Teenage Pregnancy

According to According to the National Vital Statistics Reports: Volume 58, No. 4, released October 14th, 2009, entitled "Estimated Pregnancy Rates for the United States, 1990–2005: An Update" the pregnancy rate for teenagers fell 40 percent during the 1990–2005 period, to 70.6 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19 years. This rate was the lowest reported since 1976. The overall decline for teenagers is reflected in significant declines in rates for live births and induced abortions, with much steeper declines for abortions (down 53 percent) compared with live births (down 32 percent).

Teenage Pregnancy Is Still Being Evaluated

Preliminary data on births extending to 2007 show that the long-term decline in the teenage birth rate was halted with increases from 2005 to 2006 and from 2006 to 2007. When more recent abortion estimates become available, it will be possible to assess whether and to what extent teenage pregnancy rates have increased as the birth rate did. Pregnancy rates by age of woman are highest in 1990 and 2005 for women in their twenties, intermediate at ages 18–19 and 30–34 years, and lowest at ages under 18 and 35 years and older.

Our Teenagers Need Our Help

According to the National Abortion Federation, it is a fact that each year, one million American teenagers become pregnant, and 78% of these pregnancies are unintended. It is also a fact that of the teenage women who become pregnant, about 35% choose to have an abortion rather than bear a child. The children are our future. We must do a better job meeting the needs of women and communicating the truth that, in the words of Day Gardner (a Black woman who is President of the National Black Pro-Life Union): "The consequences or circumstances a young woman may face with an unplanned pregnancy need not include the cruel and vicious killing of her child."

Brothers, we really need to talk.