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.
States With Highest Teen Birth Rates:
Mississippi
New Mexico
Texas
Arkansas
Arizona
Oklahoma
Nevada
Tennessee
Kentucky
Georgia
Most Conservatively Religious States:
Mississippi
Alabama
South Carolina
Tennessee
Louisiana
Utah
Arkansas
North Carolina
Kentucky
Oklahoma
Source: livescience.com
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. "It is possible that an anti-contraception attitude could be caused by religious cultures and that could exert its effect mainly on the non-religious individuals in the culture," Strayhorn told LiveScience. But, he added, "We don't know."
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. For instance, the results showed more abortions among teenagers in the less religious states, which would skew the findings since fewer teens in these states would have births. But even after accounting for the abortions, the study team still found a state's level of religiosity could predict their teen birth rate. The higher the religiosity, the higher was the teen birth rate on average. John Santelli of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University calls the study "well-done," adding that the results are not surprising.
"The index of religiosity is tapping into more fundamentalist religious belief," Santelli said. "I'm sure there are parts of New England that have very low teen birth rates, which have pretty high religious participation, but they're probably less conservative, less fundamentalist type of congregations." Other factors that may have been important to consider include ethnic backgrounds of state residents, according to Adamczyk, the City University of New York sociologist. "We know that African American women on average tend to underreport their abortions, which means they could also underreport the likelihood that they got pregnant," Adamczyk said. "If you're dealing with states with a high number of African American women, you might run into that problem."
Adamczyk's own, separate research has shown a nearly opposite correlation, at the individual level. "What we find is that more religious women are less likely to engage in riskier sex behaviors, and as a result they are less likely to have a premarital pregnancy," Adamczyk said during a telephone interview. But for those religious teens who do choose to have premarital sex, they might be more likely to ditch their religious views and have an abortion, she has found.
Adamczyk says the idea that anti-contraception principles could be behind the link is controversial, as studies on the topic have varied results. "The idea is that in the heat of the moment, a young woman who has said, 'I'm going to be a virgin on my wedding night,' is with her boyfriend and she says 'Let's just do it.' And since they didn't plan it, nobody has a condom. And so it increases their chances of a pregnancy," Adamczyk said. Earlier marriage among religious individuals could also partly explain the finding. "In the south, there is a higher rate of marriage of teenagers. And one possible explanation is just that in the southern states, which are also more religious, people just get married earlier and have planned pregnancies and those have perfectly good outcomes," Strayhorn said. He added that he doesn't think the earlier marriage idea explains the religion-birth link.
Still the real truth is that perhaps the reason why many youth in the Bible Belt are at risk for teen pregnancy might have something to do with the quality of education that each of those states are producing. According to Edweek, many of the states in the Bible Belt rank in the lower-tier of education success with Louisiana leading the way followed by Mississippi and South Carolina. However, this shouldn’t come as a shock because organizations like the Southern Education Foundation, Inc. (SEF) has been chronicling the educational issues in the south for many years now. Still if you look at some of their research, you will find that even before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and parts of Mississippi, those two states educational standards and levels of graduating students were abysmal and still is to this day.
States With Lowest Education Ranking:
Louisiana
Mississippi
South Carolina
Alabama
Arkansas
New Jersey
Tennessee
Kentucky
Georgia
North Carolina
Source: Edweek.org
Nonetheless with 9 out of the 10 states who rank near the bottom in terms of education being from the Bible Belt, it might be a good question to ask how does education correlate with the high teen pregnancy rates in the Bible Belt. Still it is even more interesting to see that 5 out of the 10 states listed with the highest teen Pregnancy rates in the Bible Belt are on the list of ranking states with low education performance. While it would be easy to just dismiss that education has any impact on this and some of would say that this is because in the Bible Belt they preach abstinence without understanding that abstinence only programs don’t deter teens from having sex but actually makes them want to have it more. That is why education could play a role in this because if youth in the Bible Belt are taught properly in health education in terms of how to use protection when having sex than perhaps it can help in deterring teen pregnancy.
Therefore, it can be no doubt that the Bible Belt in this nation needs help and perhaps that help will come in the form of groups like SEF and others who have constantly tried to address the socio-economic, educational and cultural issues of the Bible Belt. Still the latest study done by LiveScience shows that the youth in the Bible Belt need more help than they are getting especially with teen pregnancy being as high as it is and teen marriages being more constant than ever in the Bible Belt. Perhaps if the educational systems of the Bible Belt improve than it could lead to less teen pregnancies but that is a big if on both sides. Nonetheless some might say that the Bible Belt’s high teen pregnancy rate is a result of its religious teachings. But I am inclined to say that there are many factors as to why teen pregnancy is high in the Bible Belt and I am willing to bet that education is perhaps at the top of the list for why teen pregnancy exists so highly in the Bible Belt to some degree.
So our youth need us everywhere but the youth in the Bible Belt need its religious leaders, political leaders, and educational leaders to help them address teen pregnancy while improving their quality of education now more than ever. The future for the youth of the Bible Belt begins today. So let’s work to win this war on our youth in the Bible Belt and in America once and for all.
SAVE OUR YOUTH!
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