NOT reliable among certain populations for birth control....
because thay are not using them...
well, maybe....but also....because....they are OLD or used improperly.....in other words.....CONDOMS are NOT that reliable all alone.
Condoms are a much less effective contraceptive method than hormonal methods or the IUD which are only usable by women. But this is beside the point. Even if a man insists on using a condom a woman can (a) poke a little whole in the end of it; or (b) have sex with other men. Normal healthy young women can choose whether or not they want to have a baby. Instead of the social and economic penalties that an unwed mother faced in the past, today she enjoys social acceptance and even enhanced social status, and many economic benefits, plus the satisfactions of having children and probably multiple sexual relationships. Trying to solve the problem by sanctioning the men she chose to the "baby-daddy" is like trying to empty the ocean with a child's beach pail, there will always be another wave, and there is always another man who will supply her, wittingly or unwittingly, sperm.
But it is more politically expedient to demagogue about the "deadbeat dads" and shake-down the men the mother names as the source of sperm (often inaccurately); when the real responsibility lies with the women who have control over their own fertility, and the legislators and government officials who incentivize these unmarried young women, really the dregs of our society, to pop out babies as fast as they can, while making it expensive, by high taxes to pay for these social programs, poor schools, and other policies, for middle and working class married families to reproduce.