Rural America has a Teen Pregnancy Problem

Is it really a surprise that areas that don't provide access to contraception, do a poor job of sexual education, and limit the ability of young women to access to reproductive health services are more likely to have high incidences teenage pregnancy, a socially undesirable outcome?

Also, is it any surprise that these areas tend to vote Republican? I mean, Bristol Palin is proof that abstinence-only education is inadequate.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/27/opinion/stepp-teenage-pregancies/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7


(CNN) -- We have a rosy view of rural America as a place where people wave even if they don't know you, and life isn't affected by what we think of as city problems. So it might come as a surprise that teenage girls 15 to 19 years old in rural counties have babies at rates that are nearly one third higher than girls in the cities and suburbs.

Several major cities are succeeding in lowering teenage birth rates. In New York City, for example, teen pregnancy declined 27% between 2001 and 2010, according to data from the New York City Health Department. It's time for more notice to be paid to teens in rural America.

A study recently released by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy showed that the birth rate of girls in rural counties in 2010 -- the latest available data -- was almost 33% higher than in the rest of the country. It's not for the reasons many people might think, according to my colleague, Kelleen Kaye, senior research director at The National Campaign.


What's not true, she says, according to an analysis of federal data, is what we often hear: Rural teens are more likely than other teens to have sex with older men, or at younger ages, or get married younger. What is true is that they lack health clinics that are easily accessible and that offer contraception as well as counseling. Their parents may not have health insurance that makes birth control affordable. Abortion providers may be hard to find.

"Teens in general are more similar than they are different, but their resources may be different," says Kaye, who grew up in a small town in Iowa.

Amen to that. Sixteen years ago, researching a book I was writing about young teens, I spent a year traveling to and from three jurisdictions including Ulysses, Kansas, a town of slightly more than 6,000 in the southwestern part of the state. That year, the teen pregnancy rate in rural Grant County, where Ulysses is located, jumped from eighth highest in the state to second. In a high school of about 500, 25 girls were either pregnant or recently had had a baby; at least two middle school girls were also pregnant.

One girl I was writing about, ninth-grader Amanda Pena, introduced me to several high school friends who were either pregnant or already mothers. Amanda, being raised by her Catholic grandparents after her mother abandoned her, was determined to avoid pregnancy and become the first in her family to get a college degree. She was a very bright young woman and I believed at the time she would achieve that.

I caught up with her recently to see how she was doing.

She told me she did, in fact, get pregnant her senior year in high school. So did several other girls she knew.

They had had some sex education in school, she said, but mostly, they just joked about sex. Her grandparents never talked to her about contraception, and when she got pregnant, "It really changed my relationship to everyone in the family." Her pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and after graduation she headed off to Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.

In her third year at Kansas State, she got pregnant again and decided against having an abortion. The father of her child refused to marry her even after little Braeden was born.

For a while, she tried being a single mom and continuing classes at Kansas State. She drew welfare payments while hoping Braeden's father would contribute child support. He didn't, and eventually "I just burned out," she recalled. She left Kansas State with only nine classes left before she could graduate. She eventually settled in Overland Park, Kansas, where she works as a supervisor at a heating and plumbing company and lives with Matt Kresyman, her new husband, and Braeden. who's 9.

"I lost my goals of getting a four-year college degree and moving up the ladder like everyone else wants to do," she said.

Amanda said when she goes back to Ulysses to see her family and friends, she listens to the list of babies recently born to single parents and realizes that attitudes about teen pregnancy there haven't changed much. Boys are reluctant to buy condoms at the drugstore, and girls dislike visiting a physician to pick up a prescription for birth control. Both give the same reason: In their small town, "they are afraid everyone will find out." She also hears something else among these teenagers as well as the adults, a kind of "what will happen, will happen" resignation.

Americans know that attitude when applied to teen pregnancy. We heard it not that long ago in the big cities of this country. But some of those cities, like New York City, are beginning to prove that with the right approach to education and contraception, and enough money, the teen pregnancy rate can come down.

It's time for this country to apply and adapt, where necessary, what it has learned to rural America.

 

You're neglecting though to mention that many of those states have large black or hispanic populations, and black and hispanic children are much more likely to grow up without a father in the house.

 

Please state more clearly how that relates to what's been posted in this thread.

 

Blacks and hispanics tend to vote Democrat.

 

White people tend to live in rural areas, which is what we're talking about in terms of teenage pregnancy rates...

 

So it might come as a surprise that teenage girls 15 to 19 years old in rural counties have babies at rates that are nearly one third higher than girls in the cities and suburbs.


This is shoddy work. It's been common knowledge for a long time that people have more kids in the country. I'd be willing rural adults have babies at rates 1/3 more or higher than urban adults.

 

Talk about shoddy work; you're throwing out "common knowledge" and attacking the article without giving any support.

THAT'S shoddy work.

 

It fascinates me how every time I point out an error in someone's analysis, they accuse me of something like attacking their source, or defending this or that. I simply pointed out fertility rates are higher in rural areas, period.

