Health & Parenting

Teen Pregnancy Surges

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That latter point is reflected in the Guttmacher calculation that a sexually active teen who does not use contraceptives has a nine in 10 chance of becoming pregnant within a year.

Wouldn't abstinence education help? Tortolero and Finer agree that it does. But both say that sexual behavior is changed only by comprehensive sex education that includes abstinence education, and not by abstinence education alone.

Not so, says Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, which advocates abstinence education.

"If you are looking at school-based programs, the primary mode of sex education, abstinence education has stronger results than any comprehensive education," Huber tells WebMD. "And our survey shows that in every topic area -- whether it is how contraception is discussed, discerning healthy and unhealthy relationships, receiving skills for setting future goals -- parents supported abstinence education and the way we present it over comprehensive education."

Huber says abstinence education includes education about contraception but emphasizes delaying initiation of sexual activity. And she says comprehensive education gives short shrift to abstinence -- the best way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

Finer and Tortolero say comprehensive sex education is more effective at promoting abstinence than abstinence education. And Finer says abstinence education focuses on contraceptive failure rates but does not teach correct use of contraceptives.

Teen Pregnancy State Rankings

Teen pregnancy rates vary widely from state to state. The Guttmacher study did not have state-by-state data for 2006 but did calculate rates for 2005, the year before the increase.

Teen pregnancy rates in the table reflect the number of teen pregnancies per 1,000 teens.