Fox News Senior Medical Analyst Marc Siegel made some eyebrow-raising comments lamenting that birth rates are down among teenagers aged 15 to 19.
On Thursday, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the U.S. fertility rate fell to another record low. The agency reported that the number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age declined from 53.8 in 2024 to 53.1 last year. The latest figure represents a continuation of a decades-long decline in fertility rates.
Siegel joined Friday’s edition of America’s Newsroom, where Dana Perino said that while the continuing trend is not surprising, “the numbers might feel a little shocking.”
If you watch the video, it’s much less strange in context (in fact, it’s not strange at all, although the guy himself is a religious crackpot). The reason he mentions “15 to 19” at all is because that’s a specific demographic in a statistic that he used, among other things, to suggest that people are having kids much later than they used to, but he doesn’t specifically talk about declining teen pregnancy like it’s a bad thing. Like seriously, watch the video; I don’t know what the fuck Mediaite is doing with this headline except for ragebait. I genuinely thought there would be even a little hint of weirdness, but no?? Somebody else please watch the clip and tell me what they think is wrong with it re: teen pregnancies.
The clip is 2:08 long; I encourage anyone who thinks this is bullshit apologia to watch it. I’m legitimately shocked that I’m having to defend something someone said on Fox News. The whole time watching it I was wondering when they were going to get to the shocking, deranged part.
(Side note: the host looks like a bootleg Rhea Seehorn.)
Edit: The Mediaite transcript of the quote below is wrong in a subtle but, I think, very important way. Please see edit in comment below.
So calling it a “problem” was just a poor choice of words?
maybe people who had living wages would be able to afford more kids… but something tells me they won’t address that. they’ll simply take away birth control and abortion.
fucking ghouls
(Edit: Please see edit first for where I just realized this disconnect between reading and viewing might be coming from.)
Yeah, I really think it is. It’s more evident if you watch the whole video (and I really think you should). I think he was implicating 15 to 19 rates as partial evidence that ages of pregnant women are climbing – but not problematic unto itself. Later in the video, he makes the claim that people are gravitating to waiting until they’re into their 30s to have kids. I.e. the “problem” isn’t that underage teens are getting pregnant less; a drop in teen pregnancies is just used as a symptom of the reasons people are waiting until late 20s, 30s, or never to have kids.
Points that he makes throughout the segment are things like advances in medical technology making late pregnancies much more viable, and that certainly isn’t targeted at teen pregnancies.
Keep in mind that I have zero respect for this guy and would have no reason to doubt he would support teen pregnancies as “god’s will” or whatever the shit: the cover of his book shown in the segment tells it all. Even through that lens, I just don’t see it as anything more than a poor choice of words that can be easily quoted without the full surrounding context. I don’t blame anyone who comes away from this thinking I’m wrong; he’s earned not having a slip-up taken charitably.
EDIT: We weren’t even talking about the same “it” here. Something I just noticed reading that again (and maybe why I didn’t think it was fucked-up watching it): that Mediaite version of the quote gets it wrong in a subtle but very important way. The real quote is: “But the problem is teens and young adults. [keeping in mind 18 and 19 are teens] From ages 15 to 19 – the fertility rate is down seven percent […]” Notice that there’s a full stop in there. That’s the way he says it. “Teens and young adults” in a healthy-ish sense of pregnancy (I don’t think pregnancies at 18 are a great idea, but you do you, queen) would, to me, refer to 18 to 25-ish. Whereas the lack of a full stop (that’s definitely present in his speech) implies “teens and young adults” means “15 to 19 exclusively”. That distinct cut-off actually changes the meaning of what he’s saying.
- In the segment: “teens and young adults” having pregnancies later is the problem. Here’s 15 to 19 to show that we’re having pregnancies later, and here are some social factors that could explain that which I’ll then use to argue is similar in young adults.
- In the subtly malformed quote: “15 to 19” having pregnancies later is the problem.
The “it” I was talking about was having them so close together. The “it” you were talking about was having 15 to 19 being a problem.
I appreciate everything you’ve done so far here- I mean no offense in saying this, but is there any chance you’d accept that maybe, you’re viewing it through a green lens?
I really tried not to. I even paused the segment when it showed his book to find out it was talking about “healing through God” – which to me grossly crosses a line for what a medical doctor should be doing. I didn’t go into the video thinking “this is bullshit”; I went into it because that’s standard practice I have for reading “person says X”-type articles like this. That’s why I was in such disbelief.
I don’t even like his rhetoric about how waiting for stability is some problem in need of solving because young people need to sacrifice their lives for
the greater goodmuh birthrate.In sum, I think this guy’s a shithead. What I don’t think is that this guy is advocating for 15-year-olds getting pregnant like the headline and the ever-convenient typo in the quote suggest.
