Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
United States

Journal nizo's Journal: Whodathunkit: teens having fewer babies 9

Journal by nizo

I can't find reliable data regarding abortion rates, but it looks like this is at least partly due to *gasp* increased use of contraception:

Fewer high school students are having sex these days, and more are using condoms. The teen birth rate has hit a record low.

...

In 2005, 47 percent of high school students 6.7 million reported having had sexual intercourse, down from 54 percent in 1991. The rate of those who reported having had sex has remained the same since 2003.

Feel free to research on your own how the current administration feels about making birth control available to kids or even teaching them about it in school. I think the official name for their policy is "Condoms? What are those?", which seriously threatens the gains made so far.

Interesting links:
http://childstats.gov/
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3373263
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5404a6.htm

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Whodathunkit: teens having fewer babies More

Whodathunkit: teens having fewer babies

Comments Filter:

  • (and by "devil" I mean "right-wing")

    In 2005, 47 percent of high school students 6.7 million reported having had sexual intercourse, down from 54 percent in 1991.

    Hm. So, perhaps the reduction in pregnancy can be tied to the reduction of sexual intercourse rather than an increase in the use of condoms? Clearly, abstinence-only education is working!

    (Disclaimer: I don't actually believe that, but I cannot deny that it has a certain surface-level appeal that would be irresistible to those who are ideologica

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nizo ( 81281 ) *
      Right; thats why I included the second part. :-) Yes abstinence has some impact, but when you have kids openly admitting they are having sex (and those numbers aren't dropping) then obviously abstinence by itself isn't the whole solution. If your goal is to make sure kids never have sex, your best bet is to bring back chastity belts (yeah good luck with that). Making sure birth control is more readily available and kids are taught why they should use it seems like a much better route to me. As an added bon
  • One thing, more than any others is responsible for this "remarkable turnaround": AIDS

    That's it. Hold a gun to someone's head and say that if they do some thing, you'll pull the trigger, and even if there's a few blanks in it, most folks only need to see one person get their head shot off before they start to think it's a bad idea, whatever it is.

    Here's the real scary question: what are the numbers of incidents of teen contraction of diseases versus earlier generations? Have they gone up? Down? Stayed a

    • "abstinence-only education is an oxymoron"

      Where is the "+1 Needs To Be Said" mod when you need it?

      Q. What do you call people who successfully practice abstinence?
      A. Butt-ugly.

      Q. What do you call people who use the rhythm method of borth control?
      A. Parents.

  • It could be environmental. I've read that testosterone and sperm count have been on a decline for a while. It could also have to do with the easy availability of porn, or World of Warcraft, or people getting fatter and unhealthier in general (all that World of Warcraft?), thus leading to lowered sex drive. Why go out and work so hard to get sex from a live, demanding Homo sapien (most of the best looking ones are on the internet) when you've got DSL, the internet, and World of Warcraft?

    Anyway, I don't th
  • the self-reporting condom usage seems very unreliable.
    http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/ beh4c.asp [childstats.gov]
    there is about a 15% gap between the amount of men who say they use a condom and the amount of women who say their partner was using a condom.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nizo ( 81281 ) *
      You know I wondered about that too (kids say what they expect the adult wants them to hear). I dunno how you could measure usage any other way, unless they start embedding rfid tags in condoms :-D
  • 1. More emergency contraception bought over the counter by teens - double, in fact.

    2. It depends on your definition of "sexual intercourse". You'd be surprised what sexual acts most teens won't tell themselves are sex, because they want to think they are "virgins".

Slashdot Top Deals

"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc

Close