The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:
(a) One in three children in California is born out of wedlock.
(b) As many as 70,000 children were born to teenagers in each of at least the last two years and nearly 25 percent of these were born to teenage mothers who have previously had children.
(c) Children who grow up without fathers are five times more likely to be poor, twice as likely to drop out of school, and much more likely to end up in foster care or juvenile justice facilities.
(d) Girls raised in single-parent families are three times more likely to become unwed teenage mothers than those girls raised in two-parent families.
(e) Boys without a father in the home are more likely to become incarcerated, unemployed, or uninvolved with their own children when they become fathers.
(f) The consequences of teenage pregnancy and fatherlessness are significant and far-reaching.
(g) Teenage and unwed pregnancy are problems that affect community health and success.
(h) Government can best solve the problems of teenage and unwed pregnancies in partnership with local communities, parents, and families.
(i) Communities should decide what prevention strategies will work and be acceptable.
(j) Parents and families should be included in the teenage pregnancy prevention strategies.
(Added by Stats. 1996, Ch. 197, Sec. 51. Effective July 22, 1996.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018