Teen births up for first time in 15 years

[Bono]

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.

[Ban my account ffs!]

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.

[MODU]

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?

At no time have I advocated that safe sex practices not be taught (and you can check back 3 years on this topic if you like).  Not to be a broken record, any form of sex education should begin with, reinforced with, and concluded with that abstinence is the only true form of safe sex, both to avoid pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (not to mention emotional development) as well as the legal ramifications for violating the states laws regarding sex with a minor.  The discussion of the sexual process as well as methods to protect ones' self if they do decide to engage in sex is important, and this education must be continued at home for proper reinforcement in order to protect the futures of all minors.

And as I mentioned earlier, "abstinence-only" education (as it is termed) does cover the use of protection during sex.  I have not seen a single state that recommends abstinence as the cornerstone of sex ed refuse to teach standard safe sex practices (as some have implied on here).

[memphis]

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?

And as I mentioned earlier, "abstinence-only" education (as it is termed) does cover the use of protection during sex. 

No, that wouldn't be abstinence-only, which means only teaching abstinence.

[MODU]

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?

And as I mentioned earlier, "abstinence-only" education (as it is termed) does cover the use of protection during sex. 

No, that wouldn't be abstinence-only, which means only teaching abstinence.

Again, no state teaches only abstinence, and the states that tend to be accused of such do teach safe sex methods.  This was provided for clarification for the few on here who like to jump to stereotypes and labels too quickly.

[Bono]

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.

What views. I did not express any views on this thread aside from pointing out a ridiculous logical fallacy.

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.

LOL, that is completely laughable. So, you just point to a correlation and assume causation without bothering to establish any causal relationship because there's no proving it to me? Grow some logical thinking please.

[Ban my account ffs!]

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.

[MODU]

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.

[Ban my account ffs!]

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.

[MODU]

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.

And I don't think they have.  Just pointing out how many different variables go into these over-simplified conclusions from various studies. 

[DownWithTheLeft]

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

[Ban my account ffs!]

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.

[DownWithTheLeft]

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.

My point still remains that it is absurd to think that kids are going to pay attention to what they learn in class.  One, anything taught is certainly not new to the child at the time they start teaching it, and second the inner city schools were it is most likely most important, there is no way kids are going to pay attention if they even bother to show up

[Ban my account ffs!]

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

[DownWithTheLeft]

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

The fact that were many more parents to take care of children yes.  Its not necessarily the parents are getting worse, the amount of time they have to do parenting is getting smaller.

[Smash255]

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.

the first impact of abstinence only education was for the trend of the birthrate dropping slowed down.  In the past few years some still did have some sex education so that may have stopped it from reversing itself, but others did not which resulted in the rate dropping at a lower rate.  Now since asbstinence education has been around for a few years teens don't have the comprehensive sex education some got a little of a few years ago, so the rates are starting to rise.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

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.

People can blame "society" and in certain communities there are other factors, but statistically when you have a shift, you look for changing elements.

I will point out that there was a really good doco on Australian TV earlier this week called "Rampant: How a City Stopped a Plague". It was about the agressive, sometimes illegal measures taken to curb the spread of AIDS in the mid-1980s in Sydney. Compare that the timid approach by the US government... "oh dear Senator Helms gets upset by pictures of butt-sex... flee!!! flee!!!" Only giving funds to programs in Africa if they promote abstinence and no funds for needle-exchange, is so pointless it's almost funny.

Because of the "Sydney Program" - the infection rate of habitual IV drug users is 1%, compared to almost 20% in the US, the authorities expected 50,000+ deaths from AIDS in Australia by 2000 - there were only 6500, and there is not one reported case of a person being infected by a female sex worker.

This shows that the program which tries to enforce a value, to deal with an imagined or idealised society DOES NOT WORK. Work with the society you got. Providing clean needles to drug users DOES NOT ENCOURAGE them to use drugs, exactly the same as providing young people with a comprehensive sex-education program does not encourage sex. It encourages safe activity.

Also, I should point out that this blows massive holes in the arguments of the cultural regressives, "if condom based safe-sex programs were encouraging sexual activity - why is there now increases in teen-births and STI's? Oh yes... because people are going to have sex regardless" Rates of "sexual" activity haven't really shifted that much, it's just people are more likely to talk about it.

