Free Republic

ATLANTA – Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen pregnancy rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, according to a new federal report released Wednesday. Mississippi's rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The teen pregnancy rate in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher. ------------- Snip

Former vice-presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is speaking out for the first time on the birth of her new grandson. Palin's daughter Bristol disclosed her pregnancy shortly after she was named as John McCain's running mate and it sparked a national debate on abortion and teen pregnancy. Palin says she welcomes her first grandchild, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, born to Bristol and her fiance' Levi Johnston on December 27. “We are over the moon with the arrival of this healthy, beautiful baby,” Governor Palin said. “The road ahead for this young couple will not be easy, but nothing...

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, DEC. 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Does watching sex and aggression on TV and in video games lead teens to have sex and be more aggressive in real life? Two studies published by the journal of the American Pediatrics Association say yes. "Does Watching Sex on Television Predict Teen Pregnancy? Findings from a National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," conducted by the Rand Corporation, and "Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States," by Craig A. Anderson, director of Iowa State University's Center for the Study of Violence, appeared in the November issue of "Pediatrics."...

The paradigm has shifted. Dating is dated. Hooking up is here to stay. (For those over 30 years old: hooking up is a casual sexual encounter with no expectation of future emotional commitment. Think of it as a one-night stand with someone you know.) According to a report released this spring by Child Trends, a Washington research group, there are now more high school seniors saying that they never date than seniors who say that they date frequently. Apparently, it’s all about the hookup. When I first heard about hooking up years ago, I figured that it was a fad...

The girls gather in small groups outside Alexandria's T.C. Williams High School most mornings, standing with their babies on their hips, talking and giggling like sorority sisters. Sometimes their mothers drop the kids (and their kids) off with a carefree smile and a wave. As I watch the girls carry their children into the Tiny Titans day-care center in our new $100 million building, I can't help wondering what Sister Mary Avelina, my 11th-grade English teacher, would have thought. Okay, I'm an old guy from the 1950s, an era light-years from today. But even in these less censorious times, I'm...

YULEE - At the beginning of her sophomore year at Yulee High School, Alyssa Gammons was a 15-year-old cheerleader whose biggest challenge was perfecting a back handspring. Her days were filled with the usual teenage things - school, homework, and hanging out with friends. But midway through the 2007-08 school year, Alyssa's life was changed drastically by a positive pregnancy test. "I lost it," Alyssa said. "All that ran through my head was, 'My life is over.' I cried and cried, because I didn't know what I was going to do and I didn't know how to tell my parents."...

RISKY BUSINESS TEEN PREGNANCY TIED TO SEXY TV WATCHING CHICAGO - Groundbreaking research suggests that pregnancy rates are much higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and behavior compared with those who have tamer viewing tastes. "Sex and the City," anyone? That was one of the shows used in the research. The new study is the first to link those viewing habits with teen pregnancy, said lead author Anita Chandra, a Rand Corp. behavioral scientist. Teens who watched the raciest shows were twice as likely to become pregnant over the next three years as those...

Yogi Berra famously observed that "you can see a lot by looking." I know exactly what the great New York Yankee meant. You can hear a lot by listening, too. Over the homestretch of the presidential campaign, I've been spending a lot of time at a rehabilitation hospital with someone very close to me as she recovers from back surgery. Much of the conversation in this microcosm of the urban health-care system is about Barack Obama and John McCain. Most of the doctors are white men, the physical and occupational therapists and nurses are mostly white women, and the aides...

The statistics on teen sexuality in the United States are troubling. About 7 percent of high school stu­dents report having had sex before the age of 13. By ninth grade, one-third of high school students have engaged in sexual activity, and by 12th grade, two-thirds.[1]  Yet the majority of these teens, 60 percent overall and 67 percent among younger adolescents, regret their first experience and wish they had waited longer.[2] Teen Sexual Activity and OutcomesEarly sexual activity is associated with a host of negative outcomes that can have lasting physical, emotional, social, and economic impacts on the lives of young...

The first step in reducing teen pregnancy and abortion is to know the facts. Actually, we know what works. Child Trends and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy published their own data and the corroborating findings of a vast body of scientific research which found that the recipe for delaying sexual activity is parental involvement, good friends, strong faith and participation in church activities. The bottom line, they said, is that parents and friends have tremendous influence on their children, regardless of socio-demographic or economic background and characteristics. Obviously, many of the nation's adolescents don't have those positive...

