After a decade-long decline, teen pregnancy rates rose in 2006. When the teen pregnancy rate dropped in the 1990s, it was largely because of increased contraception use. With the Bush administration in power, though, Congress directed a whole lot of money towards abstinence-only education — telling kids just to keep it in their pants until marriage (because we all know how well that works as a life-long “don’t get pregnant” plan). The result? A four percent rise in teen births, and a one percent rise in abortion.
The United States also has the highest rate of teen pregnancy, birth and abortion of any industrialized, Western nation. Seven percent of all teenage girls here get pregnant.