Putting Teen Pregnancy in Perspective

Putting Teen Pregnancy in Perspective

The media love reporting on year-to-year fluctations in the American teen birth rate. Less attention is paid to the fact that teen pregnancy is exponentially more common in the United States than in other developed world nations.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

Each year when the national teen birth rate statistics are released by the CDC, the media get very excited. This year the birth rate is down to about thirty-four births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19, which Reuters attributes to the bad economy, better sex education and even cautionary TV shows like MTV’s Teen Mom. But just two years ago, when the teen birth rate rose slightly in twenty-six states, the media cited many of the very same factors: USA Today attributed that change to worse sex-education; pop-culture depictions of pregnant teens, such as the movi Juno; and celebrity teen moms, such as Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears.

I’d argue for spending less time peering at the year-to-year fluctuations in the teen birth rate and instead look at the big picture, which shows the United States has exponentially more teen moms than any other developed world nation.

*chart via the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

We can only gesture toward the myriad factors causing this problem, but here are some likely ones: lack of knowledge about and access to affordable contraception (one in five sexually active teenage girls do not use any kind of birth control); lack of access to abortion-providers in 87 percent of American counties; increased immigration from nations where teen pregnancy is more the norm; and even high poverty rates that cause some girls to see motherhood as the only viable path to adulthood, since a college education and decent job are unavailable to them.

The good news is that the American teen birth rate has steadily decreased over the past seventy years, despite year-to-year ups and downs. The bottom line, though, is that the United States remains an outlier not only on the teen birth rate but on teen pregnancy and abortion, too, which occur far more often here than in European nations. Clearly, our hot-potato reproductive rights debate isn’t solving these problems, which is just one of many good reasons why we should ratchet down the politicization of this public health issue and take a common sense prevention approach, one that accepts that over 95 percent of Americans have premarital sex.

Can we count on you?

In the coming election, the fate of our democracy and fundamental civil rights are on the ballot. The conservative architects of Project 2025 are scheming to institutionalize Donald Trump’s authoritarian vision across all levels of government if he should win.

We’ve already seen events that fill us with both dread and cautious optimism—throughout it all, The Nation has been a bulwark against misinformation and an advocate for bold, principled perspectives. Our dedicated writers have sat down with Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders for interviews, unpacked the shallow right-wing populist appeals of J.D. Vance, and debated the pathway for a Democratic victory in November.

Stories like these and the one you just read are vital at this critical juncture in our country’s history. Now more than ever, we need clear-eyed and deeply reported independent journalism to make sense of the headlines and sort fact from fiction. Donate today and join our 160-year legacy of speaking truth to power and uplifting the voices of grassroots advocates.

Throughout 2024 and what is likely the defining election of our lifetimes, we need your support to continue publishing the insightful journalism you rely on.

Thank you,
The Editors of The Nation

Ad Policy
x