Wells Hall Off Topic Board

Looks at the facts. Many of those states also have high dropout rates that are on par with inner cities. The income level does come into play because there are a lot of middle and upper income parents who send their pregnant daughters away on a "vacation" for an abortion or give the child up for adoption.

Teenage pregnancy is accepted and not considered a big deal for children who have no chance or intention of getting any education past HS. Many are products of teenage pregnancy themselves.

You can preach, teach abstinence in schools all you want but history tells us its tough to beat generations of teen pregnancy and tougher to stop raging hormones with minimal parental involvement. We can see with Bristol Palin that homones won over what mom was saying and when mom doen't have an opinion or doesn't care what do you expect?

I would expect better from "Real America" and the part of the country were God lives. Now you are comparing all of those good, GOP votin', Bible readin', Jesus lovin', flag wavin', Lee Greenwood listnen' lovers of freedom to people in the inner cities where they all vote Democrat?

Sure, poverty plays a part. But when controlling for poverty (you have poor pople in the north and the south; in inner cities and in rural areas) you are left with differences in education. Unless you have another variable you want to put into play.

You could always tell us where the methods used in th studies on abstinence only education are inappropriate. But I won't hold my breath.

Or we could look at the map based on poverty and contrast with education. Seems to me the map more closely follows lines drawn by political --> educational, rather than economic variables.

Not so sure about this. Here is a gallup poll of the most religious states. Every single state in the top ten in teen pregnancies is also above average when in comes to the most religious states (the mean is 40% identifying as very religious). On the other hand of the 12 least religious states listed only Alaska and DC are above average when it comes to teen pregnancies. Seem a pretty strong correlation exists.

If it isn't pure, blind speculation, I'm pretty sure contrarian wants none of it.

Who's changing the subject? I'm just trying to make sense of your claim that teens are getting pregnant at a higher rate in the south because of politics..but yet you can't really explain away the inner city teen pregnancy problem using that same "thought process"

And you brought up religion only "briefly" because I neglected to call you out on that wonderful thought out "variable" until now.

And never once in this whole thread did I imply that I thought that "abstinence only" programs were the philosophy to teach as I believe in a comprehensive approach....I'm just pointing out that painting everything with a political brush is ignorant. Which is what you are attempting to do.

wait, I thought we controlled higher education too, especially the Ivy league. Can't you make up your mind on anything other than claiming everybody in New Hampshire is now moving to Mississippi so their daughters can get knocked up?

Using politics to try and explain away social problems is exactly why we are in the condition we are in in this nation. Both the right and the left are guilty of it...RP and Ernie and this thread they are holding up are prime examples of it.

Your take on this is interesting.

I agree that poverty is a much larger driver of teen pregnancy than sex ed philosophy.

You seem to be struggling to understand the point that teenagers who are taught abstinence only sex ed, vs abstinence & birth control typically have a higher pregnancy rate.

Your point that poverty is the driver of decreasing teen pregnancy rates would have some validity if poverty rates were declining, but they are not, the poverty rate is increasing. Moreover the poverty rate is increasing fastest in folks under the age of 18.

You've asked a couple of times about teens in the inner city who are "taught to put a condom on a cucumber". Inner city poverty has increased much faster than poverty in suburban and rural areas, yet teen pregnancy rates are down.

There have been numerous links posted to studies demonstrating that combined sex education courses are more effective than sex ed courses that only discuss abstinence....but here are a couple more:
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2011-11-29/abstinence-only-sex-education-doesnt-work-say-uga-researchers
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/03/the_truth_about_teens_and_sex/

LOL

The thread title is the title of the article linked. And we've covered this more than once, move on.

Good post, doc.