The media spin machine works on both sides.
Capitalism needs to constantly be fed, or the entity dies (reporter, newsroom, media company, etc.).
Unfortunately, it often turns to more unethical means to accomplish its goals - even here on the Threadiverse.
Just imagine why so many people vote conservative: they listen to false reporting, and after digging in GREAT depth, find out that the left has lied. Until they learn that the right ALSO lies, they are vulnerable… and also quite justified in their claims that the other side has lied to them. It’s juvenile stuff, which somehow also predates humanity itself.
The spin-masters have harnessed this natural law and turned it to their own gain.
Mediaite posting rage bait headlines? Surely not!
I have a female coworker and her daughter is currently eight months pregnant at 14 with a 17-year-old father. She couldn’t be happier. She is also a hardcore republican and a diehard Trump supporter.
Ruin your kids life early that is the republican motto. Trap them in never ending wage slavery.
Yep exactly, it runs in her family. She was pregnant with her first baby at 15 and her husband was in his early 40’s. Her husband is older than her dad by 5 years. She is currently 41 and her husband is 73. She also has a younger sister like 5 years younger and I believe she basically did the same thing being pregnant at 15-16 with a much older man.
Being a teen mom sky rockets the chance your children will become parents as teens
Yep, my best friend had his first child at 17 and now that child is 18 with 2 kids already.
My wife has one branch of her family where 4 generations occured in a 60 year period, the 5 generation photos are pretty neat, and also I’m really happy for the last generation which broke the cycle.
I don’t like your coworker.
WTF
Sounds like she has a sweet trailer.
Actually, no, she lives in an old rundown house that has a bunch of Trump Flags and signs and she lives across the street from a Mexican restaurant and she absolutely hates the Mexicans, but loves eating there every night.
Damn these (slur) and their delicious food and beautiful decor and lovely music! Damn them! Get out get out get out! And dont come back! (But i would like a refill on my horchata please)
That is almost 1:1 what she says.
I hate them as real things, but thryre amazing jokes.
Mentally insane
I knew someone who was by her own description baby-crazy as a teen and basically seeked out someone to knock her up. Hormones are wild things sometimes. Her child did not repeat the cycle fortunately
Capitalism contributes, yes. But, if humanity stays below replacement rate, humanity goes extinct.
Also, no matter how you distribute resources, there are periods of life when your productivity is less that what you need to survive. Everyone has this for many years at the beginning of their life, and those lucky enough to live long enough will have this toward the end of their lives, as aging is the disability that comes for us all. The proven method to sustain persons during those periods is to have enough people in their productive years; it generally requires more than the replacement rate. And, if that doesn’t happen, the less productive suffer and die more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk
All that said, I’m against encouraging teenage pregnancy, and for full bodily autonomy – no one should be forced to let anyone else use their uterus.
The Earth’s population has nearly doubled in my lifetime. I’m pretty sure we’re not quite endangered yet. I’ll also point out that poor countries that tend to spawn brown players are well above replacement levels if you count those as people.
Yeah, I’m not worried about running out of humans globally, and I do think immigration is a fine way for a country to choose to maintain their population.
There’s probably something to be said around cultural preservation, and maybe that’s a bit easier for “native born” persons. But, I don’t know the steelman version of that argument, if there is one.
humanity goes extinct.
… the population decreases. The parts of the population reproducing less becomes smaller than the part reproducing more… and reproduction naturally goes above replacement rate again… Because replacement rate decreases with the population size
I’m against encouraging teenage pregnancy
Encouraging teenage pregnancy isn’t the problem. The problem is the encouragement in general. As said, full bodily autonomy - it should remain a right for all.
The problem is the encouragement in general
I don’t see why that’s a problem. I think it could come in the form of actual benefits, not a just verbal haranguing / extolling based on (not) having children, but that it’s good for the birth rate to be slightly above replacement and correcting any divergence should be encouraged.
You’re sabotaging your own argument here. You stated full body autonomy to be a right to then dismiss that within this statement.
Also,
no one should be forced to let anyone else use their uterus
Tell me, how does this relate to your current argument?
“full body autonomy” includes but is not limited to “no one [is] forced to let anyone else use their uterus”. I don’t believe I am sabotaging my own argument, but I’m an idiot, so maybe you just need to be more meticulous in explaining how I am (doing that).
I bring it up because authoritarians often try to restrict bodily autonomy, particularly around uteruses, when trying to do population control (up or down). In fact, while it may not be a acceptable, mainstream view, you don’t have to look to hard to find a USian on the right claiming that abortion must (become/stay) illegal because of the “birth rate crisis”.
But, if humanity stays below replacement rate, humanity goes extinct.
