Teen births up for first time in 15 years

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http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/12/05/teen.births.ap/index.html

Likely attributable to "abstinence only" sex education.

This is troubling.  It's time for the federal government to fund comprehensive sex education for young people that includes an emphasis on contraceptives to prevent pregnancy.

It's just common sense.

It's yet another policy of the religious right that is failing our country.

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The only people failing the country are the hippie left that encourage ghettos and unprotected sex among young people.  The answer is traditional families and stable home life, something schools cannot provide.

The only people encouraging unprotected sex among young people are those who want abstinence-only sex education rather than properly educating people on safe sex.  They might not know that that's what they're doing, but it sure as heck is the effect.

The problem still lies with lack of family values and morals, how much would you be willing to be the vast majority of pregnant teens are minorities, poor or inner city people or belong to single parent homes.

You read just like a book called "popular lines of a right-wing hack"

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If it's caused by abstinence education, why is the effect only registering now? This is one of the most ridiculous post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacies I've seen in my life. Hume laughs at you.

Your use of philosophical jargon isn't going to sway anybody.

There are two trains of thought in the U.S. regarding sex education:

One accepts that teenagers have always and will always have sex at a fairly young age because the body becomes able to do it, and that humans can generally figure out what gets put into where when it comes to sex without education... so contraceptives and safe sex are promoted to minimize unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STDs.

The other side reads their sex education out of the Bible and tries to force all teenagers in PUBLIC schools to adopt a moralistic abstinence only approach.  This clearly is not working.

All of the indicators for a rise in teen birth rates are in place now:  The poor are getting poorer and they're not being educated about safe sex, so they're making poor choices and unwanted pregnancies are the result.

You can try to blame it on whatever you like... Religion should have no bearing in sex education inside public schools.  If you want to teach abstinence only sex ed., then teach it at home or in Sunday School.

And MODU:  Perhaps sex is glamorous and being a virgin is uncool.   But that is not going to change.  Why in the hell would we simply ignore that fact and continue down a path of teaching young people to be ignorant of steps they can take to keep themselves safe?

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If it's caused by abstinence education, why is the effect only registering now? This is one of the most ridiculous post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacies I've seen in my life. Hume laughs at you.

Your use of philosophical jargon isn't going to sway anybody.

There are two trains of thought in the U.S. regarding sex education:

One accepts that teenagers have always and will always have sex at a fairly young age because the body becomes able to do it, and that humans can generally figure out what gets put into where when it comes to sex without education... so contraceptives and safe sex are promoted to minimize unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STDs.

The other side reads their sex education out of the Bible and tries to force all teenagers in PUBLIC schools to adopt a moralistic abstinence only approach.  This clearly is not working.

All of the indicators for a rise in teen birth rates are in place now:  The poor are getting poorer and they're not being educated about safe sex, so they're making poor choices and unwanted pregnancies are the result.

You can try to blame it on whatever you like... Religion should have no bearing in sex education inside public schools.  If you want to teach abstinence only sex ed., then teach it at home or in Sunday School.

And MODU:  Perhaps sex is glamorous and being a virgin is uncool.   But that is not going to change.  Why in the hell would we simply ignore that fact and continue down a path of teaching young people to be ignorant of steps they can take to keep themselves safe?

While your anti-intellectualism is very amusing, as is your attempt to shift the burden of proof unto me, I don't fall for such a cheap ploy. Abstinence only education has been a staple for a few years now. Why did this number only change now? It is up to you to establish causation, not for me to prove that there is none.

For a few years now?  I was in high school not all that long ago and we were taught comprehensive sex education.  It takes a little while for the full effect to be seen because these programs were not implemented overnight.

And don't accuse me of "anti-intellectualism".  I'm not the one putting my pastoral religious views in a pretty box and trying to come off as looking intelligent.

And there is no proving it to you, Bono.  You won't change your mind.  You're pretty rigid.  The fact that after over a decade of declining crime, a few years after the Bush administration came in with rising income disparities, crusades against contraceptives and comprehensive sex ed., I am not at all surprised that crime is rising as well as teen birth rates.

If you can't see the elephant trampling everything down in the room, then I certainly won't be able to convince you.

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The only causal relationship is that during the late 1980s, there was a push to teach more comprehensive sex education in schools because the AIDS epidemic was spreading so quickly and teenage pregnancies were rising and rising and rising.

Soon after these teaching practices began to change, AIDS began to decline and teen pregnancies began to decline.

Then, when federal rules stipulated that abstinence should be the cornerstone of sex education lest you lose federal funding (and I know of several public schools where condoms and other contraceptives are frowned upon as I know two people who actually teach sex ed in schools)..

And now teen pregnancies have slowed in their decline and have now risen for the first time since 1991.

I'd ask you, Bono, what is causing this turn around in the trend?

You have offered no explanation other than to disagree with mine and try to challenge my intelligence.

The article also alleged that abstinence only was at least partially responsible.

