Social Policy

Sexual Diseases And Births Among Unwed Teens

Out-of-wedlock births, particularly among teen-agers, are skyrocketing, says a Congressional Quarterly report. And the federal government is spending $39 billion a year to support families begun by unwed teen mothers, according to Advocates for Youth.

  • A million girls ages 15 to 19 get pregnant every year, and 76 percent of them are unwed, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

  • In 1996, the percentage of these unwed teen-age mothers was nearly six times the percentage in 1950 -- reflecting both sharply rising birthrates and a decline in teen marriages since the mid-1970s, reports the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  • Moreover, there are three million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases among U.S. teens reported each year, a rate which is 50 to 100 times higher than in other industrialized countries.

The trend reflects greater sexual activity at a younger age, say experts. For example, 17 percent of 15-year-old girls were sexually active in 1995, compared to 3 percent in the 1950s.

Advocates of sexual abstinence programs, such as obstetrician Joe S. McIlhaney Jr. of Austin, Texas, say that teenagers are receiving mixed messages from sex education programs. While sometimes encouraging abstinence, they also promote "safer sex" through condom use. But there is an admittedly high rate of teen-agers failing to consistently, properly use them. And even then, says McIlhaney, they don't stop transmission of some sexually transmitted diseases, such as the rapidly spreading human papilloma virus.

Source: "Encouraging Teen Abstinence," CQ Researcher, July 10, 1998, Congressional Quarterly.


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