Katie Couric's Notebook: Teen Pregnancy

By: Katie Couric
Topics: Katie Couric's Notebook

Is it a blip or the start of a disturbing trend? After more than a decade on the decline, the number of teen girls getting pregnant has gone up. Seven percent of 15-to-19 year-old girls were pregnant in 2006. While that's much better than the 12 percent rate 20 years ago, it's an increase from the year before.

Teen Pregancy Rate Increases

The reasons aren't clear, but it came amid an increase in funding for programs that taught kids only about abstinence and nothing about contraception. The Obama administration has since cut money for that approach, but it's too soon to see any effect.

We should teach our kids to say no to sex. Some will listen ... but others won't. So, they also need to know how to protect themselves. Given the consequences of STD's and unplanned pregnancy, these are decisions teens will have to live with for the rest of their lives. Having some of the facts just isn't good enough.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

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by troubledteens July 15, 2010 5:39 AM EDT: Better sex education can help to stop the problem of teenage pregnancy among teenagers. Teens and youths don?t have proper knowledge on sexual health that gives rise many critical problems. Sex educational programs and abstinence based education will help in improving the behavior of teens. Various other options such as therapeutic schools, <A HREF="http://www.troubledteens.net/">wilderness camps</A> and treatment centers are there for troubled teens to overcome depression and stress caused by teenage pregnancy.
http://www.troubledteens.net/Problems-in-Teens/Teen-Pregnancy.html; Reply to this comment


by cidaia January 29, 2010 6:53 PM EST: Teaching a kid how to use birth control - along with the implicit assumption that of course they WILL have sex, because all NORMAL kids have sex while still very young - does not protect children.

Condoms do not protect against pregnancy, disease, or the emotional pain that comes from finding your naked body on cell phones across the state.

There is only one solution that will work: those who want to protect children must somehow find a way to stop those who are actively sabotaging the message of abstinence.

Unfortunately, it may also be necessary to break the "political correctness" and start telling the truth about what really happens to promiscuous girls, and stop pretending that promiscuity is a harmless lifestyle alternative that has no negative consequences.

The real number one reason why we must teach abstinence has nothing to do with God. It is because we owe our daughters better than to let them experience the reality of what being a tramp honestly means, in the real world outside the politically correct version of what female sexual liberation means in the minds of feminists who live entirely in a world totally unlike anything today's teen girls are experiencing.; Reply to this comment


by abigailE1523 January 27, 2010 12:02 AM EST: 1-26-10
Activists Blame Teen Births on Abstinence
Education
The teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. rose 3 percent in 2006, the first increase
in more than a decade. A report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute
claims abstinence education is to blame because funding for such programs
rose to $120 million from 2000 to 2003.
Scott Phelps, executive director of the Abstinence and Marriage Education
Partnership, said the assertion makes no sense.

"This slight increase of 3 percent follows a 14-year decline of 34 percent," he
said. "In other words, teen birth rates have dropped substantially in the past
14 years. They have no data to support the claim."
Dr. Jennifer Shuford, director of applied science at the Medical Institute for
Sexual Health, said abstinence has a proven track record.
"The only 100-percent effective means of avoiding pregnancy and avoiding
sexually transmitted infections," she said, "is through avoiding sexual activity
until you are in a lifelong, monogamous marriage."
Activists Blame Teen Births on Abstinence Education http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000011935.cfm; Reply to this comment


by abigailE1523 January 27, 2010 12:01 AM EST: 1-26-10
Activists Blame Teen Births on Abstinence
Education
The teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. rose 3 percent in 2006, the first increase
in more than a decade. A report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute
claims abstinence education is to blame because funding for such programs
rose to $120 million from 2000 to 2003.
Scott Phelps, executive director of the Abstinence and Marriage Education
Partnership, said the assertion makes no sense.

"This slight increase of 3 percent follows a 14-year decline of 34 percent," he
said. "In other words, teen birth rates have dropped substantially in the past
14 years. They have no data to support the claim."
Dr. Jennifer Shuford, director of applied science at the Medical Institute for
Sexual Health, said abstinence has a proven track record.
"The only 100-percent effective means of avoiding pregnancy and avoiding
sexually transmitted infections," she said, "is through avoiding sexual activity
until you are in a lifelong, monogamous marriage."
Activists Blame Teen Births on Abstinence Education http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000011935.cfm; Reply to this comment