The Opinion Blog

Teens, not Moms



Thursday’s editorial applauds a new initiative to combat teen pregnancy in Horry County:

Over the past decade Horry County, and South Carolina as a whole, has managed to reduce its rate of teenage pregnancy, particularly among younger teens. In 1997, 44.1 out of every 1,000 teenage girls in Horry County became pregnant. By 2007, that rate had dropped to 37.5 out of 1,000.

The rate is still too high, however, and now a new effort has begun to reduce that number even further. Last year, the S.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy received a federal grant of nearly $1.5 million per year for the next five years, which will allow the campaign to expand its efforts in Horry and Spartanburg counties, two counties whose teen birth rates are higher than both the state and national averages.

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The Story in Pictures

Coming up tomorrow: A new initiative is taking aim at teen pregnancy in Horry County. Wonder how your area stacks up? This graphic from DHEC helps show where teen births are concentrated. As you might expect, most occur in the more urban areas of our county.

 

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Baby Steps Back from the Brink



Sunday’s editorial chronicles some of the more optimistic news for our area that we found in the state budget so far:

We’ve heard the dire talk about the state’s finances for months now. Hundreds of people will be laid off, benefits will be cut, taxes could go up. The reality so far has been less harrowing than many had dreaded, though some of those fears have proven true.

State workers would pay more for health benefits under the plan the House passed. Money for state colleges would be cut again. And funding for a variety of health programs, including cancer treatment, sickle cell programs, hemophilia treatment, rape prevention and crisis centers, Emergency Medical Service upgrades, genetic services and trauma care would all drop by about 20 percent.

But there are also a few bright spots hidden in the fine print of the state budget, which still has to go through the Senate and survive the governor’s veto pen.

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In the Hopper



Saturday’s editorial offers a roundup of a few interesting bills up for consideration in Columbia:

 

As of Friday, our state lawmakers had introduced nearly 1,700 bills and resolutions during this session, from a wide-ranging overhaul of education financing down to the bill making the South Carolina Pecan Festival in Florence the official state pecan festival.
With all the news that comes out of Columbia each week it’s hard to keep up with all of the moving parts. So from time to time we like to highlight some of the less noticeable pieces of legislation, particularly those that would affect our communities:

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