# Tings Were Better In the Fifties, Vol. I: Teen Pregnancy (the SA debate series) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 2, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996 "2009-11-02T00:05:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/161 "2009-11-03T01:23:27Z")
> [@Taber](#): > > Why would it be twice as likely that the couple was in love in the 50’s? There’s no correlation. Kids don’t feel compelled to get married because of love or pregnancy now like they did then. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/162 "2009-11-03T01:33:02Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > **Starving Artist** has already meade clear that he has no interest in debating. His _modus operandi_ is simply to assert things he finds to be self-evident. As I said to him in the Pit thread, that’s fine… but not in GD. Fair enough. I missed your most recent contribution to the Pit thread. I also notice that you haven’t responded directly to a single **Starving Artist** post in this thread, which i think is an admirable way to deal with him in GD. It’s better to pretend that the posts don’t exist, because by the standards of evidence and honest analysis required in GD, they really make no substantive contribution. > [@Bricker](#): > > So the purpose of this thread, and the ones that follow, is to take some of the statements he’s made that have infuriated readers and try to tease out, in GD fashion, whatever objective facts may or may not support them. See, this is where i still think you’ve put the cart before the horse. What infuriates people, i think, is not simply that he makes sweeping factual claims with no evidence to support them, but that the specific purpose of these factual claims is to buttress a broader (and yet oh-so-narrowminded) argument about liberal values and their contribution to the decline of western civilization. Put it this way: if some hypothetical Doper, who i had never seen before, made the simple assertion, “The number of out-of-wedlock pregnancies among teenagers was much lower during the 1950s in the United States than it is today,” i would make some inquiries about what type of teen pregnancies he was talking about (out of wedlock; shotgun wedding; etc.), and would proceed from there to try and find a factual answer to the question. Furthermore, i don’t really have any investment in the answer itself; if it turns out that there were more in the 1950s than now, that’s fine, and if the opposite turns out to be true, then that’s fine too. After all, i’m not the one who sees teen sex as the sign of the apocalypse, and i don’t believe it tells us very much about the alleged decline of social morality. Changes in morality, sure, but not necessarily decline. The part of **Starving Artist** ’s dogma that infuriates me is not the factual assertions, _per se_, but the underlying prejudices and political dogmatism that he connects with them. I’m not especially worried, one way of the other, about a claim regarding teen pregnancy rates. Further, i think threads like this are pointless because **Starving Artist** has made very clear, through a long posting history, that the prejudices and dogmatism won’t change no matter what the evidence says. For all these reasons, i think the chase for statistics is, in this particular instance, a fool’s errand, because they don’t actually have any direct correlation with **Starving Artist** ’s claims for them. The topic might provide an interesting discussion among people who actually care about things like evidence and analysis and honest debate, but that specifically excludes the topic from the underlying purpose that caused you to bring it up in the first place, _viz_ the worldview of **Starving Artist**. I think it would have been better to leave him out of the OP altogether, and just start the thread as an intellectual exercise for those who are interested in such things. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/163 "2009-11-03T01:39:12Z")
And this, I take it, is your round about way of trying to [del]explain[/del] excuse your ad hominem swipe in post #149, and to defuse my response to it? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/164 "2009-11-03T01:48:09Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And this, I take it, is your round about way of trying to [del]explain[/del] excuse your ad hominem swipe in post #149, and to defuse my response to it? And this, I take it, is your attempt to not address any of the points made about your drivel and worthless arguments? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/165 "2009-11-03T02:12:52Z")
> [@Taber](#): > > Why would it be twice as likely that the couple was in love in the 50’s? Old joke of the 60s. Did you hear Joyce was getting married. Hell no, I didn’t even know she was pregnant. A lot of people got married when a girl got knocked up. Young marriages ,that often neither partner really wanted. Divorce skyrocketed. People stepping out and experiencing what they were denied was common. There is always a price to pay. The price has many manifestations. Forced marriages, botched abortions. girls being sent to homes, there is always a cost. No generation invents sex. Teens all feel the urge and always have. There were some draconian prices to pay for making mistakes in the past. Now we have options. How can that possibly be worse. A teenage mistake changing your life forever. yep, those were the bad old days. