Teenage Pregnancy in the U.S.

Teenage pregnancy has obviously been higher in the United States than other countries over the past decade, but until recently the teenage pregnancy rate has been pretty low. In the 1970's and 1980's, teenage pregnancy was starting to increase.  However, once people became aware of AIDS the trend started to decrease. The teenage pregnancy rate was actually at an all time low until about 2005. From 2005 to 2006, there was a 3% increase in the rate of teen pregnancies, 71.5 out of 1,000 women aged 15 to 19. The abortion rate also increased 1%. Some fear that this could mean that the programs put in place to prevent teen pregnancy have failed. Others think that it could be because of the push for abstinence based sex education programs as opposed to birth control. Other reasons could include poverty, lack of knowledge of birth control methods, or it could also mean that women are getting less abortions.


Reference
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/25/AR2010012503957.html