The use of contraceptives is seen as the reason that the U.S. teen pregnancy rate has hit a 30-year low, according to a new study published this week by the Guttmacher Institute.
Teen pregnancies have declined dramatically in the United States since their peak in the early 1990s, as have the births and abortions that result; in 2008, teen pregnancies reached their lowest level in nearly 40 years, according to “U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2008: National Trends by Age, Race and Ethnicity,” by Kathryn Kost and Stanley Henshaw of the Guttmacher Institute.
In 2008, the teen pregnancy rate was 67.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19, which means that about 7% of U.S. teens became pregnant that year. This rate represents a 42% decline from the peak in 1990 (116.9 per 1,000). Similarly, the birthrate declined 35% between 1991 and 2008, from 61.8 to 40.2 births per 1,000 teens; the abortion rate declined 59% from its 1988 peak of 43.5 abortions per 1,000 teens to its 2008 level of 17.8 per 1,000.
“Continuing decreases in teen pregnancy more recently may be driven by increased use of the most effective contraceptive methods as well as dual method use,” the Guttmacher Institute explained. “In sum, teens appear to be making the decision to be more effective contraceptive users, and their actions are paying off in lower pregnancy, birth and abortion rates.”
Even with dramatic reductions in pregnancy, birth and abortion rates among all racial and ethnic groups, disparities between black, white and Hispanic teens persist. After peaking in the early 1990s, the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 37% among Hispanics, 48% among blacks and 50% among non-Hispanic whites; yet the rates among black and Hispanic teens remain 2–3 times as high as that of non-Hispanic white teens.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops (USCCB) are incensed at the decision by the Obama administration to guarantee that the women's health care benefit packages offered by employers includes contraceptive care. Beginning in August 2012, all of the services in this benefit package will be available in new employer insurance plans without any out-of-pocket costs to women. The rule specifically exempts pervasively religious institutions like houses of worship from offering their employees birth control coverage as part of their health insurance. But the Bishops claim that their religion also exempts them from providing preventive health care services to the millions of employees -- many of whom are not even Catholic -- at Catholic owned businesses, like hospitals and Universities!
Catholic Bishops object not only to the rule for business organizations they own, Bishops said Thursday that they would not be happy until the rule is scrubbed entirely, permitting any employer, religious or not, to deny contraceptive coverage to their workers.
But the Catholic Bishops do not speak for a majority of American Catholics, 52 percent of whom support requiring health plans to cover contraception. Several major Catholic universities and hospitals already offer contraception coverage. Ninety-eight percent of all American women, Catholic and otherwise, report using birth control during their lifetime.