Methinks it should be you, the skeptic and the challenger, that should be posting contrary explanations.

But again, I suspect you will simply post some bloated jargon that beats around the bush with a few insults to my "logical thinking" thrown in for effect.  You have added nothing to the quality of this thread.

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And now teen pregnancies have slowed in their decline and have now risen for the first time since 1991.

Of course, another thing to consider is the "new generation."  The teens now weren't around in 1991, so they didn't have to live with the fear of AIDs as much as you kids did back then.

That is, of course, also a factor.  But that shouldn't stop schools from stressing the importance of safe sex to help avoid STDs.

The kids in high school now were born around 1990 and were too young to know what was going on when AIDS peaked in prevalence in 1993.  My age group was just beginning to learn about AIDS during that time.

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The idea that education has anything to do with this is absurd, do you really think anyone actually pays attention in health class?  If they do, they you really think kids take it to heart?  It starts with instilling moral values and safe-sex principles at home

I learned what a condom was on the school bus when I was about 6.  I found out what sex was at an even earlier age, again, on the bus.

I think many children have learned about such things in a similar manner.  But I learned about STDs and the dangers of spreading them at school.

Perhaps you were taught by your parents, DWTL... your parents were smart.  But what can we do about this?  Force parents into teaching their kids about the dangers of unprotected sex?  The best society can do is educate people at school.

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So, were parents in the '90s simply better than parents in the '80s and today?

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I looked up some statistics:

I found that:

Teen pregnancies rose from 95/1000 15-19 aged women in 1972 to over 110 in the mid 1980s and plateaued there until pregnancy rates began to decline in 1992 to 75/1000 in 2003.  This is also the time when AIDS transmission peaked and comprehensive sex ed was making inroads into schools.

The number of those pregnancies that ended in abortion rose from 19 in 1972 to 45/1000 in the mid-late 1980s before declining through 2003 to half that rate.

The number of babies born also fell from 620,000 in 1972 to 420,000 in 2003.

Sexual activity did not decline over this time period.  Pregnancies, however, did.  So we can assume that either condoms were being used or these women were going on the pill.

I also dug up some information on what type of sex education is taught in public schools.

In the south, over half of public schools that even have sex ed. programs teach abstinence as the ONLY option for unmarried couples.  This is compared to only 20% in the northeast.

Teen pregnancies are much higher in the south than they are in the northeast.  Of course, the south is also poorer, but that is clearly not the only contributing factor.

You can find this information here:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_sex_ed02.html

and here:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/teen_preg_stats.html

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Do you have any proof that declining marriage rates among teenagers has led to reduced birth rates?

If this is so, then teen marriage would have to have risen from the early 1970s through the late 1980s before dropping off in the '90s.

A combination of ethnic/racial make-up, shrinking income disparities, and comprehensive sex ed and awareness likely led to the decreases in not only the teen birth rate, but also the teen pregnancy rate and the teen abortion rate.

It should be pointed out that black teenage birth rates shrunk by 40% between the late '80s and 2002 while that for non-hispanic whites fell by a smaller 25%.

Also, the number of non-hispanic white teens fell sharply through the 70s and 80s, bottoming out in the early '90s before rising again and actually peaking in the past 2 years.  During this time, hispanic and black teen numbers have risen constantly, so while you could argue that the increasing proportion of minority teens during the 70s and 80s could have led to increases in teen births, the proportional change has not been nearly as strong in the past few years as it was in the 80s despite the reversal of the declining birth rates.

Another cause for the rise could be the exploding number of Hispanics in the country.  Coming from more conservative, Catholic roots, abortion may not be an option for many of them, so despite falling pregnancy rates, the birth rate could be rising.  For others, lack of awareness and access to abortions or other contraceptives might lead to a rise in births.

It is a complicated issue, but my opinion has not changed:  Religious and moral ideals have had a negative impact on teenage pregnancy/birth rates.  This likely explains the relatively extremely high teen birth rates in the U.S. compared to all other industrialized nations.

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Actually Bono, as much as you might like to think that you have intellectual argument here, there logical line could be drawn that many people who are 14/15/16 now are the ones who have been exposed to abstinence programs. Include with the increase in the rate of STI/D's over the last couple of years.

And this explains why the trends in birth rates from 18 and 19 YO are similar to that for 20 to 24 YO?  If you are going to argue causality, you need to provide an explanation why birth rates for 20 to 24 YO began to drop at about the time (actually slightly before) more comprehensive sex education programs began for 14-17 YO, and that birth rates for this older group also began to rise sooner.

Because women had more access to birth control and other contraceptives so they could delay child birth until they were ready to have children.  There are many things that have led to the decline in birth rates for 20-24 year old women.. but it has been uniform across all industrialized nations with women aged 25-29 and 30-34 having more children while younger women use birth control so they can finish schooling, start a career.. whatever.

When teenagers are taught abstinence only and that planned parenthood is the devil, they are more likely to get pregnant and carry out the child birth.