South leads the nation in unwed births ... politically popular to try to persuade teens to remain celibate ... often backfires ...

Trend spells trouble | ajc.com: "The South leads the nation in unwed births, which often ensure a lifetime of poverty for mother, child | Published on: 10/17/05

Southern states, including Georgia, often style themselves as the last bastions of traditional family values that other parts of the country abandoned long ago. Supposedly, this is still the kind of place where Mom, Dad and the kids traipse to church on Sunday and then show up at Grandmom's for chicken dinner.

Unfortunately, the reality's a little different. According to a new U.S. Census Bureau report — the first to offer a state-by-state look at links between marriage, fertility and other characteristics — the South leads the nation in unwed births.

In Georgia, nearly four in 10 babies are now born out of wedlock, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of state birth records. That reflects a trend that shows no sign of abatement. The newspaper review found that in 1980, single mothers accounted for 22 percent of births in Georgia. A decade later, the percentage increased to almost a third of births.

The census study confirms those trends, reporting that more than 10 percent of all births each year in Georgia are to teenagers. Georgia has the ninth highest teen birth rate in the nation, a list led by Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Georgia also shares a history of low educational achievement with those states. ...
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It may be politically popular to try to persuade teens to remain celibate and to restrict their access to information and contraceptives, but those tactics generally backfire, according to research. They produce higher pregnancy rates, higher birth rates and higher abortion rates.

As long as Georgia refuses to acknowledge that fact, and also refuses to look at itself and its children honestly, progress will be very difficult.