Kristin Luker

The public image of teen mothers exaggerates the actual problem of teen pregnancy, asserts Kristin Luker in the following viewpoint. Teen girls are having babies at the same rate they were during most of the twentieth century, she maintains. The only difference between teens of the 1990s and earlier decades, according to Luker, is that pregnant teens in the 1990s are less likely to get married before the birth and are more likely to raise their babies themselves. In addition, Luker asserts, most unwed mothers are not teenagers but older women, many of whom were married at the time of conception. Luker is the author of Dubious Conceptions: The Politics of Teenage Pregnancy, from which this viewpoint is excerpted.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What percentage of all babies born to...