Rise in US teen pregnancies proves information beats abstinence.Vanessa Richmond, The Tyee: New US government stats reveal that teen births are up for the second year in a row. But when Bill Maher, on his show Real Time... asked his guest panel why that might be the case, or what could be done about it, the trio became suddenly mute...
All they had to do was ask a Canadian. Despite Canadian and American women aged 15 to 44 declaring that they want the same number of kids (about 2.2), American women end up having 2.09 and Canadian women have about 1.6, and 30 per cent of that difference is due to teen births in the US, almost 90 per cent of which are unwanted...
According to StatsCan's comparative study of fertility trends in Canada and the US, no other industrialized country has juvenile birth rates as high as those observed in the United States. The birth rate of American teenage girls is more than double that in other industrialized countries, including Canada... And it's not due to a higher abortion rate in Canada. In fact, unwanted pregnancies and births are more frequent in the US, as is the use of abortion.
No, the main reason is that Canadian teens of all social classes get comprehensive information about contraception and about how to avoid unwanted pregnancies. They get more sex ed in school, and can access high-school-based family planning counselling through the nurse. They can also always access universally free medical services, including visiting family doctor and special health clinics. And at all levels, there's a more positive attitude towards the pill, and either cheap or free prescriptions for it...
When adults treat teens as intelligent being capable of making informed decisions when armed with good information, then they do. That's backed not just by belief, but by actual numbers and science.
