Posted on 09/17/2009 9:55:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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, according to the study results, which will be detailed in a forthcoming issue of the journal Reproductive Health.
However, the results don't say anything about cause and effect, though study researcher 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."
The study comes with other significant caveats, too:
The same link might not be found for other types of religious beliefs that are perhaps more liberal, researchers say. And while the study reveals information about states as a whole, it doesn't shed light on whether an individual teen who is more religious will also be more likely to have a child.
"You can't talk about individuals, because you don't know what's producing the [teen birth] rate," said Amy Adamczyk, a sociologist at the City University of New York, who was not involved in the current study. "Are there just a couple of really precocious religious teenagers who are running around and getting pregnant and having all of these babies, but that's not the norm?"
Strayhorn agrees and says the study aimed to look at communities (or states) as a whole.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Could that not be from keeping, rather than aborting, humans?
I'd like to see the racial breakdown of the teen birth rates. Just sayin'.
This makes sense. Higher birth rate, but NOT higher abortion rate—states with more Christians probably don’t have as many abortion.
Does not necessarily mean conception rate.
oh please.
What garbage.
As if the two are linked in any way whatever.
It’s not lack of contraception, it’s disdain for abortion.
What subgroup of the population has the highest level of unwed pregnancy? What do thes Bible Belt states have in common concerning that subgroup that could explain their higher numbers? Bueller? Bueller?
My thoughts exactly.
I believe that is the correct answer.
You probably are on to something. This is an example of throwing numbers out without context.
The article assumes it's because of religious beliefs. It doesn't tell you anymore
Perhaps because these communities frown upon teens having abortions.
Or maybe the 19 year old teenager is married.
That, and the fact that most of these ‘religious states’ are southern states with large numbers of blacks in the welfare culture who basically have kids out of wedlock as a profession. The same can probably be said for all the northern cities like Philly, etc.
Control the data for race and class, and I wonder how the states would compare.
Just from my observations, I don’t believe it has anything to do with ‘frowning on contraception” but instead, parents and children not discussing the issue. For many, the entire subject is ‘taboo’. When teenagers rebel, as they do, they gravitate towards what seems taboo (be it drinking, smoking, sex, etc), especially if their parents didn’t discuss with them consequences, etc.
I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that more of these teenage birth mothers marry their baby’s fathers, too, and assume responsiblity for their offspring. Just sayin....
For western nations to even survive it is going to be necessary for us to find a way for people to again marry and start families beginning at age 17 - 19; the thing we’ve been doing for the last 60 years or so clearly isn’t working.
Here’s their methodology :
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.
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.
Exactly. The northeast on coasts probably have a lot more abortions. I’m sure if they focused on pregnancy rates they results would be different.
Newsflash: sometimes teens from Christian families and communities succomb to their urges and have sex. The left delights in it, along with Satan.
Again an example of drawing incorrect conclusions. Perhaps the birth rate ( particularly in places like Mississippi and the inner city of Pittsburgh) is large there because you have a bunch of unwed teens doing what they damned well please and telling any adults “You aren’t the boss of me).
Me too!
Also I'd like to see how they define, “conservative” and “religious”.
This is just more propaganda to diminish proper Christianity and conservatism. I am too experienced to take these kinds of studies at face value. Later, you ALWAYS find out that the results re skewed to fit their godless agenda.
I think the best way to read this is that religious communities let the children actually be born than abort them like in non-religious communities.
Abortion could play a role here, as well as the fact that the more conservative states tend to be more rural and thus, the opportunity to fool around is more present...it’s just something to do on a boring Friday night.
What’s your point? I missed something.
And the questions they asked DO NOT pertain to Christianity ( as such) most of those statements for the “very relgious” would apply to Muslims as well. And it is known that the ROP encourages young marriage and lots of babies
| State | Birth rate | Religiousness |
|---|---|---|
| Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. | ||
| Mississippi | 1 | 1 |
| New Mexico | 2 | 22 |
| Texas | 3 | 12 |
| Arkansas | 4 | 7 |
| Arizona | 5 | 33 |
| Oklahoma | 6 | 10 |
| Nevada | 7 | 34 |
| Tennessee | 8 | 4 |
| Kentucky | 9 | 9 |
| Georgia | 10 | 11 |
| Louisiana | 11 | 5 |
| Alabama | 12 | 2 |
| South Carolina | 13 | 3 |
| North Carolina | 14 | 8 |
| District of Columbia | 15 | 100000* |
| Wyoming | 16 | 100000* |
| Missouri | 17 | 16 |
| Florida | 18 | 23 |
| West Virginia | 19 | 13 |
| Alaska | 20 | 46 |
| Colorado | 21 | 41 |
| Indiana | 22 | 17 |
| Kansas | 23 | 15 |
| Delaware | 24 | 27 |
| Hawaii | 25 | 18 |
| South Dakota | 26 | 21 |
| Ohio | 27 | 26 |
| California | 28 | 37 |
| Montana | 29 | 20 |
| Illinois | 30 | 31 |
| Idaho | 31 | 14 |
| Oregon | 32 | 38 |
| Virginia | 33 | 19 |
| Utah | 34 | 6 |
| Michigan | 35 | 29 |
| Maryland | 36 | 25 |
| Nebraska | 37 | 24 |
| Washington | 38 | 35 |
| Iowa | 39 | 32 |
| Pennsylvania | 40 | 28 |
| Wisconsin | 41 | 40 |
| Minnesota | 42 | 36 |
| Rhode Island | 43 | 43 |
| North Dakota | 44 | 30 |
| Maine | 45 | 47 |
| New York | 46 | 42 |
| New Jersey | 47 | 39 |
| Connecticut | 48 | 44 |
| Massachusetts | 49 | 45 |
| Vermont | 50 | 49 |
| New Hampshire | 51 | 48 |
Cause everyone knows that if it is a “highly religious” state they winnow out the non believers and send them to the heathen outlands.
