[cratermoon]

Is this a milestone I should be thankful for, or a problem I need to worry about? Or is this other people's life choices that are none of my business?

Edit: If you click through to the sources PDF, you'll find "The percentage of all births to unmarried women was 40.0% in 2021, down 1% from 2020 (40.5%)".

The number is trending down. Good? Bad?

[suzumer]

The linked pdf states the following:

"The percentage of all births to unmarried women was 40.0% in 2021, down 1% from 2020 (40.5%) (Table 9) (15). The percentage of all births to unmarried women peaked in 2009 at 41.0% (13,15).

The percentage of nonmarital births in 2021 increased from 2020 for non-Hispanic Asian (12.6% in 2021) and Hispanic (53.2%) women. The percentage decreased for non-Hispanic White (27.5%), non-Hispanic Black (70.1%), and non-Hispanic AIAN (68.5%) women. The percentage was unchanged for non- Hispanic NHOPI women (51.8%). The number of nonmarital births was essentially unchanged from 2020 (1,464,121) to 2021 (1,464,455) (15).

Nonmarital birth rates declined from 2020 to 2021 for women in age groups under 30, with the rate for teenagers aged 15–19 dropping 7% (to 13.0 per 1,000 in 2021), and the rate for females aged 15–17 declining to another all-time low (5.6). Conversely, the nonmarital birth rate reached a historic peak of 38.2 for women aged 35–39. The rates were essentially unchanged for women aged 30–34 (58.5) and 40–44 (11.4)."

So it appears to be trending down from a high in 2009.

[catlover76]

Why would "thankful" be an option?

[aifooh7Keew6xoo]

Trying very hard to figure out how to phrase this without seeming morally judgemental or politically divisive but presumably the anti-abortion crowd is thrilled

[cratermoon]

Well that's exactly my point. Does the OP want us to take a political position about this statistic, and if so, why? What's their agenda. There are many possible viewpoints to push. My personal viewpoint is that if it's by choice, it's none of my business. For whatever fraction of these are not by choice, then what is that fraction, and what are the social and economic reasons.

I'm not sure why the anti-abortion crowd would be thrilled, unless this is an indicator of decreasing numbers of single moms. Oh and of course one must also ask "why is marriage (as opposed to committed life partners, or some other arrangement) important, and how is "married" determined?"

[aifooh7Keew6xoo]

> I'm not sure why the anti-abortion crowd would be thrilled

I think the bible is a lot more prescriptive when it comes to abortion than sex outside of marriage, but I'm not exactly a scholar and that's far from the only reason for taking a stance on the issue

Your points are all valid, but I do think there's a component of fixed meaning that projects itself in relation to multiple perspectives and agendas

That said, I couldn't tell if the number was increasing or decreasing with a glance at the underlying data cited

I'm assuming it's an increase because it seems kind of high and correlated statistics like marriage rates have to my knowledge also been decreasing in recent decades

I'm further assuming that's probably a bad thing because positive outcomes are generally correlated with multiple parents and higher family incomes

But if non-traditional family arrangements are supplanting married families then who knows

[btilly]

You say prescriptive, but what does the Bible prescribe?

The word abortion appears zero times. As https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12178933/ points out, the clearest reference is to miscarriage. And there the fetus is valued at far less than a human life.

Just because a religion has taken a position on a topic doesn't mean that their religious texts agree.

[aifooh7Keew6xoo]

Well, I understand it's pretty clear on killing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_kill

Certainly whether or not abortion qualifies as killing is a matter of interpretation, but judging from signs I've driven by I'd say it's not an unpopular interpretation

[starbase]

Why would they be thrilled?

[aifooh7Keew6xoo]

Well, at a glance 90% of abortion procedures are performed on unmarried women, so a presumed increase in births to unmarried women would be correlated with a decrease in availability of the abortion procedure

Again, assuming it's an increase based on other correlated variables, they're getting what they asked for, so they must be happy, right?

[cratermoon]

Is it going up? Going down? Is there some magic % of births to unmarried women that the US should be aspiring towards? Is 40% too many, and if so, why? Is it too few? Or does the % matter at all, as long as the kids have a healthy and nurturing home?