U.S. Teen Pregnancy Rate Increases After Decade Long Decline, New Report Says

Washington, January 26, 2010 – Teen pregnancy in the United States rose by 3% in 2006, signaling a major shift in more than a decade, according to a new report by the Guttmacher Institute.

U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions: National and State Trends and Trends by Race and Ethnicity explains the increase on widespread “sex education programs aimed exclusively at promoting abstinence—and prohibited by law from discussing the benefits of contraception.”

The report states teen pregnancy declined 41% between its peak in 1990 and 2005. Similarly, teen birth and abortion rates declined, with births dropping 35% between 1991 and 2005 and teen abortion declining 56% between its peak, in 1988, and 2005. However, in 2006, the situation reversed.

In a press release, Heather Boonstra, Guttmacher Institute senior public policy associate called the increase “deeply troubling” and noted “how it coincided with the abstinence-only sex education programs, which received major funding boosts under the Bush administration.”

Boonstra added “A strong body of research shows that these programs do not work. Fortunately, the heyday of this failed experiment has come to an end with the enactment of a new teen pregnancy prevention initiative that ensures that programs will be age-appropriate, medically accurate and, most importantly, based on research demonstrating their effectiveness.”

Lawrence Finer, Guttmacher’s director of domestic research, added “It is too soon to tell whether the increase in the teen pregnancy rate between 2005 and 2006 is a short term fluctuation, a more lasting stabilization or the beginning of a significant new trend, any of which would be of great concern.”

For more information:

U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions: National and State Trends and Trends by Race and Ethnicity

Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health

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