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Possibly the most troubling of the posters features a white boy whose sexual activity resulted in an unexpected pregnancy. He is labeled "USELESS," and the fine print reads: "My scholarship is USELESS. Now I need a job to support my baby." Taken together, the posters convey a deeply problematic message. The college boy who leaves behind his scholarship to take care of the CHEAP REJECT's baby is USELESS.

The board of directors for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy includes CEOs from major corporations and leaders from both political parties, representing a broad consensus across the United States, as well as leading members of the black and Hispanic communities. The urgency of eliminating teenage pregnancy is one of the few matters on which conservatives and liberals agree, and the stakes are deemed sufficiently high to warrant the use of brute shame.

Another national campaign to prevent teen pregnancy is sponsored by the Candie's Foundation, linked to a trendy line of handbags, sunglasses, bikinis, and sandals. The foundation's website speaks a predictable, nonsensical language of free-flowing, responsible sex appeal. "Think of what you can achieve if you don't conceive"—this runs as a refrain as various celebrities vogue for the camera. Candie's encourages viewers to "be sexy" (no doubt with the aid of Candie's accessories), but not to have sex. This directive is always followed with a caveat: If you do have sex, use birth control, or else you will suffer "the devastating consequences."

One public service announcement produced by Candie's makes it clear that the consequence that can render sex devastating is, in fact, a human life. With a young couple about to "do this" in the back seat of a car, former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy arrives to deliver a crying baby into the girl's arms. The boy exits the car in a hurry. Jenny leaves, too, sneering at the girl with knowing disgust. "Welcome to reality," are her departing words. The girl is left holding the crying baby, alone, clearly frightened, in the back seat of the car.

Is this truly reality—a world where teenage mothers who conceive are abandoned to "devastating consequences"? Perhaps. I sometimes think so when I hear stories of evangelical families who cannot bear the shame of an unplanned pregnancy, as I read thinly veiled warnings in the media about the growing number of young, Latina mothers in the U.S., and as I dig through the archives of meticulously planned reproduction as marketed to mid-20th-century Americans. Throughout that history of planning and parenthood, the word illegitimate bears multiple layers of stigma and shame.

But I have come to believe that Christians are called to be a counterculture for the common good in no small part by refusing to declare any life in our midst illegitimate.

Christians are called to a very different kind of double-speak from Candie's bikini-chastity chic. We are called to encourage sexual discipline outside and inside of marriage, while also affirming, in the very same breath, that no pregnancy is outside of God's reach.

This does not mean that Christians cannot say it would have been preferable had this young woman not shared herself intimately with a boy who hardly knew how to appreciate the intricate beauty of her body and the vulnerability of her love. Christians are surely called to teach girls and young women that their bodies are not primarily "in waiting" for sex with a man, but rather actively in service today for the work of the Holy Spirit. But as we affirm the blessings of holy chastity, we must also consider the incipient life embedded inside an image-bearer of God as within the purview of God's providence. A young couple's coupling in the backseat is morally barren (even if ultimately procreative), because it is outside the sacramental gift of marriage. Yet the pregnancy conceived by such a couple in the backseat (even if it is ill-conceived) is well within the reach of God's profligate grace.

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September 2006, Vol. 50, No. 9