WASHINGTON: Since the time the news of 17-year-old Bristol Plain's pregnancy broke, it seems every star and starlet has a different opinion of John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, and whether her daughter will affect their campaign. One of the top celebrities, Eva Mendes has also given her comments on the hot topic. "It's never easy when you're dealing with something like teen pregnancy," Fox News quoted Eva Mendes, as saying at "The Women" premiere in Los Angeles. "People need to look beyond that and give her [Sarah] the chance to have her fair say," she added. The very vocal...

A friend asked me why evangelicals think it’s okay that Sarah Palin’s seventeen-year-old daughter got pregnant by her boyfriend. I think the exact wording was, “Why are we so excited about it?” Hmmmm. That’s not exactly the way I would put it. I don’t know anyone who is “excited” about a teenage girl getting pregnant out of wedlock. This seems to be a point on which there is near-universal agreement. Getting pregnant outside of marriage is always problematic, but when you are a teenager, the difficulties are magnified. This isn’t a liberal or conservative observation—just a statement of reality.  However,...

September 5, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Contrary to a widely circulated report in Tuesday's Washington Post, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, did not slash funding for a program supporting teen mothers.The Washington Post's Paul Kane reported that "Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms." The far-left Huffington Post repeated the story the next day, and it was off and running. To support this contention, Kane produced the 2008 Alaska budget, along with Governor Palin's line-item reductions. Kane said, "Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million."...

[I]t is teenage marriage today, not teenage pregnancy, that is the rarity. And, statistics show, teenage marriages tend not to endure. ... The median marrying age for women in the late 1950s was about 19, according to David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University and an emeritus professor of sociology there. But a marriage between 19-year-olds — or even 17- or 18-year-olds — then would not have been described as a “teenage marriage,” he said. It was too routine to be given a special label. There is no way to know how many of those unions...

If there’s one person who gets a pregnant teen, it’s Jamie Lynn Spears. Britney Spears’ little sis is reaching out to Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, John McCain’s vice presidential pick. A source close to the Beverly Hills baby store Petit Tresor tells CelebTV.com exclusively that a gift from Plain Mary was sent to Bristol Palin on behalf of Jamie Lynn Spears. An insider says it was actually Lynne Spears, Jamie Lynn’s mom, who called about the gift, and requested the gift come from her daughter. “It was ordered by phone, and they asked what could be...

ST. PAUL -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live. After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation -- "SP" -- Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix...

Our son and daughter-in-law had just started their senior year in high school when they became pregnant, and I use that pronoun deliberately. The two of them formed their own unit and held each other up during a terribly stressful year. Meanwhile, we parents had to support them as best we could, and make sure they knew we loved and supported them through it all. In return, we discovered two wonderful adults who had just been children shortly before, and when the Little Admiral came, two wonderful parents as well. None of this was easy, and we certainly all had...

Many Freepers do not want their daughters to get pregnant before they are married and have completed their education. Nor do they want their sons to father a child become they become husbands and can support a family. They also regard abortion as a much graver sin than having a child out of wedlock (if they regard the latter as a sin at all). How do you discourage premarital sex and especially pregnancy while also sending the message that a grandchild conceived out of wedlock will be valued and should not be aborted? I am asking this question seriously, not...

Sacramento, Aug 11, 2008 / 11:04 pm (CNA).- A California judge has ruled against Planned Parenthood and its allies who challenged the content of a voter information pamphlet’s arguments in support of Proposition 4, a ballot measure requiring abortionists to notify at least one adult relative before performing an abortion on a minor. The arguments reference the story of “Sarah,” a 15-year-old who died in 1994 after suffering complications from a secretly obtained legal abortion, in addition to stories of other underage girls who obtained abortions without their parents’ knowledge.Opponents of the pamphlet’s content argued that Sarah’s story should...

Early in July, OK! magazine featured a cover story about Jamie Lynn Spears and her new baby, Maddie. Newsweek reported that the magazine paid $1 million for the rights to publish photographs of the baby and mother. The young mom, now 17, is shown on the magazine's cover declaring, "Being a mom is the best feeling in the world." A good number of parents were understandably outraged.   This week, Newsweek is out with an article that questions how Hollywood is presenting teenage motherhood. The magazine reports that teen moms and their babies have become "a hot plot device lately."...