Monday, April 28, 2008

Many of Texas' FLDS teen girls pregnant, mothers

More bad news regarding all those children taken into Texas custody when their parents' polygamist ranch was raided earlier this month. From AP:
SAN ANTONIO - More than half the teen girls taken from a polygamist compound in west Texas have children or are pregnant, state officials said Monday.

A total of 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are in state custody after a raid 3 1/2 weeks ago at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. Of those girls, 31 either have children or are pregnant, said Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar. Two of those are pregnant now, he said; it was unclear whether either of those two already have children.

"It shows you a pretty distinct pattern, that it was pretty pervasive," he said.
To be fair, I know some churches that wouldn't fair much better on a non-pregnant, per-capita basis. The difference, of course, is that the pregnancies in the former were caused by a now-repudiated religious lifestyle while in the later they're borne of, as Juno's mom puts it, teenage boredom.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Imagine that! A slew of teen pregnancies that we can't blame on alcohol, drugs, and MTV. I'll bet this is a big victory for the atheist crowd... "It was God that gott'em pregnant"! I can just see the Virgin Mary cracks flowing like water over at the Richard Dawkins Fan Club meeting.