Pregnancies

It's a terrible irony that on the eve of our Independence Day the Supreme Court restricts the independence of half the citizens, and that the topic of desecration is centered on the flag while the desecration of women's bodies and lives through unwanted pregnancies is now certain. NANCY WILLIAMS Ventura

Sally Nava Kanarek states (Letters, May 10) that there is a "blatant lack of prosecution" by the district attorney's office of thousands of cases of unlawful sexual intercourse with minors in Orange County. Her allegations apparently stem from statistics showing 7,000 pregnancies by female minors per year in the county. Although we appreciate Kanarek's concern and agree that the level of teen-age pregnancies is a serious social difficulty, the suggestion that the problem can be overcome by law enforcement or that prosecutors are not fulfilling their responsibilities by filing as many cases as there are pregnancies is erroneous.

About to have unprotected sex to ring in the new year? Think about the critically endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle! Or the Florida panther, or the Lange's metalmark butterfly, or any of hundreds of other endangered species. And then call the Hump Smarter Hotline. The hotline, part of the Center for Biological Diversity 's 7 Billion and Counting Project, aims to persuade randy revelers to practice safe sex and avoid unwanted pregnancies. Aw, you know you want to call it now, even if just out of curiosity.

Repeat births among teens have fallen, but nearly one in five children born to teen mothers already has a sibling, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of more than 367,000 births to mothers 15 to 19 years old in 2010, 18.3% were repeat births, a decrease of 6.2% from 2007, the CDC reported. Large disparities among racial and ethnic groups and geographic areas remain, the centers reported. American Indian or Alaska native teens registered the highest percentages, 21.6%, followed by Hispanics, 20.9%, and non-Hispanic blacks, 20.4%.

Americans are in danger of getting shortchanged--both morally and fiscally. The people need to know that Title X funding has become a political football. Title X helps pay for family planning clinics, like Planned Parenthood. Despite misinformation to the contrary, it does not finance abortions--quite the opposite. It helps avoid them! That's because family planning education slashes the rate of unwanted pregnancies. The Republican budget slashers would have us believe that converting funds earmarked for Title X into non-specified block grants represents a step forward for American values.

The Orange County district attorney's office is seeking approval from the Board of Supervisors to apply for a $325,000 state grant earmarked specifically for the prosecution of statutory rape cases, officials said Wednesday. The grants are being offered as part of a $52-million statewide program launched by Gov. Pete Wilson to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in California, which has the highest per-capita teenage pregnancy rate in the nation.

I hope Kate Michelman (executive director of the National Abortions Rights Action League) rethinks her hasty remark that the decision awarding custody of frozen embryos to Mary Sue Davis represents a "dangerous implication for reproductive freedom. . . ." To have supported Junior Davis' position that these embryos are "property" and that he should not have to father a child against his will would have had immediate and far-reaching effects on a woman's right to control her body. Once conception has taken place a man's biological function in the reproductive cycle is fulfilled.