Intolerance for the poverty excuse and a universal expectation of personal responsibility would put the poverty-industrial complex out of business, of course, which is why Planned Parenthood admonishes the Bloomberg administration instead: “It’s time we focus on the root causes [of teen pregnancy] rather than point fingers at teen parents and their children.” The implication that the administration is not already focusing on what Planned Parenthood deems the “root causes” of teen pregnancy is hilarious. New York City has spent billions over the decades “fighting poverty” through social-service programs and a smorgasbord of transfer payments. Bloomberg has also liberally poured taxpayer dollars into family-planning services, sex education, and—it has come to this—“relationship education” for students.

Nearly as dangerous as Planned Parenthood’s philosophical position on individual will are the group’s factual claims about teen pregnancy. “Teenage parenthood is simply not the disastrous and life-compromising event these ads portray,” the group asserts in its press release, shamelessly denying the overwhelming evidence. The city’s farsighted welfare commissioner, Robert Doar, who pioneered the ad campaign, knows better. To be sure, one can always find an individual teen mother here or there who has raised law-abiding, successful children. But such exceptions don’t disprove the rule that teen parenting is, on average, a tragedy for parent, child, and society. The administration’s anti-teen-pregnancy campaign could be one of its most important initiatives if the campaign inspires public figures elsewhere (including New York governor Andrew Cuomo) to get some backbone and follow suit.