The U.S. teen birth rate in 2009 was down 6 percent and the lowest on record — 39 births per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19. Abortion statistics for 2009 have not been released.
Valerie Huber, president of the National Abstinence Education Association, said the impact of abstinence-until-marriage education can't be ignored.
"These trends show that the risk-avoidance message of abstinence has 'sticking power' for young people," Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, told The Washington Post. "This latest evidence shows that teen behaviors increasingly mirror the skills they are taught in a successful abstinence-education program."
The Obama administration has significantly reduced funding for abstinence-based programs.
"With a change in policy away from abstinence education, we may expect to see a reversal of the teen pregnancy birth rate in the years to come," Jeanne Monahan, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, told The Post.
Source: CitizenLink
Publish Date: January 4, 2011
