Fox News Senior Medical Analyst Marc Siegel made some eyebrow-raising comments lamenting that birth rates are down among teenagers aged 15 to 19.
On Thursday, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the U.S. fertility rate fell to another record low. The agency reported that the number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age declined from 53.8 in 2024 to 53.1 last year. The latest figure represents a continuation of a decades-long decline in fertility rates.
Siegel joined Friday’s edition of America’s Newsroom, where Dana Perino said that while the continuing trend is not surprising, “the numbers might feel a little shocking.”
If you watch the video, it’s much less strange in context (in fact, it’s not strange at all, although the guy himself is a religious crackpot). The reason he mentions “15 to 19” at all is because that’s a specific demographic in a statistic that he used, among other things, to suggest that people are having kids much later than they used to, but he doesn’t specifically talk about declining teen pregnancy like it’s a bad thing. Like seriously, watch the video; I don’t know what the fuck Mediaite is doing with this headline except for ragebait. I genuinely thought there would be even a little hint of weirdness, but no?? Somebody else please watch the clip and tell me what they think is wrong with it re: teen pregnancies.
The clip is 2:08 long; I encourage anyone who thinks this is bullshit apologia to watch it. I’m legitimately shocked that I’m having to defend something someone said on Fox News. The whole time watching it I was wondering when they were going to get to the shocking, deranged part.
(Side note: the host looks like a bootleg Rhea Seehorn.)
Edit: The Mediaite transcript of the quote below is wrong in a subtle but, I think, very important way. Please see edit in comment below.
Mediaite posting rage bait headlines? Surely not!
So calling it a “problem” was just a poor choice of words?
maybe people who had living wages would be able to afford more kids… but something tells me they won’t address that. they’ll simply take away birth control and abortion.
fucking ghouls
(Edit: Please see edit first for where I just realized this disconnect between reading and viewing might be coming from.)
Yeah, I really think it is. It’s more evident if you watch the whole video (and I really think you should). I think he was implicating 15 to 19 rates as partial evidence that ages of pregnant women are climbing – but not problematic unto itself. Later in the video, he makes the claim that people are gravitating to waiting until they’re into their 30s to have kids. I.e. the “problem” isn’t that underage teens are getting pregnant less; a drop in teen pregnancies is just used as a symptom of the reasons people are waiting until late 20s, 30s, or never to have kids.
Points that he makes throughout the segment are things like advances in medical technology making late pregnancies much more viable, and that certainly isn’t targeted at teen pregnancies.
Keep in mind that I have zero respect for this guy and would have no reason to doubt he would support teen pregnancies as “god’s will” or whatever the shit: the cover of his book shown in the segment tells it all. Even through that lens, I just don’t see it as anything more than a poor choice of words that can be easily quoted without the full surrounding context. I don’t blame anyone who comes away from this thinking I’m wrong; he’s earned not having a slip-up taken charitably.
EDIT: We weren’t even talking about the same “it” here. Something I just noticed reading that again (and maybe why I didn’t think it was fucked-up watching it): that Mediaite version of the quote gets it wrong in a subtle but very important way. The real quote is: “But the problem is teens and young adults. [keeping in mind 18 and 19 are teens] From ages 15 to 19 – the fertility rate is down seven percent […]” Notice that there’s a full stop in there. That’s the way he says it. “Teens and young adults” in a healthy-ish sense of pregnancy (I don’t think pregnancies at 18 are a great idea, but you do you, queen) would, to me, refer to 18 to 25-ish. Whereas the lack of a full stop (that’s definitely present in his speech) implies “teens and young adults” means “15 to 19 exclusively”. That distinct cut-off actually changes the meaning of what he’s saying.
The “it” I was talking about was having them so close together. The “it” you were talking about was having 15 to 19 being a problem.
I appreciate everything you’ve done so far here- I mean no offense in saying this, but is there any chance you’d accept that maybe, you’re viewing it through a green lens?
I really tried not to. I even paused the segment when it showed his book to find out it was talking about “healing through God” – which to me grossly crosses a line for what a medical doctor should be doing. I didn’t go into the video thinking “this is bullshit”; I went into it because that’s standard practice I have for reading “person says X”-type articles like this. That’s why I was in such disbelief.
I don’t even like his rhetoric about how waiting for stability is some problem in need of solving because young people need to sacrifice their lives for
the greater goodmuh birthrate.In sum, I think this guy’s a shithead. What I don’t think is that this guy is advocating for 15-year-olds getting pregnant like the headline and the ever-convenient typo in the quote suggest.