Minority communities in MS and NM may explain some of it.
and lumping Humanism in with Christianity to discredit genuine Christianity and God.
The LEFT hates Christianity and tries it's best to mock it. I doubt that this was a “conservative” group. I suspect those considered “Christianity” would hardly pass the grade up yonder ... . MSNBC will use this to ridicule genuine Christianity and push using birth control and sex education at earlier and earlier ages.
These journalists really have an agenda. I wonder if they learn it in journalism classes or if it is self-selection. Could be they’re not very smart.
They may get A’s in journalism classes but they flunk research design. Nothing in their data says it’s the religious folks who are having the babies.
Can’t have anything to do with low abortion rates. Surely not.
Judging by the top 10 alone, I would assume that the “undocumented” play a role in these numbers...
Sounds logical. Even teenagers from religious homes grow up in a culture where "sex for fun" is considered a human right. It all stems from the Enlightenment/Reformation idea that the individual is the basic unit of society, and that no one has the right to limit an individual's liberty.
The truth, of course, is that the family, not the individual, is the natural basis of human society, and that outside of a context of marriage and procreation the sexual act becomes meaningless and harmful.
The worship of individual liberty has made slaves of us, by shacking us to our primal desires. Until our current liberal/libertarian social environment collapses, the best thing a parent can do to prevent their children from fornicating is to raise them as part of a loving family that is explicitly at odds with the prevailing culture. Step One: get rid of television and radio in the home.
It takes a huge leap to conclude that it’s the religious teens who are having the babies.
It reminds me of a study showing an extremely high correlation between the number of churches and the number of taverns in cities. But you can’t conclude there’s a causal relationship between religion and drinking. Bigger cities have more of both!
Who ever funded this guy didn’t get their money’s worth. Bad study. What did they expect, the guy’s name is Strayhorn.
anti-Catholic-anti-Mormon-slander-ping-alert
Mississippi is number one, it is also more than 37% black.
As a teacher in the South I can't remember a semester where I haven't taught 3 or 4 pregnant students. http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2008/03/04/2008-03-04_bronx_teen_pregnancy_rate_soars.html
It is more of a racism alert, Mississippi (#1) is 37% black.
New Mexico (#2) is only 42% white
Utah (#34)is 1% black.
New Hampshire (#51) is 1% black.
I know that's what the Freudians used to love to say. But everyone knows the consequences. Religious people's kids rebel, as all teenagers do to some extent, but as a group (in my observation), their scale of rebellion is 10 on the scale of 100. The children of atheists living on Central Park West in NYC filling out the "100" end of the scale with drugs, sex changes, and suicides.
“In most religious states” do not equate to “most religious teens”. People seem to conveniently forget that even the most religious states have some very irreligious cities in them. If I remember correctly Texas was in the top ten most religious states, but Austin is not only not particularly religious—it is the headquarters of the American atheists. What true journalists would do is to try to determine how religious the knocked up teenagers are, not how religious their neighbors might be. But then we have many more journwhoralists than we have journalists these days.
To a liberal - Abortion is a very good form of contraception.
This is a wonderful example of a meaningless correlation. To have any significance, we would need to know the birth/abortion rates for those people within each state who are defined as "religious" according the Pew Survey. We also need to know the ages of the teens and their marital status when they gave birth. No rational conclusion can be made from the correlation without this additional information.
They may have loose conservative religous beliefs but they are liberal dependents who vote for the Dem’s.
That’s what I was wondering -
the implication is “unmarried”, but this is never stated.
The “teenage” marriage rate is probably higher among religious conservatives as well.
I read through all the comments and didnt see anyone suggest that perhaps Christians just want to have more kids. There are families in my church with 6, 7, 8 and 9 children - on purpose! They love kids!
My mother was 18 when she had me. She had been married to my father for 2 years at the time. They stayed together until his death two years ago. Teen pregnancy in and of itself is not a bad thing. Single women getting pregnant, teens or not, is a whole different thing, imo.
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