The U.S. teen pregnancy rate has declined 42% from its peak in 1990 and is now at a nearly 40-year low, according to new data from the Guttmacher Institute.  These new data track teen pregnancy through 2008.  In addition to the overall national declines, teen pregnancy has also decreased dramatically among all racial and ethnic groups. 

To read the full report, click here.

Multi-million dollar initiatives to help at-risk and parenting teens across Connecticut call for “evidence-based” and “culturally appropriate” approaches – the mantra of experts assisting Hispanic youth, who have the highest number of teen births in the state.

“There’s been a shift in federal funding toward using culturally tailored programs that have been scientifically tested to be effective in changing behaviors,” explained Carol Stone, Ph.D., an epidemiologist with the Family Health Section of the state Department of Public Health.

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Young People and Comprehensive Sex Education: Moving Beyond Scare Tactics and Fear Mongering in 2012

by Andrew Jenkins, OutServe via RH Reality Check

Knowledge is power.

I mean that in the most cliché way possible. Without knowledge, agency and self-determination become meaningless fragments of our imagination. Something that we desperately wish for but can’t quite grab onto.

This is especially true when it comes to young people.

Growing up in the United States is like playing a foucauldian game of discipline and punish. Disciplined by a morally bankrupt narrative about sex and sexuality and then punished for daring to question it.

I guess we shouldn’t be all that surprised. When young people are subjugated and disenfranchised, systems of power thrive. When we’re alienated from our bodies and fearful of our sexuality, we lack the resources and agency necessary to become responsible agents of social and political change. Suffice it to say; those in power have a vested interest in dislocating the nation's youth from real sex education.

Read the full article at RH Reality Check.