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/166 "2009-11-03T02:19:43Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I think that study is about how abstinence is impacted by “abstinence only” versus “comprehensive”. It’s silent on whether one or the other is better for reducing pregnancy or STDs. Actually, it seems to suggest that there was no real difference between the two intervention approaches, based on the many studies it.. er… studied. (It being a meta-analysis and all). > [@](#): > > This one however: [http://www.issuelab.org/click/download2/abstinence\_only\_vs\_comprehensive\_sex\_education\_what\_are\_the\_arguments\_what\_is\_the\_evidence/abstinence.pdf](http://www.issuelab.org/click/download2/abstinence_only_vs_comprehensive_sex_education_what_are_the_arguments_what_is_the_evidence/abstinence.pdf) \<– PDF does get into the differences and finds that a comprehensive approach is better from a health and social direction. That may be, but I thought we were trying to unravel specifcally whether “…the high rate of teen pregnancies in America today is a result of a conservative policy. Conservative inertia to sex education is what causes our teen pregnancy rates to be as high as they are.” Health and social direction, laudable thougfh they may be, aren’t really what I was focusing on. I don’t find any specifics at all in your link to address that point. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/167 "2009-11-03T02:21:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > No. The chronology is that I feel liberal permissiveness has, among other ills, resulted in an envioronment where young teenagers – 13 to 17, let’s say – are engaging in sex in vastly greater numbers than occured prior to the counter-culture revolution circa 1968… You still haven’t explained why anyone should believe this. The evidence does not support it. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/168 "2009-11-03T02:22:31Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Old joke of the 60s. Did you hear Joyce was getting married. Hell no, I didn’t even know she was pregnant. > A lot of people got married when a girl got knocked up. Young marriages ,that often neither partner really wanted. Divorce skyrocketed. People stepping out and experiencing what they were denied was common. There is always a price to pay. The price has many manifestations. Forced marriages, botched abortions. girls being sent to homes, there is always a cost. > No generation invents sex. Teens all feel the urge and always have. There were some draconian prices to pay for making mistakes in the past. Now we have options. How can that possibly be worse. A teenage mistake changing your life forever. yep, those were the bad old days. Yes. Fortunately, when someone here in GD argues from anecdotes instead of data, they are swiftly rebuked. No matter which side of the political debate their views may place them, the condemnation is near-universal. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/169 "2009-11-03T02:32:36Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > No. The chronology is that I feel liberal permissiveness has, among other ills, resulted in an envioronment where young teenagers – 13 to 17, let’s say – are **engaging in sex in vastly greater numbers than occured prior to the counter-culture revolution circa 1968** Bolding added. This is why Bricker’s emphasis on \*marriage \*is not appropriate to this debate, insofar as he’s trying to understand Starving Artist’s claims. SA’s focus on the impregnation, not the wedded state or the final outcome, makes the numbers much easier to interpret. They prove him entirely wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/170 "2009-11-03T02:37:04Z")
Here’s a [study](http://www.atypon-link.com/PNG/doi/pdf/10.5555/ajhb.2008.32.1.60?cookieSet=1) that finds an abstinence program was effective when targeted to virgin seventh graders and measured one year later. The abstinence group was only 46% as likely as the control group to have had sex a year later. The control group received the normal Northern Virginia classroom sex ed. I am inclined to believe that this would have been a comprehensive prgram, because Northern Virginia public schools are pretty much universally using comprehensive sex ed, but the study does not explicitly described the sex ed for the control group. It’s pretty narrow, since it focuses only on seventh graders (well, eigth graders, I guess, one year after the program). But it suggests that there may be a subset of audiences for which abstinence-based classes are effective. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/171 "2009-11-03T02:38:46Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Bolding added. > > This is why Bricker’s emphasis on \*marriage \*is not appropriate to this debate, insofar as he’s trying to understand Starving Artist’s claims. SA’s focus on the impregnation, not the wedded state or the final outcome, makes the numbers much easier to interpret. They prove him entirely wrong. No. Starving Artist’s claims have changed slightly from post to post. It’s unclear to me what his focus is. I’m simply picking a fruitful area and starting with it. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/172 "2009-11-03T03:04:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Here’s a [study](http://www.atypon-link.com/PNG/doi/pdf/10.5555/ajhb.2008.32.1.60?cookieSet=1) that finds an abstinence program was effective when targeted to virgin seventh graders and measured one year later. The abstinence group was only 46% as likely as the control group to have had sex a year later. The control group received the normal Northern Virginia classroom sex ed. I am inclined to believe that this would have been a comprehensive prgram, because Northern Virginia public schools are pretty much universally using comprehensive sex ed, but the study does not explicitly described the sex ed for the control group. > > It’s pretty narrow, since it focuses only on seventh graders (well, eigth graders, I guess, one year after the program). But it suggests that there may be a subset of audiences for which abstinence-based classes are effective. It could also suggest that the manner in which abstinence is taught makes all the difference. For example, abstinence programs are sometimes mischaracterized as ["Just Say No](http://www.abstinenceworks.