>>>>>Behind Maine were Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire. Bringing up the rear, in descending order, were California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana and Washington, D.C.
The council, based in Washington, was announcing the rankings today.
The report measured rates of abuse and neglect; the rate of immunizations under age 2; the dropout rate; children in poverty; the child death rate; the infant mortality rate; those not receiving natal care; total juvenile crime; the divorce rate; and the teen birth rate.
The states were ranked by calculating the average of all 10 factors for each. The report draws on data from public and private sources including the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, The Annie E. Casey Foundation and state law enforcement agencies.<<<<<
Interesting that California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana are all at the bottom of the list - all except for Louisiana are border states with Mexico, and thus probably have a large Latino population, which is Roman Catholic, as is Louisiana. The Catholic teenage girls who get pregant have their babies instead of abortions. So do the girls in D.C., they aren't going to get married anyway and having a baby gives them standing in the community.
I am guessing that the high rate of teenage mothers is the source of pretty much of the rest of the problem - child poverty, child abuse, child neglect, inadequate prenatal care, inadequate child medical care. Babies having babies.
So how do you blame the D.C. government for the fact that young teenage girls have sex and have babies before they are able to care for them?
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