OXFORD — Robert Frost, the poet, wrote about “two roads diverging.” That might seem to be a strange image to associate with teen pregnancies in Mississippi, but it might be useful.

People depart from the topic in two distinct directions. The routes lead to different mental destinations. Then the discussion stops. Nothing changes.

As state Rep. Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, pointed out in a recent letter to the state’s media, Mississippi still leads the nation in pregnancies per teen, in babies who die before their first birthday, in low and very low birth-weight babies and in some varities of sexually transmitted diseases.

By the numbers, 6,845 unmarried teens gave birth in 1997 and 6,969 in 2007. So in a decade during which countless speeches were made, counseling sessions were held, programs were authorized, initiatives were funded, laws were passed and sermons were preached, the net effect was nil. Nineteen little girls have babies every day in Mississippi.

Here’s the first trail followed by some people: It’s nobody’s business.

Few people remember it now, but fewer than 100 years ago there was really no such thing as medical privacy. Doctors didn’t make a habit of discussing their patients, but newspapers routinely printed lists of people who were hospitalized and why. If your neighbor was having an appendectomy, you could find out about it in the Town Tribune.

That thinking started to change, and the pace really picked up after the Roe vs. Wade in 1973. The abortion decision, as it became known, was based on personal privacy. A woman’s interest in what later came to be known as reproductive freedom trumped any value the law could place on the child developing in her womb, the court ruled.

Since then, personal privacy — especially in medical matters — has grown into a precious right, staunchly protected in federal law. A receptionist who says to a waiting patient, “Are you ready for your eye exam?” has committed a crime for which the fine can be $5,000. (Any hint of why a patient is in a waiting room is a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, for which the privacy provisions were written by the U.S. Justice Department Office of Civil Rights.)

This readily applies to reproductive matters. The thinking is that choice is absolute and the choice belongs exclusively with the woman. No one else has any say.

That’s perfectly sound logic, perfectly reasonable in every way.

Except one.

With very few exceptions, single teenage girls are not going to be financially independent.

And that’s the other road.

Maybe a few folks in the medical community would care about whether it’s healthy for girls as young as 13 or 14 to have babies. Preachers, definitely, would weigh in on the sanctity of marriage. But think about this: Would the topic of teen pregancies ever come up in the Legislature?

Short answer: No.

The only reason this uncomfortable subject gets any attention at all is that taxpayers pick up all or almost all of the total cost of food, medicine, housing, utilities, specialized job training and so much more for nearly 7,000 more babies born to unwed teens each year.

Those are the poles at which minds are set.

Medical matters are private and reproductive freedom is absolute. People can give all the advice they want, but a woman old enough to give birth has the right to do so, and the right to sign up for aid programs of every type that do little except provide a subsistence existence to those on the receiving end.

Thinking from the other perspective are lawmakers fretting about where to get the money and taxpayers frustrated at underwriting the costs of their children and the children of other children.

Because a solution — any solution — seems impossible, people talk about whether more detailed sex ed programs are needed or whether abstinence education is enough. Some talk about providing free birth control to help, pretending many if not most teen pregnancies are purposeful choices.

The situation will change when the culture changes. The good news is that, as we’ve seen, culture has changed before and will again.

Until then, people will keep departing from this topic in two distinct paths. “Two roads diverged.”

And no common ground.

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Charlie Mitchell is a Mississippi journalist. Write to him at Box 1, University, MS 38677, or e-mail cmitchell43@yahoo.com.