Texas Had a Teen Pregnancy Crisis — Even Before Trump Started Slashing Funding

Texas has the fifth-highest teen pregnancy rate in the country — and the nation's highest repeat teen pregnancy rate. Dallas is one of the cities pushing the state's averages higher.Leaders here recognize what a serious problem this is. Teen pregnancy is linked to poverty, and when it is concentrated in certain ZIP codes, it becomes a driver of entrenched neighborhood poverty.So why is the Trump administration cutting $213 million worth of grants for 81 teen pregnancy prevention programs across the nation?Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services justified the move in part by noting that the teen pregnancy rate is on the decline. They're right. Nationally, it's fallen 64 percent since 1991. But that drop masks crisis-level rates in hot spots around the nation, several of them in Dallas. In 2015, the national teen pregnancy rate was 22 per 1,000 girls ages 15-19. In South Dallas, the rate was 123. In parts of Oak Cliff, it was 105.   Continue reading...