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=44)" cheerleading, which is a shallow caricature at best. People also often claim that abstinence-only programs make no mention of contraceptive methods, which is inaccurate as the aforementioned cite shows. (See also [http://www.heritage.org/research/abstinence/wm738.cfm.](http://www.heritage.org/research/abstinence/wm738.cfm.)) ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/173 "2009-11-03T03:29:41Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Actually, it seems to suggest that there was no real difference between the two intervention approaches, based on the many studies it.. er… studied. (It being a meta-analysis and all). > > That may be, but I thought we were trying to unravel specifcally whether “…the high rate of teen pregnancies in America today is a result of a conservative policy. Conservative inertia to sex education is what causes our teen pregnancy rates to be as high as they are.” Health and social direction, laudable thougfh they may be, aren’t really what I was focusing on. > > I don’t find any specifics at all in your link to address that point. Again, your cite finds that rates of abstinence are unaffected by \*comprehensive \*vs. \*abstinence \*education. My cite is about how rates of pregnancy are impacted by comprehensive and not abstinence education. Ya dig? Abstinence isn’t the only way to not get pregnant. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/174 "2009-11-03T03:39:53Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Abstinence isn’t the only way to not get pregnant. It’s the only sure way. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/175 "2009-11-03T03:48:08Z")
In thinking about the OP, I question the basic principle. It’s taken as a given that lower teen pregnancy indicates better times than those with higher teen pregnancies. I would imagine that unwed teen pregnancy is rarer in very strict fundamentalist countries like Iran, or what have you, and more common in wealthier progressive permissive societies. Personally, if I’m looking for a good time, I’ll take the booze and loose women over the fundamentalism any day of the week. * * * Another given of the OP seems to be that the 50s were a stricter and more moralistic time than current times, and that we are less strict and moralistic now. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I have it on good authority that teenagers were getting all kinds of ass in the 50s. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/176 "2009-11-03T04:01:35Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > It’s the only sure way. Well, except for that one unfortunate incident in Palestine, some time ago… ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/177 "2009-11-03T04:44:44Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, except for that one unfortunate incident in Palestine, some time ago… Yeah, about that. Let’s just say, Joseph was the most gullible man in antiquity. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/178 "2009-11-03T04:45:57Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Only a guess, but I would imagine that the Netherlands has a far more mature and less politically driven attitude toward the promotion of sexual activity than we do here. But like I said, that’s only a guess. […] > > The thrust of liberalism in this country has been to defend and promote rampant sexuality at every turn. Women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan promote casual and freewheeling sexual activty on the cover at every convenience store magazine rack; rap music is full of references to sucking dicks and fucking; movies and television, particularly cable television, are rife with R-rated images, and in the case of cable TV, X-rated programs are readily available. Whether people want to admit it or not, kids are exposed to all this on a regular basis. Liberalism in this country seems determined to shove sexuality at people from every angle, and to ridicule anyone who objects. […] > > It sounds to me like sexuality is open there but not rabidly promoted. There is a current of resentment and a determination to rub conservative noses in sexuality that underlies much of the promotion of sex in this country. As the result, a mature, common-sense approach, such as it sounds like exists in the Netherlands, is non-existent. To the degree that they can get away with it, it’s full-bore, anything goes sexuality coming from the left here, […] I don’t think the sexual mores in the Netherlands are at all like the way you’d like to think they are. For one thing, Dutch people [ranked as more sexually promiscuous than Americans](http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article5257166.ece) in a 2008 survey (and in fact, more promiscuous than all except two of the major industrialized nations). Dutch culture has Cosmopolitan and rap music and R- and X-rated movies on TV just like ours does. Moreover, as anyone who’s lived in a Dutch city knows, it also has legalized prostitution with scantily clad hookers on display in storefront windows in the red light districts, sex shops in residential neighborhoods, and mandatory sex education in the schools. [Dutch children on average have quite a high level of cultural “exposure” to sex](http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article5208865.ece): > [@](#): > > The children of De Burght School in Amsterdam walk past the red-light district to their classrooms every day, past the “Peep Shows, Live Girls,” the risqué underwear shops and the newsagents selling teen magazines with free condoms. At school the five-year-olds play mummies and daddies in the playground knowing what their parents did in bed last night. > > Next year, 12-year-old Sasha explains to me, they will