cheetah

This is sort of a follow-up on the other thread about teen pregnancy. Again, I am in a discussion with a conservative, fundie acquaintance that started after I read the Scientific American article that discussed that same study about honest attitudes and the availability of family planning.

Well, I have to admit that it was not smart of me to state something without knowing the exact source. But I did. It was just one of those things that I really thought was a common-sense, true thing! I stated that it is known that the "Bible belt" South has way more teen pregnancies than the agnostic north. This is what he came back with:

Out-of-Wedlock Teenage Births, 1996 (State/Percent of Mothers Aged 15-19 Who
Are Unmarried)
District of Columbia 97
Rhode Island 92
Massachusetts 90
Maryland 90
New Jersey 89
Pennsylvania 89
Delaware 88
Connecticut 88
New York 88
New Hampshire 88
Michigan 87
Minnesota 87
Vermont 85
Illinois 84
Ohio 84
Wisconsin 84
Louisiana 83
Maine 82
Hawaii 82
South Dakota 82
Nebraska 81
Iowa 81
Mississippi 80
South Carolina 80
Arizona 80
North Dakota 80
Indiana 80
Florida 79
New Mexico 79
Missouri 78
Montana 78
Virginia 78
Alaska 77
Nevada 77
Georgia 76
Washington 75
North Carolina 75
Kansas 74
Oregon 74
Colorado 72
Tennessee 70
Wyoming 70
Alabama 70
West Virginia 67
Arkansas 67
Texas 66
Oklahoma 66
Kentucky 65
California 62
Idaho 60
Utah 58

Was I so wrong? Does anyone know about this?

Or perhaps the fact is that "out of wedlock" teenage births do not matter nearly as much as just plain teenage births which the South really is worse in???

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: cheetah ]</p>

scigirl

There's a confounding variable here--religious states are more likely to marry off their teens early.

Look at your % for Utah (a very Mormon state) 58%.

At first glance it looks like Utah has got it's teen pregnancy thing under control!

But remember. . . they "encourage" people to be married much younger than they normally would marry.

I would want to know other statistics before making any quick assumptions about the bible belt and causations.

scigirl

trunks2k

Look at waht the percentages are of... the percentage of pregnant teens who are not married. That means very little in arguing about more teens in the bible belt having more pregnancies. It just means that more of the teens that are pregenant are married. You need a list of teenagers that were impregnated before getting married. And you also have to consider age, I think a 19year old getting married and being pregnant is a whole lot more acceptable than a 13 year old being pregnant.

that list has too many possible variables, it contributes little or nothing to the argument. "Statistics don't lie. But liars use statistics"

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: trunks2k ]</p>

PopeInTheWoods

What his list is showing you is the number of out-of-wedlock teen births per 100 teen births (where teen birth means the birth of an infant to a teenage mother, not the birth of a teenager ). What you would really like to see is the percent of teenage females who give birth in that year (i.e. the number of teenage births per 100 teenage females). His statistics have nothing to do with your argument.

Andy (PITW)

cheetah

Yeah, you guys are right. He is trying to argue that out-of-wedlock births are the only ones that matter though. I say this isn't true, because look at the Netherlands and other places where out-of-wedlock births have become so popular, and successful. I would give in that out-of-wedlock teen births could be some of the most troublesome of the teen births, but that out-of-wedlock births in general do not have to be troublesome. Probably part of the reason they can be in America is our conservative, refusal to address issues philosophy. If we checked out how those other countries do it so well, maybe we could learn something that could work well for us.

Viti

Also the states with the highest percentages ALSO tend to be those with a large inner city population (these tend to have higher poverty and crime rates as well as teen pregnancies as part of gang "family" mentality or certain immigrant or race cultures)

These factors could account for the high percentages in

DC
Massachusetts (Boston)
Michigan (Detroit)
etc.

I recently attended a UNLV Rebels football game, and the departing seniors and their families were all introduced. Well over half of them had wives and one or several children. I was sort of shocked at these 22 and 23 year olds with 7 year old children!

