NC Teen Pregnancy Rates Hit 30-Year Low

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NC Teen Pregnancy Rates Hit 30-Year Low

Special Report - February 4, 2010
After increasing slightly with the rest of the nation between 2005 and 2006, North Carolina’s teen pregnancy rate dropped to its lowest point in over 30 years in 2008. According to the latest data from the State Center for Health Statistics, the pregnancy rate among 15 to 19 year-old girls in North Carolina dropped seven percent between 2007 and 2008 to 58.6. The teen pregnancy rate also declined slightly in 2007, when it dropped from 63.1 in 2006 to 63.0. Since 1995, when the state’s abstinence-until-marriage education law was enacted, the teen pregnancy rate has dropped 35.8 percent (from 91.4 in 1995 to 58.6 in 2008).

Additionally, the abortion rate among 15 to 19-year old girls has declined as well—from 14.3 in 2007 to 12.5 in 2008. Overall, North Carolina has experienced a 53.7 percent decrease in the teen abortion rate since 1995.

“North Carolina’s teen pregnancy rate has continued a decline that began in the early 1990s and has dropped by more than one third since the General Assembly first required schools to teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the expected standard of behavior for all school-age children,” said Jere Royall, legal counsel for the North Carolina Family Policy Council. “The latest data highlighting the sharp and continuing decline in teen pregnancy and abortion rates in North Carolina provide further proof that abstinence education works, and it should remain the focus of sex education in our public schools.”