I don’t think this is a real risk. And if it were, it certainly won’t be anytime soon. Fewer people means fewer mouths to feed, fewer homes to build/maintain and less consumption in general, which given how the planet is struggling to continue balance with current human resource consumption, a gradual decline in human population would probably be beneficial in the long run.
To actually threaten humanity’s continued existence the number of humans would need to dwindle so low that the societial and the medical infrastructure that permits/causes the declining birth rates would completely collapse and people would naturally start having more kids again in order to keep up with the work on the farms that most people would need to work on at that scale of society
Edit: Put more susinctly, the current declining birth rates are a because of societal changes, not biological ones
it certainly won’t be anytime soon.
Agreed. I think globally we are still above replacement rate.
Fewer people means fewer mouths to feed, fewer homes to build/maintain and less consumption in general
Yes, but no. As the video I linked points out, because of the time delay you get fewer people with maximum productivity while still needed to support people that have sub-self-sustaining productivity. Eventually, you might get to a smaller population that choose to return to above replacement rate, but the demographic squeeze don’t got away for another 20-30 years. Once it starts you are stuck in a demographic squeeze, it makes it even harder on everyone, making that choice “harder”.
That is a simplification. Sub-self-sustaining productivity doesn’t exactly track with age, and how much it takes to sustain a joyful life varies based on a lot of factors; it sort of tracks downward but can also go up if economies of scale shirk or when a new essential utility is introduced by technology.
“Not enough teenagers are being locked into poverty with unwanted children. This is bad for the oligarchs.”
not enough meat for the grinder, we got too many wars on the books keep them babies comin!
I feel like that’s kind of the core of the birth rate panics across the whole age spectrum by the billionaires. None of these fuckers think 20 years in advance to care about a smaller future workforce, but what a low birthdate impacts immediately is the financial solvency of those potential childrearing parents. Fewer and later births means one fewer pressure they can use to exploit workers.
When you’re trapped in an uncaring machine that demands you toil for the rest of your life or die penniless on the street, one of the only ways you can fight back is to just stop participating. The machine may have me but I won’t feed it more.
Fewer girls to rape. Their worst fear.
I don’t get what is so fucking hard for these pedophile conservative fucks to understand. When you make life fucking impossible to live, no one wants to bring a child into the world.
Instead, their response is, “if we fuck children, we can raise the birth rate.”
Fuck these ghouls. They just all need to die already.
Fuck these ghouls
Absolutely not.
Also I’m not young enough for them apparently.
They dont care how hard life is for people, they desperatly need more lives to ruin.
People lived horrible lives in previous ages and still had lots of kids. Of course the answer to that was plenty of rape. Buuuut they don’t see that as a problem so…it isn’t about understanding, it’s about a complete lack of empathy.
People lived horrible lives in previous ages and still had lots of kids. Of course the answer to that was plenty of rape.
Actually, lack of reliable contraception was a much bigger contributer to the higher birthrate than rape.
I’m going nuts. I’m from Russia, and Russian officials say insane stuff, and then I read news from the US, and it’s the same shit, side view.
Why? Its insane, and it only gets worse. When I lived in the US during Tramp’s first term, it wasn’t that crazy, despite having± same names in high places. Now, it’s like another country, and too much alike my insane motherland. USA, you’re becoming what you hate the most!
Looneytunes, all of them. ☠️
USA, you’re becoming what you hate the most!
For ~40% of Americans, this isn’t true. They hate Democrats more.
Trump was not daring to go as far as now but most importantly he only learned what the safeguards of rule of law and state institutions are. So even if he tried, there were too many people in too many positions pushing back hard enough for him to hit a wall. So for his second term he used the Republican party to purge all those upright and reasonable people from all those administrative positions. As far as he could anyway. After regaining power, that purge of course vastly accelerated using presidential powers. Also the Supreme Court has a solid Republican majority now, with judges that will go very far in rubber stamping previously considered unconstitutional stuff (maybe not everything but almost as much).
This will also not go away when Trump is finally going to hell. The destroyed structures are destroyed and the tech oligarchy teamed up with the thecoratic extremists behind him will take over control directly, via Vance or some other guy. It is a lot of the Russian playbook, translated for US cinema.
Sooo more life destroying, unplanned underage pregnancies?
They need more poor kids from broken homes to feed their slave pens (prison).
“We beat teen pregnancy!” - “Oh no!”
Elaborated: “Oh no! Fewer poverty-locked consumer slaves! Who do we convince breast feeding is unhealthy and peddle formula to? How will we paint immigration as a bad thing if unemployment goes down? What if - heaven forbid - social mobility goes up?”
How do we blackmail people with no children to work shit jobs?
