Teen Pregnancy and Abortion Rates Declining

According to new data released from the Center for Disease Control for the year 2010, birth rates for U.S. teenagers are at an all-time low.

The historically low rate of 34.3 births per 1,000 teen women represents a 9% drop from the prior year and a remarkable 44% drop since 1991.

If you're generally skeptical, as I am, the first question that comes to mind when you hear this good new is - maybe the number of births is declining because women are having more abortions? 

I did a little research, and I'm happy to report, that's not the case. An increase in aborted pregnancies is NOT the reason there are fewer teen births in the U.S. In fact, abortion rates among American women have been steadily declining for the last 30 years.

Check out this interactive chart which reflects the annual number of abortions per 1,000 women (aged 15-44) for every year since 1978.

To analyze trends in abortion rates at the state level, select a specific state from the drop-down menu on the chart. You can view an interactive map comparing current state-level abortion rates by accessing this link and clicking on Maps.

The indisputable statistical evidence that teens are having fewer babies and fewer abortions provides enough good news for Americans all across the political spectrum to be happy. The questions up for debate are: who gets the credit for these encouraging results, and more importantly, how do we make sure these trends continue?

Mike McQueary's Future at Penn State

Mike McQueary (red hair) alongside Joe Paterno.

Citing threats against Mike McQueary, Penn State has wisely announced that the team's wide receiver coach will not be on the sidelines for the Nittany Lions home game on Saturday against Nebraska. I agree with this decision, and I believe it is in the best interests of everyone involved that McQueary not be a visible presence in the Penn State football program for the rest of 2011.

Part of me can't help but feel sorry for McQueary who seems to be increasingly swirling alone at the center of the Penn State sex abuse scandal. His life has been utterly derailed, and it's likely that his conscience was forever scarred from the moment he left that shower room, all because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or more correctly, all because of what he didn't do when he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As far as what happens next, I'm torn. Mike McQueary did not sexually abuse kids; he witnessed the molestation of a young boy by a 58 year-old man. Mike McQueary didn't commit the horrific act, nor did he even choose the circumstances of its discovery. In the face of an unimaginably hellish moment, Mike McQueary didn't do the right thing, but he did do something. Still, I can't get past the fact that he was there. And he didn't stop it.

In his Slate magazine article about McQueary, Josh Levin has perhaps best captured the feelings of so many of us. "In the end, it's possible to comprehend Mike McQueary's actions, but it is impossible to rationalize them."

McQueary's long-term future at Penn State has not yet been announced, and there are reasonable arguments to be made in favor of not punishing the original whistleblower, beyond the likely internal anguish and awful public rebuke he is suffering now. Though he had the opportunity to unlock an escape hatch out of this nightmare, a luxury that was certainly not afforded to the boys who were so brutally molested, Mike McQueary is in some way a secondary victim of the awful crimes committed by Jerry Sandusky. Whatever is decided by the university or by McQueary himself, the road ahead will no doubt be long and difficult for him.