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.
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.
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