What's Behind the Drop in Teen Pregnancy in the U.S.?

If you read this headline and immediately thought abstinence-only education, you'd be wrong. Of course if you're part of the overwhelming majority of Americans who believe youth deserve comprehensive sexuality education you probably didn't think Ab-only sex ed was doing it in the first place. But just in case you're part of that minority that are still confused about whether or not teaching youth about sexuality makes them go out and have more sex, you should take note of this study, which found that eighty-six percent of the recent decline in U.S. teen pregnancy rates is the result of improved contraceptive use, while a small proportion of the decline (14%) can be attributed to teens waiting longer to start having sex.

The study, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health, and was a collaboration between researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the The Guttmacher Institute , was not designed to evaluate how effective or ineffective abstinence-only education is, but it demonstrates that the decline in teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. (almost 25% down between 1995 and 2002) is primarily due to increased availability and use of modern contraceptive methods.

So for anyone keeping track...

• The majority of Americans believe that youth should get comprehensive sexuality education
  
  
• There is a significant body of literature that demonstrates that abstinence-only education does not work, and in fact offers inaccurate information.
  
  
• The heavily funded abstinence-only education programs have no way of evaluating their own effectiveness, according to a government report
  
  
• And now this study shows that the decline in pregnancy rates is observably related to increased contraceptive use (which is not allowed to be discussed in abstinence-only education).

Yet... the government continues to fund these programs to the tune of over one hundred million dollars.

What's wrong with this picture?

Previously - Over $1 Billion Spent on Abstinence-Only Sex Education Since 1998 ; Guess What You Won't Be Hearing About? ; Medical Students to Hear about Abstinence, Whether They Like it or Not. ; New Abstinence Only Guidelines Reach New Low ; US Policy on HIV Prevention is Difficult to Carry Out, and Impossible to Measure