Facts

  • 52% of SC high school students have had sex. By graduation, this number increases to almost 74%.

  • 81% of registered voters in South Carolina think that sex education in public schools should contain info on BOTH abstinence and contraception.

  • 87% of teens agree that it would be easier for them to delay sex and prevent teen pregnancy if they were able to have more open, honest conversations about these topics with their parents.

  • A sexually active teen who does not use contraceptives has a 90% chance of becoming pregnant within a year.

    Source: Harlap S, Kost K and Forrest JD, Preventing Pregnancy, Protecting Health: A New Look at Birth Control Choices in the United States, New York: AGI, 1991

  • Abstinence is the only 100 percent effective method for avoiding unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV

    Source: Advocates for Youth

  • Babies born to teens are at an increased risk of low birth weight and the attending health problems; mental retardation, blindness, deafness, mental illness, cerebral palsy and infant death.

    Source: Lifeline Family Center

  • Did you know that up to 120 hours (five days) after unprotected sex, you can take emergency contraceptive pills to reduce your risk of becoming pregnant?

    Source: Advocates for Youth

  • Each year the federal government alone spends about $7 billion to help families that began with a teenage birth.

    Source: National Campaign's site and they got the information from Maynard, R.A.. (1997). The costs of adolescent childbearing. In Maynard, R. (Ed.), Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy (pp. 285-337). Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press.

  • Every 1 in 4 females and 1 in 5 males will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday.

  • Every 50 minutes a teen gets pregnant in South Carolina.

  • Girls born to teen mothers are 22% more likely to become mothers as teens themselves.

    Source: Lifeline Family Center

  • In 2004, the total cost to taxpayers associated with teen childbearing was $156 million.

  • In a recent poll, eight of ten teens surveyed (82 percent) agreed that teens should not be sexually active.

    Source: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

  • Only 20 percent of the fathers marry the teen mothers of their first children.

    Source: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

  • SC taxpayers spend $22,000 per year for each baby born to a teen mother.

  • Teen girls can get pregnant the first time they have sex, and every time after that.

    Source: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

  • Teens are waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past.

    Source: Abma JC et al., Teenagers in the United States: sexual activity, contraceptive use, and childbearing, 2002, Vital and Health Statistics, 2004, Series 23, No. 24

  • The majority of pregnancies to 15 - to 19-year-olds - 78 percent - are not planned.

    Source: Henshaw, S.K. (1998) Unintended pregnancy in the United States. Family Planning Perspectives, 30(1):24-29&46, Table 1

  • The majority of the decline in teen pregnancy rates is due to more consistent contraceptive use; the rest is due to higher proportions of teens choosing to delay sexual activity.

    Source: Darroch JE and Singh S, Why is teenage pregnancy declining? the roles of abstinence, sexual activity and contraceptive use, Occasional Report, New York: AGI, 1999, No. 1

  • The U.S. has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and birth in the industrialized world.

    Source: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

  • Worldwide, over 50% of new HIV infections occur among people 25 or younger.

    Source: Advocates for Youth