The XX Factor: What women really think.

A Few Theories on the Rise of Teen Pregnancies

I have some convincing theories about the rise of teen pregnancy and AIDS cases, Hanna! Let's start with the increased percentage of pregnant adolescents. In an article that "XX Factor" friend Margaret Talbot wrote for The New Yorker last year called "Red Sex, Blue Sex" she quotes sociologist Mark Regnerus on teens who delay sexual activity:

They are interested in remaining free from the burden of teenage pregnancy and the sorrows and embarrassments of sexually transmitted diseases. They perceive a bright future for themselves, one with college, advanced degrees, a career, and a family. Simply put, too much seems at stake. Sexual intercourse is not worth the risks.

Hanna, you note that the Latino population has seen a particularly notable spike in teen pregnancy, and that doesn't surprise me. As an article in Sunday's New York Times about the education of nonnative English speakers showed, there are near-impossible barriers for recent immigrants that prevent them from the "bright futures" Regnerus speaks of. The Times article quotes a 19-year-old Guatemalan woman named Amalia Raymundo, who "was a rising star in her remote village in Guatemala, the region’s beauty queen and a candidate for college scholarships." Because of her experiences in American public school, Amalia saw that her dreams of becoming a doctor were so far out of her reach, she thought about dropping out. “If I am going to end up cleaning houses with my mother ... why go to high school?”

If that's the reality for most recent immigrant women, why would they delay sex or prevent pregnancy? What's the motivation? Which brings me to my next point: I think AIDS is on the rise because condom promotion has all but disappeared and AIDS is no longer seen as a death sentence. If you don't believe you're going to die, and many think sex feels better without a condom, what's the motivation for use? In addition, as Talbot wrote in her New Yorker article, "many evangelicals are steeped in the abstinence movement’s warnings that condoms won’t actually protect them from pregnancy or venereal disease." So you have informed people who choose to take the risk because they think AIDS won't happen to them, and you have underinformed people who think that condoms don't work. Those taken together seem like enough to cause a statistical increase.

This Just In: Teens Not So Smart

Today's news brings us a few dispatches from the land of reckless teendom. Here we have some high schoolers in the Bronx who, upon viewing a picture of pop singer Rihanna's bruised face, remarked "She probably made him mad for him to react like that"—him being her still-boyfriend, Chris Brown. More importantly, we have the latest stats on the Bristol Palin constituency. Teen birth rates among 15- to 19-year-olds have been creeping up for a few years, "putting one of the nation's most successful social and public health campaigns in jeopardy," writes the Washington Post. Given the Obama administration's latest pledge to take politics out of science, we will likely be treated now to fierce debate on the morning talk shows about the effectiveness of abstinence education. True, those programs have been much less effective than the Bush administration lets on. And I would love to put the blame all on them. But I imagine the causes are much more complicated than that. For one thing, it can't be a coincidence that the AIDS virus is also increasing. Condom vigilance waxes and wanes, and we are probably coming out of a lazy period. Also, check out the list of which states have the highest increases. Many are places with relatively recent waves of immigration. The most interesting sub trend is about young Latino rates of teen pregnancy, which are now the highest in the country.

Anybody know any other convincing theories?