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The teen pregnancy rate has dropped 25% in recent years. Here's why.

A massive change happened for a really obvious reason.

Here's some good news: The U.S. teen pregnancy rate has been on a steady decline since 2007. And the reason why shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

A new study by the Guttmacher Institute shows that from 2007 to 2011, teen pregnancy rates dropped by a whopping 25% across the U.S. The study, which surveyed women ages 15 to 19, found that while respondents' sexual activity rates didn't change, one very important thing did: contraception use.

Image by Guttmacher Institute.


“Our new data suggest that recent declines in teens’ risk of pregnancy — and in their pregnancy rates — are driven by increased contraceptive use," concludes study author Dr. Laura Lindberg.

In 2015, Colorado released its own data showing that a state program providing free long-term contraception led to a 40% drop in its teen pregnancy rate.

After all, that's pretty much the whole purpose of contraception: to reduce the chance of getting pregnant. It turns out that when contraception is more affordable and easier to get, people are more likely to use it. Even better, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most forms of birth control are now available without an insurance co-pay.

GIF from "The Daily Show."

The undeniable truth is this: Abstinence-only education doesn't work.

Proponents of abstinence-only education argue that the only true way to eliminate the unintended teen pregnancy rate is for teens not to have sex. And they're right — in the same way that the only way to eliminate fatal car accidents is to not drive. Knowing this, we still teach teens how to drive cars, just as we should teach them the basics about safe sex.

GIF from "Mean Girls."

But what does abstinence-only education have to do with this? A government study found that students who received abstinence-only sex education were more likely to not use (or to incorrectly use) contraceptives, were more likely to end up with unintended pregnancies, and were more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections.

As of September 2016, just 18 states and the District of Columbia require sex-ed courses to include information on contraception. There's a lot of room to improve.

Earlier this year, President Obama proposed eliminating federal funding for abstinence-only education programs for the 2017 annual budget. Over the past 25 years, the federal government has spent close to $2 billion on abstinence-only programs despite the fact that there's no science backing up their effectiveness. Obama's push to cut off the last $10 million a year going to these programs coincided with his allocation of $4 million to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.

President Obama and then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discuss contraceptive coverage for workers in 2012. Photo by Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.

Whether state legislatures will take action to require schools to teach comprehensive sex education in high school classrooms remains to be seen, but the mountain of evidence highlighting those programs' successes continues to grow.

Want to see that teen pregnancy rate continue to decline? Then write your representatives and senators on the state and national levels. Let them know this is important to you.

Improved access to knowledge and resources to prevent unwanted pregnancies is a position we should all be able to get behind.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

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Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

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Photo by Long Truong on Unsplash
woman in white sleeveless dress kissing man in blue dress shirt


"It may be the most important thing we do in life; learn how to love and be loved."

At least, that's according to Harvard psychologist and researcher Rick Weissbourd.

He's been collecting data on the sex and love habits of young people for years through surveys, interviews, and even informal conversation — with teens and the important people in their lives.

Through it all, one thing has been abundantly clear:

"We spend enormous amount of attention helping parents prepare their kids for work and school," Weissbourd says. "We do almost nothing to prepare them for the tender, tough, subtle, generous, focused work of developing mature healthy relationships. I'm troubled by that."

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Sandra Maria/Youtube, Official Lives & Music Videos/Youtube

You can't not sing this song.

The music of Queen has a profound visceral effect on everyone. Few pieces of art can cause complete strangers to put aside their differences and come together in song, but by golly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is one of them. It would be cheesy if it weren’t so absolutely beautiful.

This pertains even to non-English-speaking countries, it appears. Recently, thousands of Harry Styles concertgoers in Warsaw, Poland, began cheering as those iconic beginning piano notes penetrated the air.
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Mom shares PSA on about being a sports mom while also working

Being a mom can be challenging enough, but when you add in working full time and kids activities, it feels like you need a few clones to help you out. Recently we signed our youngest up for soccer, he's 5-years-old and happens to be ten years younger than his closest sibling, so I've done the sports stuff.

At one point I was working full-time while my daughter took tap, ballet and jazz while also on a soccer team and my two older boys played soccer, baseball and football. We rarely saw the inside of our home unless it was to sleep, I'm not even sure I knew how my stove worked during those years. Now here we are starting all over again.

So when Mo, a mom running the TikTok page Rex & Mo posted a video ranting about how impossible it feels to add organized activities for kids into the mix, parents everywhere related, myself included.

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@mychal3ts/TikTok

This is "the power of the library"

Editor's Note: This story discusses suicide. If you are having thoughts about taking your own life, or know of anyone who is in need of help, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a United States-based suicide prevention network of over 200+ crisis centers that provides 24/7 service via a toll-free hotline with the number 9-8-8. It is available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress.


Libraries aren’t just a place to score free books. For many, they provide safe refuge.

This secondary offering has lately been overshadowed by political controversy, as there has been a laser focus from conservatives on the types of literature libraries provide, especially titles that pertain to LGBTQ and racial topics.

But one librarian’s retelling of a life saving encounter reminds us of how essential these community spaces really are—and it has nothing to do with books at all.

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When founder Zack Gazzaniga decided to start his own tortilla chip company, Zack's Mighty, his mission was to create a delicious chip that didn’t break in guacamole.

His quest to create the perfect chip took him to Italy, where he acquired Otto File flint corn (a very flavorful variety of flint corn now mostly grown in Italy for polenta), and then back to the U.S. to plant and grow it.

When connecting with farms to partner with to grow the corn, Zack began learning about regenerative agriculture and its benefits for the soil and climate. “Regenerative agriculture made so much sense to me that I decided then that this would be a pillar of our business and a mandate that everyone who grows our corn follows regenerative practices,” he says.

Regenerative agriculture combines conservation and rehabilitation practices to improve farmland soil and combat climate change. These practices include less tillage, crop rotation, cover cropping, and composting.

One of the farmers Zack connected with to grow organic and regenerative corn was Bryce Irlbeck in Manning, Iowa. “We began [fully] regenerative farming in 2019, but have been doing different aspects such as cover cropping and crop rotation for 10 years.”

Bryce’s farm in Iowa was one of Zack’s Mighty’s partner farms that spent two years in partnership with A Greener World, evaluating farm standards, plans, and auditing procedures to receive Certified Regenerative certification. This certification provides a whole-farm assurance of regeneration and sustainability, measuring benefits for soil, water, air, biodiversity, infrastructure, animal welfare, and social responsibility. As of August 2022, all of Zack’s Mighty partner farms were officially certified.

Bryce’s advice to farmers looking to begin regenerative practices is to first “focus on figuring out a [crop] rotation since each area of the country will be different due to markets and weather patterns.”

Zack’s Mighty is thrilled to have cultivated a supply chain that uses organic ingredients and Certified Regenerative corn — ensuring its customers can be proud to align their values with their purchase.

“Our mission to make the best tortilla chip on the market starts with our ingredients and how they are produced. We want to assure our customers that we value transparency and source only high-quality ingredients to create delicious products that are truly good for the planet,” says Zack.