Surprisingly, there is a topic which the right wing fundamentalists have more of a clue about than the rest of us. That is the cause of the rise in births to teen mothers.
Gee, I wonder why. Via the New York Times:
The birth rate among teenagers 15 to 19 in the United States rose 3 percent in 2006, according to a report issued Wednesday, the first such increase since 1991. The finding surprised scholars and fueled a debate about whether the Bush administration’s abstinence-only sexual education efforts are working.
The federal government spends $176 million annually on such programs. But a landmark study recently failed to demonstrate that they have any effect on delaying sexual activity among teenagers, and some studies suggest that they may actually increase pregnancy rates.
And as reader Sara points out, it's sort of hilarious to see the Heritage Foundation's comeback:
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, said that blaming abstinence-only programs was “stupid.� Mr. Rector said that most young women who became pregnant were highly educated about contraceptives but wanted to have babies.
You know, because being a teen mom is such the craze these days. Let's take that statement, replace "educated" with "terrified" and "but wanted to" with "and therefore," and we'll be a bit more on the right path.
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