Statewide Chair Mary McLellan Heritage Community Services Regional Chairs Mariscia Cooper (Pee Dee) Charlie Lybrand (Lowcountry) Lenna Neill (Upstate) Rev. Randy Riddle (Grand Strand) Dr. Roger Rollins (CSRA) Charlotte Valentine-Green (Ace Basin)   Advisory Council Eugene Bacote Darlington School District Dr. Vera Bailey Hilton Head Preg. Care Center Pamela Berry Colleton Fire and Rescue Dr. Vonda Calcutt Lowcountry Ctr. Diabetes Sen. Chip Campsen Charleston/Berkeley Rev. Chuck Coward Charleston Outreach Robin Crosby Colleton County Ligure Ellington Ret.Capt. Charleston City Police Dr. Randy Goings Chiropractic Physician Faye Hill Lowcountry Pregnancy Center & SC Association Pregnancy Care Centers WC Hoecke Fatherhood Practioner Leroy Lewis Upward Bound at Cof C Norman L. Moore, Jr. Colonel, USAFR(Ret) Cyndi Mosteller Comm. for Higher Education Alexia Newman Carolina Pregnancy Center Fred Payne Marriage Savers of Upstate Jerry & Barbara Seymour R& R Marriage Min. Ronald Shoupe Colleton County Dr. A. V. Strong A Better Way, Inc. (Gang Out) Dr. Robert Thomas Pulmonary Medicine Pastor Phil Thrailkill St. Luke UMC Hartsville Kelly Walker Upstate Fatherhood Coalition	March 2, 2011 SC Healthy Family Formation Coalition E-News!   Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness works best when we, the taxpayers and welfare recipients, are actually free from government intervention. Fiscal and social leaders are getting closer to consensus that mandated entitlements are not just unsustainable, but detrimental to the health of our nation’s families.   Smart leaders would do well to support traditional marriage because it has been the best child poverty prevention institution ever designed. To further erode traditional marriage and family through the courts or dubious regulations will only make it harder to decrease and manage entitlements in the future.   Since the so-called War on Poverty abandoned marriage 40-years ago, Title X Family Planning and subsequent entitlement programs have multiplied-like-rabbits!     When men and women fail to form stable marriages, the result is a vast expansion of government attempts to copy with the terrible social needs that result.   There is scarcely a dollar that the state and federal government spends on social programs that is not driven, in large part, by family fragmentation: crime, poverty, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, school failure, mental and physical health problems.   Maggie Gallagher, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy     Title X Family Planning The U.S. House of Representatives voted in February to cut all funding for Title X Family Planning which is exclusively focused on contraception and decreasing fertility. While Medicaid in general provides many services for those in poverty, if it were not for Title X and its influences on chaotic family formation for the past 40-years, the demand for Medicaid services would not have expanded beyond reason.    In his article, Forty Years of Title X is Enough, Robert W. Patterson chronicles the history of Title X. He blames both Democrats and Republicans for the disastrous 1960’s era War on Poverty now costing us $953 billion annually. Under the guise of controlling an overpopulation ‘crisis’ and defeating poverty, Title X Family Planning provided indirect incentives women to not marry and to raise children without their fathers.   Since 1970, taxpayers have spent $12 billion - and in 2010 alone $317 million - to promote and distribute birth-control and so-called ‘family planning’ services throughout additional federal and state programs.   Patterson tells us that Planned Parenthood in 1972 convinced Congress to make ‘family planning’ services a mandatory part of Medicaid, which is not subject to annual appropriations. Over the years, Title X Family Planning inspired other federal programs to fund and promote their services through the Office of Population Affairs (4,500 family planning centers), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Indian Health Service, Social Service Block Grants, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office of Adolescent Health at HHS. As Medicaid has grown, it has become the largest funder of ‘family planning’ services, creating an endless funding supply.     Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation writes that as a result of single parenthood there are now more than 70 federal welfare programs for families in poverty. Today, eligibility for Title X and Medicaid programs has been so liberalized that almost anyone at any age can access its ‘free family planning’ services. One-third of recipients are teens, including minors without their parent’s knowledge or consent.   Legacy of Title X: Destruction of the Family Granted, many welfare services for the poor are needed, but perhaps they would not have been necessary if healthy marriage and family formation had been valued and promoted.   Title X and other family planning programs throughout the federal government have been major contributors to the explosion of chaotic families in America. This lost War on Poverty has produced generations of never married families and a poverty class three times larger than when it began. Over the past forty-years, fragmented families have become the norm, and many have no idea that there is a better way to form families. Far from lifting women and children out of poverty, it has enslaved them both mentally and physically.   Rector reports that in 2010, out of the total $400 billion spent on welfare for poor families, federal and state governments spent $300 billion to subsidize single-parent families. These welfare payments “will continue to be given to the mother and child for nearly two decades after the child is born.” How many more children and grandchildren will be born into the same failed system over the next 20 years?   Contrary to what Planned Parenthood wants us to believe, teen pregnancies today are not the primary problem. In 2010, less than 8% of unwed births occurred to teens under 18 years of age. “Three-quarters occurred to young adult women between the ages of 19 and 29.”   And, a June 2010 CDC report included data showing that 70% of 15-17 year old teens have never had sex. So, don’t be fooled by the cries for more Safe Sex programs for middle and high school teens! They are getting the message that abstinence is best until marriage.     Show Me the Benefits! If Title X and its 70+ offspring programs around the nation are so beneficial, then show me where they have improved ‘family planning’ through either decreasing births to unmarried women or increasing births to married women? Following are the disappointing results after 40-years and $12 billion for such programs:   -In 1970, 10.7 percent of all U.S. births were to unmarried women. -By 2009, some 41.0 percent of all babies were born to unwed mothers. -African American babies to unwed mothers increased from 35% to 73% since 1970. -Since 1970, no net increase in the number of married families with children. -Yet, since 1970 we have seen more than a tripling of single-parent families. -Births to married women declined 28% since 1970. -Births to unmarried women doubled since 1970.     Social science experts agreed 15 years ago that traditional marriage matters for women, children and family well-being. Healthy marriage and healthy family formation trumps Family Planning. Title X Family Planning, and similar programs, have not lived up to its name and must be defunded to save future generations.        Follow the SC-HFF Coalition on Twitter! Join the Heritage Keepers® Facebook Cause
	The South Carolina Healthy Family Formation Coalition (SC HFF Coalition) is organized and staffed by Heritage Community Services. The SC HFF Coalition promotes child and family well-being by providing opportunities for statewide communication about such issues as: adolescent pregnancy, unwed childbearing, fatherlessness, sexual exploitation of our youth, dating violence and domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, gang activity and youth violence.    Coalition members support healthy family formation initiatives that integrate character-based life skills, teen pregnancy prevention with an emphasis on abstinence-centered education, and the importance of fidelity-within-marriage.   Together we can impact our culture so that forming healthy families becomes a norm, rather than the exception, for South Carolina. Please, forward this E-News to interested friends, family and colleagues and ask them to consider joining the Coalition. Join/Subscribe Unsubscribe PRIVACY POLICY: Information you share will never be sold, rented, or given to any third party. Contact Mary McLellan , Statewide Chairman (843)654-7740 ext.122