Did teen pregnancy actually rise in 2006, as Guttmacher claims? It depends on what you mean by “teen.” For most people, “teen pregnancy” implies pregnancy among high-schoolers, girls under age 18. According to Guttmacher’s own data, the pregnancy rate for 15- to 17-year-old girls barely changed, and the rate for girls 14 and under (the group most affected by abstinence programs) actually dropped. By contrast, the pregnancy and birth rates for young adult women aged 18 and 19 rose sharply. The rise in pregnancies and births in this age range is part of a much larger story: the collapse of marriage and explosive growth of out-of-wedlock births in lower income communities. Robert Rector in National Review
See also: Guttmacher’s spin on ‘teen pregnancy’ and Evidence on the Effectiveness of Abstinence Education
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