Quote:
Originally Posted by UGAalum94
This may sound racist and classist and I'll just take the heat, but I suspect that for the most part rates are steady for different demographic and economic groups across state lines. Some states are just blessed with more diverse populations that others. ETA: looking at more data, I've got to say, I'm probably wrong. I can't really tell though because for some states, I think the economic situation may explain a lot and I don't have data for that. The south must just be that much more fertile.
ETA: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf
It's from 2006.
This has more info, even of the type that DSTren notes.
"Fifty percent or more of teenage pregnancies end in abortion in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia." |
I think it has a lot to do with class first, and then race. Even in poor areas (like Mississippi!), the teen pregnancy rate is probably split pretty evenly among black and white. When I was in HS, some girls got pregnant, but only the poorer ones--black and white--kept the kids. Part of it was that they probably figured that their parents, who were younger and less educated, "did fine," so why couldn't they do just as "well"?
Also, despite the fact that the Gloucester teen pregnancy pact was a hoax in that they didn't agree to get pregnant en masse, it's still an economically depressed town with a stark rich/poor divide. Those girls were all white, but they still didn't think they had any other options, so keeping a pregnancy was more palatable to them then it would have been to a girl on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.