Teen pregnancy rate up after 10-year decline

[Modbert]

Teen pregnancy rate up after 10-year decline - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. teen pregnancy rate rose in 2006 for the first time in more than a decade, reversing a long slide, a U.S. think tank reported on Tuesday.

The overall teen pregnancy rate was up 3 percent in 2006, with a 4 percent rise in the rate of births and a 1 percent rise in the rate of abortions, according to the report by the Guttmacher Institute.

The United States has higher rates of teen pregnancy, birth and abortion than in other Western industrialized countries.

There were 71 pregnancies per 1,000 U.S. girls aged 15-19. In 2006, 7 percent of all teenage girls got pregnant, according to the report.

Fewer black teenage girls got pregnant, closing a gap with Hispanic teens. But rates among both groups were still significantly higher than for white teens, the report said, and rates went up for all ethnic groups.

We do know that when we saw the big decline in the '90s, that a lot of that decline was due to improved contraceptive use among teens."

The abstinence-only programs, backed by many social conservatives who oppose the teaching of contraception methods to teenagers in U.S. schools, received about $1.3 billion in federal funds since the late 1990s.

The Obama administration's 2010 budget eliminated spending for abstinence-only, shifting funds to pregnancy prevention education that include abstinence along with "medically accurate and age-appropriate" information.

New Mexico led the states with the highest teenage pregnancy rate with nine percent, followed by Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Mississippi.

New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Minnesota and North Dakota had the lowest rates of teen pregnancies.

$1.3 billion to the abstinence-only programs? What a waste.

But hey, all of this new evidence is definitive proof that the abstinence-only program as a whole fails and contraceptive use by teens works.

Quite interesting which states have the highest and lowest rates though.

Thoughts USMB?

 

[chanel]

Do they have abstinence only programs in those states? Or just a high rate of Hispanics? I'm curious as to whether there is really a connection. I am not for abstinence only programs but I am also skeptical about the efficacy of more comprehensive programs. NJ has a very comprehensive program, but it's done very little good in the inner cities and in my own home town. I would suspect that 99% of teens know how NOT to get pregnant. Most of the teen moms I know wanted a baby.

 

[uscitizen]

We must keep trying abstinance only it will work some day.

 

[chanel]

We must keep trying Planned Parenthood's kinky sex program too. That's proven very, very, effective too.

 

[Oddball]

Do they have abstinence only programs in those states? Or just a high rate of Hispanics? I'm curious as to whether there is really a connection. I am not for abstinence only programs but I am also skeptical about the efficacy of more comprehensive programs. NJ has a very comprehensive program, but it's done very little good in the inner cities and in my own home town. I would suspect that 99% of teens know how NOT to get pregnant. Most of the teen moms I know wanted a baby.

It's prolly them teabaggers, doing their cousins.

 

[uscitizen]

We must keep trying Planned Parenthood's kinky sex program too. That's proven very, very, effective too.

those rubbers thay give out are very effective.
Beats using a bible anyday to prevent pregnancy and disease spread.

 

[Meister]

Damn Bush, he's at it again.

 

[uscitizen]

Damn Bush, he's at it again.

More like Edwards and tiger.

I am not sure Bush would know what to do with a woman.

 

[uptownlivin90]

Do they have abstinence only programs in those states? Or just a high rate of Hispanics? I'm curious as to whether there is really a connection. I am not for abstinence only programs but I am also skeptical about the efficacy of more comprehensive programs. NJ has a very comprehensive program, but it's done very little good in the inner cities and in my own home town. I would suspect that 99% of teens know how NOT to get pregnant. Most of the teen moms I know wanted a baby.

I don't think hispanics are the problem in states like Mississippi. Alabama and Tennessee have pretty high teen pregnancy rates as well, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, and most teens know how to terminate a pregnancy. Sex ed should really just be that. sex ed. Teach them how to use a condom and hope they do. That's really the only thing anybody can do. We live in a media driven world sex, where sex is glorified. I'd estimate the average age for kids loosing their v-cards is somewhere around 11 and 14. Abstinence doesn't work... simply because alot of parents now-a-days culturally don't expect their children to be abstinent THEMSELVES. Neither does society.

