors have assembled the statistical data from hundreds of sources and combined them into a story of how the growing Northwest is growing in all the wrong ways." - Ed Hunt, Tidepool

Note: Misplaced Blame is out of print, but you can download the pdf version for free with registration.

Misplaced Blame argues that much of the population growth overrunning parts of North America originates from five rarely noted root causes: poverty, sexual abuse, underfunded family planning services, subsidies to domestic migration, and ill-guided immigration policy. Along the way, Misplaced Blame uncovers one revelation after another. Some examples:

• The population of the Pacific Northwest is increasing almost 50 percent faster than global population.
  
  
• 83 percent of American teen mothers come from poor families.
  
  
• 62 percent of teen mothers have been raped or molested as children.
  
  
• 36 percent of babies born in the Northwest are conceived by accident.
  
  
• Long-distance moving is subsidized by taxpayers.
  
  
• Excessively high national immigration quotas hurt both the North American poor and immigrants' home countries.

Read Misplaced Blame and you'll see that when we take care of people, population growth will take care of itself.

Here are a few links to key fact sheets from Misplaced Blame.

• Misplaced Blame - Excerpt
  
  
• Ensure Every Child is Wanted: A key principle of sustainability.
  
  
• Make Emergency Contraception Widely Available: The Northwest can curb unintended pregnancies by ensuring easy access to emergency contraceptive pills such as Plan B.