Myth 2: Girls wouldn’t get pregnant if they weren’t poor and “hopeless.”

It’s wonderful, and important, that girls now have a range of life choices open to them that would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago. But that very fact puts the lie to the idea that girls are becoming pregnant in large part because, as the TIME piece put it, there are no “better options” in a “city so uncertain of its future.”

In the days when girls were encouraged to aspire only to a single (though important) life path – becoming a wife and mother – there was not the epidemic of illegitimacy that America encounters today. “Pregnancy pacts” among unwed young mothers were unthinkable even during periods of grinding hardship like the Great Depression. Surely if poverty and hopelessness were the real reasons for the problem, teen pregnancy would have fallen -- not risen -- over the years, as America’s standard of living has sharply improved and a whole new range of life options have become available to women.

Ultimately, the problem underlying teen pregnancy isn't simply a practical one, solvable by access to or knowledge of contraceptives. Nor is it strictly a socio-economic one that can be remedied through greater income redistribution and more material possessions. It is, primarily, an ethical, moral and spiritual problem.

Addressing the challenge of teen pregnancy begins with the recognition that good sexual decision making doesn’t occur in a vacuum – that sexual integrity is just one more component of good character overall. Improving it requires a commitment to two difficult tasks: Reining in a culture that too often encourages and celebrates teen sexuality – and finding a way to fill the holes in the souls of the young girls who are having sex (and reproducing) as part of a pitiable and painful search for unconditional love.