Battle teen pregnancy with science, not ideology

Study says federal government wastes money with abstinence-only programs.

In the United States, teen birth, teen abortion and sexually transmitted infection rates are higher than in most other industrialized countries. In 1999, 48 out of 1,000 U.S. women ages 15 to 19 gave birth -- a rate 11 times greater than in the Netherlands and four times higher than in Germany. The teen abortion rate in the United States is more than three times that of France and nearly seven times that of the Netherlands.In New York state, nearly 40,000 teens became pregnant in 2004, according to the New York State Department of Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that four in 10 teens in New York will have sex before they graduate high school.

Read More Here