Thoughts??

cheetah

For anyone interested, I found some more applicable statistics. Check it out: (and also, the footnote about Wash. DC is very telling!)

District of Columbia 249.7

Delaware 127.8

Georgia 108.8

Texas 108.4

Nevada 107.5

North Carolina 102.1

Arkansas 101.8

New Mexico 100.5

Arizona 99.5

Alabama 98.6

Tennessee 98.6

New York 98.1

Mississippi 96.2

Louisiana 93.0

Illinois 92.3

Rhode Island 91.0

South Carolina 89.2

Oregon 88.4

Kansas 87.9

Washington 82.8

Hawaii 82.6

Kentucky 82.5

Ohio 81.5

Indiana 78.6

Connecticut 78.6

Virginia 77.8

Colorado 75.0

Missouri 72.0

Michigan 71.0

West Virginia 69.7

Alaska 68.5

Massachusetts 67.5

Montana 67.1

New Jersey 65.3

Maryland 65.2

Pennsylvania 64.4

Nebraska 63.0

Utah 58.0

Wisconsin 57.8

Vermont 57.7

Idaho56.0

Minnesota 55.9

South Dakota 55.9

Maine 54.9

Wyoming 52.8

North Dakota 48.2

**District of Columbia is not included in these comparisons because its pregnancy rates were

higher than for any state, in part because of large numbers of abortions among nonresidents. († Abortion data by age for 1995–1997 were not reported for California, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma.)



This certainly reinforces the Christian South vs. Agnostic North idea, as 6 of the top 10, and 8 of the top 13 states are "Southern" and NONE of the bottom 10 are below the Mason-Dixon!

chipmunk

Cheetah, what do those numbers mean? I'm guessing number of pregnancies per 1000? teenagers. I can see who's high or who's low, but I don't know what the numbers mean. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

cheetah

Whoooops! Sorry, I guess that got snipped out. It is "per 1000 adolescent females in the specified age group" which I see I also accidentally snipped out. The age group is 15-19.

ChurchOfBruce

Cheetah, here's the one you want. This is teen births (defined as births to 15-19 year olds) per 1000 female teens:

New Hampshire 24.0 1 Oregon 46.5 27
Vermont 25.7 2 Kansas 47.4 28
North Dakota 27.7 3 West Virginia 47.9 29
Massachusetts 28.7 4 Colorado 48.4 30
Maine 29.8 5 Missouri 49.6 31
Minnesota 30.0 6 California 50.7 32
New Jersey 32.8 7 Illinois 51.1 33
Connecticut 33.3 8 Indiana 51.6 34
Montana 35.1 9 Florida 53.5 35
Wisconsin 35.7 10 Delaware 54.3 36
Iowa 35.8 11 Kentucky 56.4 37
Pennsylvania 36.2 12 North Carolina 59.5 38
Nebraska 37.0 13 Oklahoma 60.5 39
New York 37.0 13 South Carolina 60.8 40
South Dakota 37.6 15 Tennessee 62.7 41
Rhode Island 38.2 16 Alabama 62.8 42
Washington 40.1 17 Louisiana 62.8 42
Utah 40.2 18 Nevada 64.1 44
Wyoming 40.4 19 Georgia 65.1 45
Michigan 40.5 20 New Mexico 67.4 46
Alaska 41.8 21 Arkansas 68.1 47
Maryland 42.6 22 Arizona 69.6 48
Virginia 42.7 23 Texas 70.1 49
Idaho 43.7 24 Mississippi 72.5 50
Hawaii 43.8 25 Washington, D.C. 83.5 N/A
Ohio 46.0 26 United States 49.6 N/A

Read down the first column, and then the second, from lowest rate to highest.

For a more legible &lt;G&gt; copy, go here: <a href="http://www.teenpregnancy.org/tbrank.htm" target="_blank">http://www.teenpregnancy.org/tbrank.htm</a>