It was a bit disheartening to report on my Midwestern home state’s young average age of women when they first give birth (24.7), but writing about the recently released CDC/National Center for Health Statistics data about American birth rates made for more than a few interesting conversations. The piece ran today on the women’s community DivineCaroline and includes a series of quotes about the failure of abstinence-only education that are particularly timely given the outgoing political administration:
“Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement: ‘the failed policies of the Bush administration’s abstinence-only programs have wasted more than $1.5 billion federal and state tax dollars and left our country with the highest rate of teen pregnancy of all the most developed countries in the world.’ Richards said that the CDC’s report reaffirmed what her sexual and reproductive health organization already knows. ‘Abstinence-only programs deny teenagers lifesaving, medically accurate information and do nothing to prevent unintended pregnancies.’”