Teenage pregnancy up in U.S.

WASHINGTON — After falling steadily for more than a decade, the birth rate for American teenagers jumped last year for the first time since 1991, federal health officials reported Wednesday, a sharp reversal in what has been one of the nation’s most celebrated social and public health successes.

The birth rate rose by 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 among 15- to 19-year-old girls, after plummeting 34 percent between 1991 and 2005, the National Center for Health Statistics reported.

“This is concerning,” said Stephanie Ventura, who heads the center’s reproductive statistics branch. “It represents an interruption of 14 years of steady decline. Now unexpectedly we have an increase of 3 percent, which is a significant increase.”

Ventura said it is too soon to know whether the increase was the beginning of a trend or an aberration. But she said the magnitude of the rise, especially after many years of decline, was worrisome.

While experts said it was unclear what may be causing the reversal, the new data reignited debate about abstinence-only sex education programs, which receive about $176 million a year in federal funding. Congress is currently debating whether to increase that by $28 million.

“The United States is facing a teen pregnancy health care crisis, and the national policy of abstinence only programs just isn’t working,” said Cecile Richard, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “It is time for everyone who cares about teenagers to start focusing on the common-sense solutions that will help solve this problem.”

But proponents of abstinence education defended the programs, blaming the rise on the ineffectiveness of conventional sexual education programs that focus on condom use and other contraceptives, as well as the pervasive depiction of sexuality in the culture.

“This shows that the contraceptive message that kids are getting is failing,” said Leslee Unruh of the Abstinence Clearinghouse.