Jorge Rivas

Young Latinas and Sex

via El Tiempo Latino and New America Media

One in two Latina teenagers in the United States gets pregnant before the age of 20, according to a study published May 19 by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Maryland Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez called the statistic a “disaster” that reflects the ineffectiveness of the abstinence-only policy pushed by the Bush administration. Nationally, pregnancy rates among adolescents have declined nearly 35 percent since 1991, but the rate among Latina women has grown at twice the national average. In the study, only half (49 percent) of girls said that their parents had given them information about contraception.

Posted at 9:59 AM, May 29, 2009 in Permalink | View Comments