I don’t know how to break this to you, but some teenagers who want a baby will say that their pregnancy is unplanned, even when it is not. I know some of them. And the fact that a pregnancy was unplanned does not mean it is unwelcome or unintentional. So I’m afraid your 80% doesn’t hold water. It’s not a matter of “playing the odds.” Human behavior is about choices; it’s not a craps game.

Bristol and Levi were planning to marry before the pregnancy happened. If you’re looking for an argument to support your contention that abstinence education is a failure, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

However, since I neither have the power or the instructional ability to keep teenagers from doing what teenagers have always done; hopefully they are at least informed to get a condom first.

Politics as usual. Most parents of children do not see ANYTHING wrong with teaching abstinence.

You are on the fringe to try to REACH for “studies” that prove abstinence shouldn’t be taught.

Think about the traditional family of pre 1960’s and how clear it was by parents that you do not engage in activities with a boy (parents of a girl). Teaching the consequences of such activities etc.

Now with the attitudes today you have to reach hard to try to prove that we should not be teaching abstinence…. and inserting the word “only”.

What is the problem with somebody at age 16 abstaining?

You don’t tell them please use a condom alchemist. That is crazy (in my humble opinion).

You’re right, I don’t know much about them, and it’s not really my business. I’m just playing the odds.

In this neck of the woods we call it judging them. – Lorica

- They examined only four out of about 750 such programs. About one-half of one percent. Even you’re aware that this is far too small a sample size to draw any meaningful conclusions. There is no evidence that this sample is representative of abstinence programs as a whole.

- The students were in elementary school – some as young as in third grade – when they were placed in the program. The high school group – the most likely to become pregnant – was excluded entirely.

- The programs were not long-term. In fact, the program examined in Miami was for only one year, not required, and only targeted high-risk girls (page 15 of your study link). Talk about cherry-picking your sample to achieve a desired result, especially when you intentionally do not apply the program during the years of maximum vulnerability.

- The control group was taken from the same school environment as the study group. That means the two groups could interact freely and each be subject to influences from the other. Any scientist knows that when you intermingle your control group and your study group, contamination means your conclusions are far less valid.

So the results aren’t surprising. If I taught third graders or fourth graders in a high-risk area about abstinence for a year, then tossed them back into a sea of anti-abstinence pressures for five years, I’d fully expect to see no significant differences in behavior.

One has to wonder how much money was wasted on this kind of study. I’ll bet it had to be several million dollars.

Here’s a recent study (sorry, sample sizes are small) comparing students who were given an abstinence only course, and a control where students were not given a course at all. Note (through pages ~30-40) misconceptions in the abstinence only classes were equal to students who took no class at all.

There’s another report (still digging, maybe I’ll find it tomorrow) that came out last year that associated students avoiding intercourse by becoming involved in “other” risky sexual activities. This report did not find that correlation though.

One very important, unacknowledged fact is that many teenage girls become pregnant for the same reason older women do: they want a baby.

Over three-quarters (76%) of all unplanned pregnancies occur to women in their teens and twenties.(1,2) While the majority of all teen pregnancies are unplanned (more than half a million unplanned pregnancies to teens each year), there are also more than one and a half million unplanned pregnancies to women in their twenties each year.

Approximately 80 percent of teenage pregnancies are unintended. In 2002, they accounted for one-fifth of all accidental pregnancies in the U.S. (Finer & Henshaw, 2006; National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2006).

You do not know the intent of these young people, period. Apparently from what I am hearing all they did was accelerate what was going to be inevitable.

You’re right, I don’t know much about them, and it’s not really my business. I’m just playing the odds. Most teenage pregnancies are unintended. Most unintended pregnancies occur when no contraception is used.

I’m still looking for another study showing the sexual activity of teens who enroll in abstinence only programs.

You’re assuming that Bristol and her future husband were enrolled in abstinence-only programs. From everything I’ve seen so far on the web, that is not the case. The Wasilla schools appear to have a “comprehensive” sex education curriculum.

This one I don’t understand…

Is there ‘harm’ in teaching abstinence?

What is the resistance to teaching abstinence?

Please ‘EDUCATE’ us.

Are you telling me Obama might be a politician giving a preplanned, rehearsed and vetted quote? Shocking.

Careful, alchemist. Remember what happened to Jeremiah Wright the minute he critiqued the Dalai Bama as ‘just another politician’. I’m sure there’s room under the bus for you too.

One very important, unacknowledged fact is that many teenage girls become pregnant for the same reason older women do: they want a baby. Most of us adults, and nearly all politicians, seem to assume that all teen pregnancies happen by accident, but that is far from the reality of the situation.

•Nearly half (46%) of all 15-19-year-olds in the United States have had sex at least once.[1]

n 2005, 43 per cent of Canadian teens aged 15 to 19 reported having intercourse at least once, compared to 47 per cent in 1996-1997 (note: didn’t check to see if the years line up, but let’s just say they’re roughly the same)

•A sexually active teen who does not use contraceptives has a 90% chance of becoming pregnant within a year.[10]

•Teen pregnancy rates are much higher in the United States than in many other developed countries-twice as high as in England and Wales or Canada, and eight times as high as in the Netherlands or Japan.[31]

Put the thoughts together. Canadians are having the same amount of sex as americans, yet twice as many pregnancies. Why would this be?

I’m still looking for another study showing the sexual activity of teens who enroll in abstinence only programs. I’ll link when I find it.

being taught abstinence while having sex,

You know this for fact Alchemist?? Or is it kids being taught sexual education too soon and being encouraged to experiment?? Also, you have no clue, if it wasn’t the intent of both of these young people to have this baby from the onset. Sex isn’t just about pleasure to some people, and that is why abstinence education is all about. Unlike regular sex education which says put a condom on and you can do whatever you want!!! Yippee! Your smarter than than Alchemist. – Lorica

_As for Obama’s statement itself, apparently it was carefully rehearsed and the question itself was planted with a friendly reporter_

Are you telling me Obama might be a politician giving a preplanned, rehearsed and vetted quote? Shocking.