Fox News host Bill O'Reilly suggested on Friday that many of the problems in the African-American community could be solved by using peer pressure instead of sex education and contraception to prevent unmarried women from having children.
In response to protests over the George Zimmerman verdict, O'Reilly has spent recent days opining on how to solve problems in the African-American community.
"The big one is the collapse of the family, traditional family in the African-American precincts," he told Democratic strategist James Carville on Thursday. "I want a big, public campaign funded by the federal government to go in and tell the girls and the young ladies, 'Don't do this, this condemns you to poverty, it is destructive to your child, wait until you have a stable situation to become pregnant.' Would you get behind that campaign?"
"I would get behind if it had comprehensive sex education and had easy access to contraception," Carville replied.
"That's all adjacent," O'Reilly said.
"No, it's not," Carville insisted. "I think the idea that the federal government is going to tell a 17-year-old that you just wait and you don't have sex, I don't think that's going to be effective."
"It has nothing to do with sex, it has to do with getting pregnant," the Fox News host quipped.
"Well, you know, one leads to the other," Carville pointed out. "Let's really fund Planned Parenthood."
"So, you don't want peer pressure brought, you want to fund, fund, fund!" O'Reilly exclaimed. "More money, more money."
"Absolutely. I want easy access to contraception," Carville said.
"Why don't we just have the Good Humor man have contraception on the ice cream truck?" O'Reilly wondered. "Come on, James, it's all about a societal attitude."
"The federal government is not going to stop young people from having sex," Carville noted.
"It's going to discourage! Actively discourage! Peer pressure!" O'Reilly shouted. "Jay Z, the multimillion dollar man, have him get out and do a couple public service announcements."