First and foremost, I'm not convinced these statistics REALLY matter. Marriage is not the utmost priority when rearing children - having 2 committed parents is far more important than if they are religiously or contractually married. HOWEVER, generally speaking it is more likely that a wedded couple will provide such an environment.
That said, the unwed pregnancy statistics continue to rise. More troubling, the teen pregnancy statistics have reversed their course and went up for the first time in 15 years.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071206_1_A6_hSome41357I also heard on KRMG this AM (too lazy to pull the story atm, sorry), that the same trend has been seen in Oklahoma.
Why is this in politics? Because I'm tired of the sham of abstinence only sex education. $180,000,000.00 a year to tell teenagers not to have sex and it simply does not work. Some teens might forgo sex for religious conviction or out of fear (disease, pregnancy, parents, cooties) - but the number that do so because a teacher or the government says they should is probably very, very small. Perhaps they can raise the fear factor, but the manner in which they currently do so is misplaced.
I won't bother to post the stats, but a large majority of high school graduates have chosen to ignore the prescribed safe sex of our government. I'm willing to guess the number is similar to what it was before our current program, or in the 1980's, 70's, and on and on. We are returning to the age where kids get sex information from other kids - or at best, off of the internet (one would hope WebMD or medschoolXYZ.edu over facebook or wikipedia).
I do not know if it is the governments place to teach your kid about sexuality, but wasting money explicitly to NOT teach them about sex has run its course.
