Rise in teen pregnancy sends off alarms

The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents was faltering, according to a report released Tuesday.

The pregnancy rate among 15- to 19-year-olds increased 3 percent from 2005 to 2006 — the first jump since 1990, according to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the government and the nation's leading reproductive-health think tank.

"The decline in teen pregnancy has stopped — and in fact has turned around," said Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group in New York that conducted the analysis. "These data are certainly cause for concern."

The abortion rate also inched up for the first time in more than a decade — rising 1 percent — intensifying concern across the ideological spectrum.

"One of the nation's shining success stories of the past two decades is in danger of unraveling," said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

The cause for the increase, which remains highest among African Americans and Hispanics, is the subject of debate. Several experts blamed sex-education programs that focus on abstinence. Others said it could be due to a variety of factors; an increase in poverty, a changing demographic makeup, and complacency about AIDS, prompting lax use of birth control such as condoms.

The report comes as Congress may consider restoring federal funding to sex-education programs that focus on abstinence. The Obama administration eliminated more than $150 million in funds for such groups, but the health-care-overhaul legislation pending on Capitol Hill would reinstate $50 million.

"Now we know that after 10 years and over $1.5 billion in abstinence-only funding the U.S. is lurching backwards on teen sexual health," said James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth, a Washington advocacy group.

Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association blamed the increase on several factors.

"Contributors include an over-sexualized culture, lack of involved and positive role models, and the dominant message that teen sex is expected and without consequences," Huber said.