Teaching abstinence is just a way for people to hold on to the ignorant notion that teach "morality" in schools is plausible. Not in a free-speech and diverse nation, maybe in Saudi Arabia.

Teach them biological aspect of sex and pregnance. Then let them and their parents make the decision on what's "moral" and "right".

 

[chanel]

We must keep trying Planned Parenthood's kinky sex program too. That's proven very, very, effective too.

those rubbers thay give out are very effective.
Beats using a bible anyday to prevent pregnancy and disease spread.

Which states distribute condoms in school? I'd like to see some stats on that.

 

[uscitizen]

We must keep trying Planned Parenthood's kinky sex program too. That's proven very, very, effective too.

those rubbers thay give out are very effective.
Beats using a bible anyday to prevent pregnancy and disease spread.

Which states distribute condoms in school? I'd like to see some stats on that.

You got me, certainly not in a red bible belt state like KY.
Some states actually do that?

 

[chanel]

Iowa recently became the 17th state to opt out of federal funding for abstinence-only education. In making this decision, Iowa joins a host of other states — including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming — who have rejected millions of dollars of federal funds in favor of teaching comprehensive sex education in schools.

Mixed results. As I suspected.

 

[TheSuaveOne]

The U.S. teen pregnancy rate rose in 2006 for the first time in more than a decade...

Thoughts USMB?

2006? Is this really news?

-TSO

 

[chanel]

Its news because they are considering doing away with the funding. I'd like to see abstinence as PART of a comprehensive program. I would gather that gets little focus in the schools that use Planned Parenthood. After all, abortion is a business.

But I still don't see any connection to sex ed at all. My guess is the number one predictor of teen pregnancy is family history.

 

[TheSuaveOne]

As long as it's not taught as abstinence only and gives all of the option young men and women have, I'm all for it being part of the modern equivalent of "Health Class".

-TSO

 

[Political Junky]

Damn Bush, he's at it again.

Well, teen pregnancy did increase during Bush's presidency. Abstinence doesn't work now, just as it didn't when you were a teen.

 

[TheSuaveOne]

Abstinence doesn't work now...

It doesn't? Last time I checked, it was the only 100% method to prevent one's self from getting pregnant.

-TSO

 

[Charles Stucker]

Abstinence doesn't work now...

It doesn't? Last time I checked, it was the only 100% method to prevent one's self from getting pregnant.

-TSO

Wrong, that one has also failed in the recorded past. Poor Jewish girl in a backwards Roman province as I recall.
The only 100% effective method to prevent one's self from getting pregnant is to be born male.

 

[chanel]

Very witty Chaz. But speaking of "Chaz", you don't have to be born male. If you have enough money, you can always CHOOSE to be male, and get rid of all those freakish girly parts.

Case in point:

 

[Vel]

Do they have abstinence only programs in those states? Or just a high rate of Hispanics? I'm curious as to whether there is really a connection. I am not for abstinence only programs but I am also skeptical about the efficacy of more comprehensive programs. NJ has a very comprehensive program, but it's done very little good in the inner cities and in my own home town. I would suspect that 99% of teens know how NOT to get pregnant. Most of the teen moms I know wanted a baby.

I don't think hispanics are the problem in states like Mississippi. Alabama and Tennessee have pretty high teen pregnancy rates as well, if I remember correctly.


Teach them biological aspect of sex and pregnance. Then let them and their parents make the decision on what's "moral" and "right".

Check the stats and you'll find the Hispanic immigration to the south exploded between 1995 and 2005.

Rise, Peak and Decline: Trends in U.S. Immigration 1992 – 2004 - Pew Hispanic Center