What you're arguing would be like looking at Chicago, where black incomes are lower than white, and deciding that Chicago is a bad place for blacks to work and must be a racist sh*thole because blacks get paid less there. I would then point out that black incomes are significantly lower than white incomes nationally and then, what, you'd accuse me of attacking your source?

 

My suggestion is get rid of the brothers and fathers.

 

No, I'm asking you to support a claim that you're making. If you're going to state that fertility rates are higher in rural areas AND that this is the reason behind higher rates of teenage pregnancy, you have to provide evidence to back it up.<<<Mod Edit: Personal Attack Removed>>>

 

Yes its true. I live in places very near rural areas, and not near any very large cities, and getting pregnant young doesn't seem to be to much more uncommon. Granted, its not spoken about as much, but people know it happens. The funniest things is its always around the schools which people seem to think will fix everything...hm.

Anyway, there is one major thing I want to talk about with this. That is the issue of choice. Every girl or boy has the choice to have sex or not. Its not forced on them.

As an example the woman Amanda Pena spoken about in this article, had the obvious choice. She didn't get forced with sex or anything. She didn't get that thrown on here. She chose that. Its completely avoidable. Acting like sex is absolutely necessary is a joke, and in all ways it won't help anyone. What needs to be taught is that these kids, and many adults, is that they alone hold the responsibility and the consequences. They can't shirk it off on an excuse of not having birth control. You take an obvious and legitimate risk and you suffer the consequences good or bad.

 

FWIW The stats in your article seem to be counting birth rates. The opinion part speaks about opinion on pregnency.
Theres a big difference between birth rates and pregnancy rates. Perhaps what we've learned here is abortion rates are much higher in urban areas.

 

Uh oh, the inner cities have the same problem and they tend to vote Democrat. But I guess it's automatically racist to point that out since they're predominantly minorities.

 

There hasn't been a study on American rural vs. urban birth rates, but as I said, it's general knowledge. But you're welcome to see the links below and see. Alaska, lowest population density, highest birth rate. Rhode Island, lowest birth rate, 2nd highest population density. There a couple outliers (namely HI, ME, VT), but the general rule holds true.

<<<Mod Edit: Flamebait Removed>>>


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_fertility_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density

 

Do you honestly think teenagers think about or even care about politics while they are bonking?

 

How much of the discrepany has to do with abortions?

 

Amen and LOL!!!

Exactly!!

 

Boredom is the answer

 

So are you saying that girls 15 to 19 who live in the country having babies is somehow OK?

Or maybe you're saying that nobody who lives in rural areas takes responsibility or has the necessary knowledge about birth control?

 

Um...we're talking about the socially undesirable outcome of children raising children. Why would we NOT use birth rates?

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Except this study shows that inner cities do NOT deal with this phenomenon to this degree; way to lack critical thinking skills.

 

We're talking about rural AREAS, not rural states. You realize that rural, suburban, and urban AREAS exist within literally every single state, right? <<<Mod Edit: Personal Attack Removed>>>

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Why does it matter? We're discussing the socially and economically undesirable outcome of children having children.

 

"Is it really a surprise that areas that don't provide access to contraception, do a poor job of sexual education, and limit the ability of young women to access to reproductive health services are more likely to have high incidences teenage pregnancy, a socially undesirable outcome?

Also, is it any surprise that these areas tend to vote Republican? I mean, Bristol Palin is proof that abstinence-only education is inadequate."

<<<Mod Edit: Personal Attack Removed>>>Your opening started with teenage pregnancy and a political shot not children raising children. You set the tone remember.
Hence I thought it wise to point out the fact that teenage birth stats and teenage pregnancy stats are two different things. I am indeed sorry for paying attention to your post.

 

Yes, someone got it! That's what I'm saying! Birth rates are higher in rural areas anyway, and so teens SHOULD be having babies!

Really mature, guy. Point was quite simple - rural teens get pregnant more, but rural people get pregnant more.

Yes, because it's statistically unlikely that rural states have more people living in rural areas.

RI is 86.4% urban, AK is 37.9% urban. No, I won't go and prove to you what common sense should have made readily apparent, even if you lack it. What you are doing here is insisting that your argument rest upon IGNORANCE, which your welcome to continue arguing from. Pointing out higher teen birth rates in rural areas w/o actual differences in rural vs. urban birth rates is arguing from ignorance.

 

<<<Mod Edit: Personal Attack Removed>>> It's birth RATES based on type of community (rural, suburban, urban), not RATES based on STATES.

If RI has 10,000 teenage girls living in rural communities and 500 teenage girls give birth, that's a 5% RATE.

If AK has 100,000 teenage girls living in rural communities and 5,000 teenage girls give birth, that's a 5% RATE.

The composition of a state's population doesn't mean a damn thing when it comes to rates, <<<Mod Edit: Personal Attack Removed>>>

 

We would not use teen birth rates alone if we were interested in a comprehensive view. We would be hostile to considering anything out of teen birth rates if we were, for example, trying to paint a negative view of what we see as tied with a certain political group and therefore feel invested in a conclusion, not in accurate portrayals.

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I've already laid out how the sources I've brought are tied, but you're not interested in a comprehensive view because a full understanding of reality doesn't support your limited conclusion.