Kinda puts the abstinence only sex ed in a different light. I guess we were just supposed to push out babies and live in trailers the whole time.
Well yes, actually. There’s data from the 1400s that abstinence isn’t sex education and results in higher teen pregnancy rates.
If the goal was ever to stop teen pregnancy they’d just encourage porn use among teens and free condoms in any third space they congregate.
Prisons are better for their profits.
Let’s just break this down as a little reminder:
- 15: statutory rape
- 16: statutory rape
- 17: statutory rape
- 18: creepy
- 19: creepy
I am a little confused why everyone is forgetting that teens have sex with other teens. >.>
It’s not creepy for an 18 year old to have sex with an 18 year old.
I didn’t forget, but it is old white men hyper about this, and considering how many old white men are creepy around teens, suddenly being interested in them getting pregnant is extremely creepy.
Teens will always have sex, sure, although many fewer are as compared to previous decades. I’m not so worried about them.
Also… do we REALLY want teens getting pregnant?
That is just being racist as countless studies show this is a human race issue not a white men only.
Blocked. I don’t fuck around with white supremacist bullshit.
In brief, the people I’m talking about ARE almost all old white men. It just shows who you are that you leap to defend them.
That is projection on your part as I am in no way defending that group, more pointing out that is not exclusive to one race or another and calling it out like you did is just racist. Calling out the sociopaths and psychopaths who tend to get into leadership positions is what we need to do and not an entire group of people most of which are just living there lives peacefully. People who are behaving horribly need to be brought to justice, all of them, regardless of race as they are in every single race and are THE thorn in the backside of humanity.
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Need more teen parents to make vulnerable children for the pedo conservatives.
The replacement rate is down to 1.56, meaning every couple is having, on average, 1.56 children in the United States. We need two or above to keep the population at the same amount.
There’s actually another way to keep the population up, and it’s great for America economically and culturally, and it makes the world a better place at the same time.
Or maybe we give up on an economic model that requires unending population growth? Since you know, we live on a finite planet?
We have to find a path to degrowth. Stop repeating talking points that imply population growth is our only path forward.
Did you not understand that I was talking about immigration? Which is one of the ways we solve that. All of that.
Besides which we’re actually talking about keeping the population stable. A declining population is bad for everyone economically. Luckily population growth naturally slows down in modernized societies, which is why allowing people to immigrate is good for everyone.
Global population growth is happening. Slowing down, but looks inevitable for at least several more decades. Given that baseline, it is optimal for all countries involved to allow immigration from countries with population growth (reduces strain on government services, adds to the economy with remittances) to countries with lower birth rates (tax revenues support social service budgets, increased entrepreneur rate of immigrants increases job growth, etc.)
Economies can transition to population decline while maintaining standards of living for sure, if handled in a planned way. Some short-term pain during the transition, then fine later. But why go through a combination of short-term pain right now, at the same time as incredible cruelty is required to keep out migrants?
A path to degrowth will be needed globally in the medium-term future (finite planet), but trying to implement that now at just the US locally isn’t going to help the planet at all.
great for america
Oof. Not the selling point you think it is.
makes the world a better place
Theres your problem.
There’s nothing wrong with doing things that are (legitimately) great for America. I’d love to do things that are great for Russia and Israel too… but it’s unlikely that the leadership in those countries would consider them “great” actions.
Im saying they dont see it as a selling point. Im speaking of a third party’s perspective here. This is a really really basic level of abstraction imusing here, cmon.
Who are the “they” that you are referring to? MAGA? Other countries?
This is incredibly tedious. What the fuck?
More teens became smart and self aware enough to not get pregnant in so young age by effectively using different types of contraception. And guy says that this is a bad thing. What?
This is the same group that decries teen mothers who are Black as burdens on the system and trying to cheat welfare by having more babies because more babies means a bigger welfare check that they can spend on lobster, fur coats, and Cadillacs.
Someone should check that doctor’s hard-drives.
All they gonna find there is this. Nothing really interesting…
Just makes us easier to subjugate.
Teen moms are way more likely to drop out of school, which kind of snowballs into lower paying jobs, more financial stress, higher poverty rates, that whole thing. There are also real health risks involved, especially if she’s younger, stuff like preeclampsia and anemia are more common, and sadly maternal mortality is higher too. A lot of teen moms also end up pregnant again within a couple years, and depression and anxiety are pretty common outcomes as well.
For the kid, preterm birth and low birth weight are more likely, and as they grow up there tend to be more developmental and behavioral challenges on average. One of the more striking stats is that daughters of teen moms are significantly more likely to become teen moms themselves, and that cycle is really hard to break.
Dads kind of get left out of the research, but the data that exists shows they face a lot of the same economic and educational setbacks, and they’re less likely to stay involved with the child long term.
