Teen Pregnancy in Oklahoma

The Guttmacher Institute released a study this month that shows teen pregnancy rates, abortion rates and birth rates have all decreased to a historic low in our nation. 

 “While there was a substantial drop in the pregnancy rate for
15–17-year-olds and 18–19-year-olds between 2008 and 2010,
pregnancies among 18–19-year-olds constituted the majority (69%)
of teen pregnancies. During this same time period, increasing
proportions of 18–19-year-olds reported having ever had sex,
yet fewer of them became pregnant. The likely reason is
improved contraceptive use and use of more effective methods.”

 This trend is cause for celebration! Not only do teens do better when they postpone having children, but children themselves have better outcomes when mothers wait until they are financially and emotionally prepared to raise them.

Tiffany Haddish
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Campaign
Oklahoma City Metro Area

Despite the decreasing trends, Oklahoma remains in the top 5 highest ranked states for teen pregnancy. We need to keep talking to teens about safer sex, keep expanding access to contraception, and keep improving sex education. We are doing well, but we are not there yet. Statistics are certainly improving but we can do better, so keep it up Oklahoma!

Our work is not done

Remarks of
The Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale
Birmingham, AL
7/21/07

Well Operation Save America came, they saw, they harassed, and they annoyed; but they did not close the clinic. The clinic stayed open, no patients were turned away, and the doors never closed. We remain victorious. And that victory is a good thing – but, make no mistake, even though OSA has gone home; our work is not done.

If we were to leave this park and discover that clinic violence had become a thing of the past, never to plague us again, that would be a very good thing, indeed; but, still, our work would not be done.

If we were to find that, while we were here, Congress had acted to insure that abortion would always be legal, that would be a very good thing; but our work would not be done.

If we were suddenly to find a host of trained providers, insuring access in every city, town, village, and military base throughout the world, that would be a very good thing; but our work would not be done.

When every woman has everything she needs to make an informed, thoughtful choice, and to act upon it, we will be very close; but, still, our work will not be done.

As long as women, acting as responsible moral agents, taking responsibility for their own lives and for those who depend on them, have to contend with guilt and shame, have judgment and contempt heaped upon them, rather than the support and respect they deserve, our work is not done...as long as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States can argue, as Justice Kennedy recently did, that women are not capable of making our own informed moral decisions, that we need men to help us so that we won’t make mistakes that we later regret; as long as a Supreme Court Justice can deny the moral agency of women simply because we are women – and can do it without being laughed off the public stage forever – our work is not done. What has happened to us that he could even think he could get away with publishing such an opinion? Our work most certainly is not done.

How will we know when our work is done? I suspect we’ll know it when we see it. Click here to read more from Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale on our work.

Her words are eloquent, passionate, and true. I believe that our work is not done and that there are many out there who are working so hard to protect women's health. What are you doing?