“The United States continues to have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world” but with similar levels of sexual activity compared to its international peers.* While the rates of teen pregnancy in the U.S. have seen an overall decline across all states in the last two decades, our country has, at the same time, experienced many great setbacks with legislation regarding women’s rights.
It is interesting to note the varying numbers of teen pregnancy among individual states, as well as the differences between state laws that dictate access to sex education, contraception, abortion, and a number of other factors concerning women’s health.
The infographic below provides a glimpse into the policies and statistics surrounding teen pregnancy in the four states with the highest and lowest occurrences of it, as well as a review of the United States as a whole.
*The Guttmacher Institute’s 2012 report “Facts on American Teens’ Sources of Information About Sex”