The NY Times reports that in the US the birth rate among teenagers has risen for the first time since1991.
The birth rate among teenagers 15 to 19 in the United States rose 3 percent in 2006, according to a report issued Wednesday, the first such increase since 1991.
The finding has “fueled a debate about whether the Bush administration’s abstinence-only sexual education efforts are working,” thank goodness.
It may be that the changes track a lessening of fear about aids; however, the US figures are out of line with the “developed” world’s.
Kristin A. Moore, a senior scholar at Child Trends, a nonprofit children’s research organization, said the increase in the teenage birth rate was particularly alarming because even the 2005 rate was far higher than that in other industrialized countries.
A spokesman from the conservative heritage foundation tells us that the teenagers wanted to get pregnant, but
Dr. Santelli of Columbia said that many abstinence-only educational efforts tended to emphasize that contraceptives often fail. “They scare kids about contraception,” he said