learn how to put a condom on a broomstick (she says this without a trace of embarrassment, just a polite smile). Across the city, nine-year-old Marcus, who lives in a beautiful 18th-century house on a canal, has been watching a cartoon showing him how to masturbate. His sister, 11, has been writing an essay on reproduction and knows that it is legal for two consenting 12-year-olds to make love. Her favourite magazine, Girls, gives advice on techniques in bed, and her parents sometimes allow her to stay up to see a baby being born on the birthing channel. > > Then there is Yuri, 16, who explains to me in perfect English that “anal sex hurts at the beginning but if you persevere it can be very pleasurable”. When I ask whether he is gay, he says “no” but he has watched a documentary on the subject with his parents. […] > > At secondary school the sex education is formalised and children are shown how to use various types of contraceptive, how to have “safe and pleasurable sex”, the importance of responsibility and how to recognise the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases. […] > > Doortje Braeker, a Dutch mother who works in Britain for the International Planned Parenthood Federation, says: “We are not scared of young people being sexually active and we want to make sure that their first experiences are safe and pleasurable. We are a Calvinist country so it is important that we don’t have too many abortions, but the postwar generation also wants to have fun.” In short, “full-bore, anything goes sexuality” is almost as much a part of the Dutch way of life as riding bicycles, growing hyacinths, and holding [yard sales on the Queen’s birthday](http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/North-Holland/Amsterdam/blog-10501.html). The Dutch in general think sex is a good thing, and have quite a high tolerance for public acknowledgement of sexuality and awareness of sex among children. Face it, **Starving Artist** : the Netherlands, in addition to having high literacy rates, a prosperous economy, extensive social welfare policies, pretty flowers and nice cheeses, are a pulsating mass of flagrant sexual liberalism and permissiveness. They’re doing everything you wish the American sixties liberals hadn’t done, and the result is that they have the lowest teen pregnancy and youth STD rates in the industrialized West, in addition to one of the lowest abortion rates. How come? Partly because these sex-saturated Dutch youth actually end up starting to have intercourse at a later age than teens in other countries, but mostly because [they’re using protection:](http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=407&Itemid=336) > [@](#): > > U.S. teens are the youngest—at an average age of 15.8— to experience first sexual intercourse. Teens in the Netherlands—which exhibits the most liberal attitudes about sexuality and sexual behavior—experience first intercourse at the latest average age, 17.7. The teens of Germany and France experience first sex at 16.2 and 16.8, respectively. > > Teen condom use is fairly consistent among the four nations. In the Netherlands, 85 percent of Dutch adolescents use protection at first sexual intercourse—46 percent use condoms and 24 percent use both condoms and the pill. Further, 29 percent of sexually active teens used condoms at most recent intercourse, while eight percent used both condoms and oral contraceptives at the same time. In Germany, 56 percent of sexually active male teens used condoms at first intercourse and 57 percent at most recent intercourse. In the United States, teens’ use of condoms or other contraception at first intercourse has risen to 65 percent. Among sexually active U.S. teens, 65 percent reported using a condom at most recent intercourse. Finally, in a nationally representative sample of sexually experienced U.S. youth ages 14-22, 25 percent of young men reported dual use of condoms and oral contraception. > > Differences emerge strongly when teen use of other effective means of contraception is compared. In the Netherlands, nearly 67 percent of sexually active adolescent females use oral contraceptives. In Germany, about 63 percent of sexually active adolescent females report using oral contraceptives at most recent intercourse. By contrast, 20.5 percent of sexually active adolescent females in the United States report using oral contraceptives at most recent intercourse. > > The United States has much higher rates of teen birth and abortion when compared with the other three nations. In 1996, the U.S. adolescent fertility rate was 54.4 per 1000 women ages 15 to 19, four times higher than Germany’s rate of 13 per 1000. The Netherlands has the lowest confirmed teen fertility rate in the world—6.9 per 1000 women ages 15 to 19. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/179 "2009-11-03T04:49:06Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > It’s the only sure way. How utterly off topic and without merit. Yes, let’s only do things that have one hundred percent success rates. Please turn in all your immunizations and cut the seat belts out of all your vehicles. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996/180 "2009-11-03T04:54:29Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Again, your cite finds that rates of abstinence are unaffected by \*comprehensive \*vs. \*abstinence \*education. > > My cite is about how rates of pregnancy are impacted by comprehensive and not abstinence education. > > Ya dig? > > Abstinence isn’t the only way to not get pregnant. Yes, but your cite doesn’t explain the methodology of the study, which means that I am unable to judge the details the same way you can judge mine and point out the subtle problems with conclusions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tings-were-better-in-the-fifties-vol-i-teen-pregnancy-the-sa-debate-series/515996.md?page=10)