For the first time in 15 years, the teen pregnancy rate is rising:
The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the world. In 2004, teen pregnancy cost the U.S. government at least $9.1 billion. That same year, teen childbearing in Michigan cost taxpayers at least $302 million, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Of these costs, 35 percent were federal costs and 65 percent were state and local costs.Each year, about 750,000 teenagers will get pregnant.
Unmarried teenagers having children account for 24 percent of all unmarried expectant mothers.
More than two-thirds of all teenagers who have a baby will not graduate from high school.
Teen birth rates vary. For example, Nevada has the highest rate with 113 per 1,000, while North Dakota has the lowest with 42 per 1,000.
Billions of dollars are spent taking care of teen mothers and their children, who are most likely in the poverty bracket. Millions of dollars are spent in prevention programs.
In 2002, the abortion rate among teen mothers was 50 percent lower than its high point in 1988.
Nevada, where more than 1 in 10 teenagers is pregnant, is one of the state's that follow's the Bush administration approved abstinence-only-until-marriage education program. Nevada received $275,785 in federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in Fiscal Year 2003...............
Comments (5)
Yeah...it's the school systems fault and not the fault of these moron kids'families...right. This is a breakdown of culture now education.
Posted on July 28, 2008 9:06 AM
telex: the fact remains that more teenage girls are having babies (and who's going to support these babies? and make sure that these girls get proper prenatal care?). if kids (both boys and girls) are not being educated at home to have safe sex , it is definitely the responsibility of the school to do so. the fact that schools are not able to provide resources for their students to protect them not only against pregnancy, but also sexually transmitted diseases (one out of every 3 women now has hpv) is a testament of the irresponsible policies of the present administration. parents should educate their children, no doubt, but from what i understand, that's what's supposed to occur in schools as well.
Posted on July 28, 2008 11:08 AM
Gwen, of course, because we all must rely on the nanny state as we are incompetent drones of the gov't. They are intelligent, we are not, they are capable, we are not, they can apply common sense, we can not. Take some responsibility for your own choices and let the same responsibility fall on others.
Posted on July 28, 2008 1:04 PM
public schools exist for a reason: to educate the public--particularly to educate children who do not necessarily have the same resources as you may. in an ideal world, everyone would be an ideal parent or have an ideal parent, but we can't punish innocent children (both those getting pregnant and those being born because of uneducated teenagers) for the errors in their parents' judgement. we tell schools that they're supposed to teach children how to read, write, do math, have a sense of history, how the world works scientifically. schools teach nutrition and biology. just as schools provide these resources for their students, schools need to provide education on sex and sexually transmitted diseases. how can people make responsibile choices if they don't have access to the facts?
Posted on July 28, 2008 3:15 PM
It's scary for me to read comments like that and discern the kind of mentality that is becoming prevalent here. I'm not opposed to school systems having some small degree of instruction about these matters, but to assign them the responsibility is wrong and counterproductive. Look at the history of teen pregnancies throughout history and the correlation (negative) asociated with schools teaching their time-consuming sex-ed classes. Again, this is not a matter of education, it's a matter of culture, a sadly disappearing culture at that.
Posted on July 28, 2008 3:47 PM