Did George W. Bushs focus on abstinence-only programs cause a rise in teen pregnancy rates?
The U.S. teen pregnancy rate rose by 3 percent in 2006, the first increase in a decade, according to a study by the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute. Its researchers posit a link between that uptick (about 71 teen girls in 1,000 got pregnant in 2006, up from 69 the year before) and the Bush administration’s push for abstinence-only education programs — a link that abstinence advocates reject, noting that only a quarter of the nation’s teen sex-ed classes adopted Bush’s programs. Did the president’s initiative leave teens clueless on how to avoid getting pregnant? (Watch CBS’s Katie Couric give her thoughts on the teen pregnancy rate) Of course it did: The drop in teen pregnancy rates we saw in the 1990s was a direct result of “increased contraception use,” says Jill Filipovic in Feministe. Then George W. Bush came to power, Congress funnelled a fortune into abstinence-only programs, and more teens got pregnant. It’s a no-brainer: “Telling kids just to keep it in their pants until marriag
