Teen Pregnancy Rates on the Rise for the First Time in a Decade

For the first time in over a decade, the pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has risen, raising alarm that the long campaign to curb teen motherhood is failing. Between 2005 and 2006, the pregnancy rate among 15 to 19-year-olds rose 3 percent.

According to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the federal government and a leading reproductive health organization, this marks the first jump in teen pregnancy rates since 1990.

Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, said:

"The decline in teen pregnancy has stopped -- and in fact has turned around. "These data are certainly cause for concern."

On a related note, the abortion rate also rose for the first time in more than a decade. It increased by 1 percent, and coupled with the rising teen pregnancy rates, is intensifying concern.

Sarah Brown from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy said:

"One of the nation's shining success stories of the past two decades is in danger of unraveling. "Clearly, the nation's collective efforts to convince teens to postpone childbearing must be more creative and more intense, and they must begin today."

The actual cause of the increase is up for debate. Some blame the increase in teen pregnancy on abstinence-only sex education programs pushed by the George W. Bush era, while others believe that it could be due to a variety of factors, including increase in poverty, an influx of Hispanics, and complacency about AIDS, which leads to less use of birth control such as condoms.

This data comes just as Congress is considering restoring federal funds to sex education programs focusing on abstinence. Obama's administration eliminated more than $150 million in funds for these groups, but the Senate health care reform legislation calls to restore $50 million. Some critics are arguing that the data shows that abstinence only programs don't work, while supports argue that the findings provide evidence of the need to continue encouraging delayed sexual activity to reduce pregnancy and the risk for AIDS and other STDs.