The United States now has the unenvialbe record of having the largest annual teenage pregnancy rate among the developed countries of the world…41.8 per 1,000 female teens. This is almost twice the rate of Russian teens…28 per 1,000. The other six are as follows: Great Britain…26.8; Canada 14.5; Germany 11; France 7.8; Italy 6.7 and Japan 5.6. And…remember, there is usually a teenage boy responsible for every pregnant teenage girl.
After steadily declining from 1991 to 2006, teenage pregnancies are on the rise again in the the U.S. Teenage birthrates rose 3 percent in 2006. In Gloucester, Massachusetts where seventeen teenage girls mmade a pregnancy pac, there were 150 pregnancies the 1200 student high school.
Two of the health care team for the high school resigned because the community has refused to permit the health clinic to distribute condoms confidentially to those students requesting them. However, how effective can condoms be when teenagers want to get pregnant.
Something deeper has to be going on here. Such a sad turn of events rasies a lot of questions. Where is the parental participation in the sex educatrion of their children. What family values are being communicated to young people growing up in these homes. Are these teens involved in any church youth groups? If so, what efforts have these churches made to give their parents training in the sex education of their chidren?
