Breaking News on New Jersey Teen Birth Rates
Posted August 7, 2009

Teenage and pregnant in New Jersey? According to the 2009 Kids Count report, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the rates may be rising.

As the Star Ledger relates, while pregnancy rates among New Jersey teens ages 15 to 19 decreased from 2000 to 2005 - falling from 32 per 1,000 to 23 per 1,000 - 2006 saw a reversal of this trend, with the number climbing to 25 per 1,000.

While rates have risen, however, this doesn't mean the number of teens giving birth has risen. In fact, as the Ledger reports, according to Robyn D'Oria, Executive Director of the Central New Jersey Maternal and Child Health Consortium, this number has actually "remained constant or diminished." The reason? As the Association for Children of New Jersey explains, "[a] stubbornly high percentage of teen births were to girls that already had one or more children."

Ironically, it was at the end of 2006 that Governor Corzine rejected $800,000 in federal funding for abstinence education programs - marking the first time since 1996 that New Jersey had said "no" to the funding.

And now, President Obama's 2010 budget eliminates funding for abstinence education and seeks to replace it with what the Heritage Foundation accurately calls "yet another comprehensive sex education program." (In 2008, for every $1 the US Department of Health and Human Services spent on abstinence education, it spent $4 on "safe sex" and contraception-advocating programs.)

But despite the rhetoric being spewed by anti-abstinence-only crusaders, the evidence confirms abstinence education works.

For example, according to a 2008 Heritage Foundation report examining 21 separate abstinence education studies, "[i]n 16 of the 21 reports there were statistically significant positive results in delaying early sexual activity and initiation." Furthermore, 15 of the studies "examined abstinence programs whose primary message was teaching abstinence, while six of the studies were on virginity pledge programs. Of the virginity pledge programs, five reported positive findings."

And that's not all.

Heritage reports that a recent study of seventh graders in northern Virginia found that "one year after the program, students who received abstinence education were half as likely as non-participants to initiate sexual activity."

Our children deserve better than to be fed the lies of no-consequence sexual activity. In light of the recent Kids Count findings, we are more determined than ever to share the truth about sexual activity with the youth across our state. Our compelling Not Now! program does just this, teaching teens the truth about the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual consequences of non-marital sexual activity.

We can reverse the rising teen birth rate but only if we are willing to love our children enough to tell them the truth.

To learn how you can protect your kids, call us at 1-877-I-CAN-WAIT or e-mail mrodriguez@njfpc.org.

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