|  |
- The United States has the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates in the industrialized world. 1
- Teen mothers are more likely to: drop out of school, remain unmarried, and live in poverty.1
- Children
of teen mothers are more likely to: be born at low birth weight, grow
up poor, live in single-parent households, experience abuse and
neglect, and enter into the child welfare system. 1
- Daughters of teen mothers are more likely to be teen mothers themselves. 1
- Sons of teen mothers are more likely to be incarcerated. 1
- Teen pregnancy and childbearing cost the Colorado taxpayer $167 million in 2004. 1
- One
in three teens currently get no education about birth control, and of
those who do, many do not get it when they need it most—before they
start to have sex. 2
- Improved
contraceptive use and use of more effective birth control methods—not
teens abstaining from sex—are responsible for 86% of the recent
declines in teen pregnancy. 2
- More than nine in ten Americans have sex before marriage, and have done so for generations. 2
1 “By
the Numbers: The Public Costs of Teen Childbearing in Colorado,”
November 2006, June 28, 2008, <
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/costs/pdf/states/colorado/fact-sheet.pdf>.
2 Joerg
Dreweke and Rebecca Wind, “Strong Evidence Favors Comprehensive
Approach to Sex Ed,” May 23, 2007, June 28, 2008, <
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2007/05/23/index.html>. 
|
|
|
|