Teen Birth Rates Highest in Most Religious States

Yet another study indicates that the efforts of the professional Christians and conservative Christians do nothing to lower teen pregnancy rates and that abstinence only sex education obviously doesn't work. Indeed, the higher the supposed religiosity of a state, the higher the teen pregnancy rate. In some ways the findings make sense: ignorance and a refusal to deal with real world reality and objective facts result in teens who do not make use of birth control opportunities and marry far earlier than in states with higher levels of education and progressive views. Bible Spice Palin's own daughter is a case in point. One has to wonder when the Christianists will accept the fact that teens WILL have sex before marriage and that effective birth control education is a must. Here are some highlights from MSNBC:
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U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests. The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn't successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise. Mississippi topped the list for conservative religious beliefs and teen birth rates.

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Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh offers a speculation of the most probable explanation: "We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."

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Strayhorn compiled data from various data sets. The religiosity information came from a sample of nearly 36,000 participants who were part of the U.S. Religious Landscapes Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2007, while the teen birth and abortion statistics came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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For religiosity, the researchers averaged the percentage of respondents who agreed with conservative responses to eight statements, including: ''There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion," and ''Scripture should be taken literally, word for word." They found a strong correlation between statewide conservative religiousness and statewide teen birth rate even when they accounted for income and abortion rates.

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And guess which states have the lowest teen pregnancy rates: Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire - states with gay marriage.