[memphis]

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

By your logic, why even have school at all if kids don't pay attention and don't learn anything? You may as well send them off to work.

[DownWithTheLeft]

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

By your logic, why even have school at all if kids don't pay attention and don't learn anything? You may as well send them off to work.

Not at all, if kids don't get something in a math class they are going to pay attention because their grade depends on it.  Kids aren't going to watch a video about sex or take notes on it if they already understand it.

[memphis]

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

By your logic, why even have school at all if kids don't pay attention and don't learn anything? You may as well send them off to work.

Not at all, if kids don't get something in a math class they are going to pay attention because their grade depends on it.  Kids aren't going to watch a video about sex or take notes on it if they already understand it.

I would agree that kids need to be tested on safe-sex practices (on paper of course ) Of course, the kids who know aren't going to pay attention, but the point is for the kids who don't know.

[Ban my account ffs!]

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

[DownWithTheLeft]

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

By your logic, why even have school at all if kids don't pay attention and don't learn anything? You may as well send them off to work.

Not at all, if kids don't get something in a math class they are going to pay attention because their grade depends on it.  Kids aren't going to watch a video about sex or take notes on it if they already understand it.

I would agree that kids need to be tested on safe-sex practices (on paper of course ) Of course, the kids who know aren't going to pay attention, but the point is for the kids who don't know.

I doubt those kids are hardly the kids that are going to go around having rampant unprotected sex

[jimrtex]

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?

If it were related to a change in educational practices, one would expect that the birth rate would have decreased first among younger women in the early 1990s.  In fact, the decline began first among women in their 20's.  Over a 5 year period in the early 1990's the birth rate dropped 9.5% among women 25-29, 7.6% among women 20-24, and 9.9% among women 18-19.

So what your claim is, that soon after 17 and 18 YO began receiving more comprehensive sex education the birth rate among 21 and 22 YO began to drop, and then a year or two later it began to drop among those who had actually received the more comprehensive sex education.  So what is your causal explanation?  Perhaps: Those in their early 20's were more sexually active, and thus were responsive to the education that their younger sisters were receiving?  And then they began to influence their younger sisters?

And then the birth rate among those 20-24 began to rise, followed a year or two later for those 18 and 19.  This was after an increase in abstinence-only education.  So what is your causal explanation?  Perhaps: Those in their early 20's who had received the comprehensive sex education found something missing in their personal relationships, and were responsive to the abstinence education their younger sisters were receiving.  But they were not able to actually able to practice abstinence, and more became pregnant.  And then the younger sisters who had actually received the abstinence education began to emulate them?

Or how about women in their early 20's have always had the highest birth rate.  19 YO are more similar to 20 YO than they are 17 YO, and you would not expect a discontinuity between 20 and 19, simply because we use the decimal system.  And while there has been a slight upward shift in the peak age, 19 is still very close to the peak, and a rise in births among women in their 20s would expect to see a similar increase among those 19.  The ratio of births to 17:18:19 YO mothers changed from 54:79:100 in 1998 to 45:71:100 in 2005.  Births declined by 25% for 17 YO, 16% for 18 YO, and 5% for 19 YO.  But this change in distribution also makes the "teen" birth rate more comparable to the 20 to 24 YO birth rate that has been rising.

Much of the decline in the teen birth rate has been due to a decrease in marriage by teenagers (married teenagers have higher birth rates).  That is, the overall decline in the the teen birth rate was less due to changes in the birth rate among population subgroups with different birth rates, but rather the relative distribution of the subgroups.  But this effect is declinining as the share of teenagers who are married has shrunk.  In addition, a larger share of 18 YO and 19 YO mothers are Black and/or Hispanic, both groups with significantly higher teen birth rates than Whites.  A change in distribution here can also lead to an increase in the overall birth rate.

[jimrtex]

the first impact of abstinence only education was for the trend of the birthrate dropping slowed down.  In the past few years some still did have some sex education so that may have stopped it from reversing itself, but others did not which resulted in the rate dropping at a lower rate.  Now since asbstinence education has been around for a few years teens don't have the comprehensive sex education some got a little of a few years ago, so the rates are starting to rise.

Could you provide some years when you think this happened?

[Ban my account ffs!]

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.