Funding for Pregnant Adolescents: A Legislative History

Abstract

Twenty years ago, caring for unmarried pregnant adolescents was largely the province of voluntary social agencies. America viewed nonmarital childbearing as deviant behavior, and a particularly contagious form of deviance at that. The teenage birthrate was, in fact, higher than it is today: 90 of every 1,000 young women under twenty gave birth in the late 1950s, while only 58 out of every 1,000 did so in the middle 1970s (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1976). Some socioeconomic strata and cultural groups were more tolerant of visible single parenthood than others, but most were grateful to agencies like the Salvation Army and the Florence Crittenden League for dealing quietly with “wayward girls.” Middle class girls who became pregnant (and did not marry) received adequate physical care, returning to their families without outward physical stigmata. The national linkage of agencies permitted respectable girls to leave for a “stay with relatives” in another city whose maternity home kept them safe from chance discovery.