Pregnancy rate rises as abstinence only focus increases. Coincidence?

[mensaguy]

Young, not yet responsible, people with hormones raging will be having sex. If they have been well educated, perhaps some of them will take precautions to prevent pregnancies and/or diseases. If they are not well educated, those precautions are less likely to take place. In either case, the raging hormones will often win and sex will take place.

Expecting abstinence is not going to overcome the raging hormones.

[ellemint]

Abstinence-only programs are a big fail. They leave teens even less prepared when, inevitably, they do have sex.

There's even some research showing that abortion rates are higher in areas of the country with higher religiosity, showing that teens who have ever intention of abstaining from sex do not prepare for it, so they don't have birth control on them. When, inevitably, they do have sex, they don't use birth control, and there you have it.

[weltschmerz]

“The overly sex-saturated culture certainly plays a part, with teen sex communicated almost as an expected rite of passage, without consequences, and that’s a dangerous message for young people, who tend to be risk-takers anyway.”

Well, gosh! Other countries have cultures that are even MORE sex-saturated than the USA, with it's hysterical pearl-clutching over a wardrobe malfunction, and yet the teen pregnancy rates are far, far lower.