Teen Pregnancy

Nearly every television season, a storybook stork delivers a plot twist in the form of a baby to a teen drama. "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," created by Brenda Hampton of "7th Heaven," premiered last summer on ABC Family and introduced us to 15-year-old Amy Juergens, a scrawny, French horn-playing freshman at Grant High School who discovers she's pregnant -- though she's not even sure she actually had sex -- after a rendezvous with bad boy Ricky Underwood at band camp.

Watching television shows such as "Gossip Girl" or "Desperate Housewives" that feature sexual content may put U.S. teens at an increased risk of becoming pregnant, a study found. Boys and girls ages 12 to 17 who watched the most sexual content on TV were twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who watched the least sexually suggestive shows, according to research in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics. Based on these findings, the television industry needs to balance sexual content in programs with messages about the risks and responsibilities of sex, said study author Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist at Rand Corp.

Teen pregnancy and sex education were thrust into the spotlight this week when Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin revealed that her 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant. Palin's running mate, John McCain, and the GOP platform say children should be taught that abstinence until marriage is the only safe way to avoid pregnancy and disease. Palin's position is less clear. In a widely quoted 2006 survey she answered during her gubernatorial campaign, Palin said she supported abstinence-until-marriage programs.

Given America's increasing obsession with teenage pregnancy over the last three decades, it's inevitable that sensational stories such as Gloucester High School's mythical pregnancy pact would generate a media frenzy. Ignited by Time magazine's June 18 feature, the story exploded in the national and international media, growing wilder and wilder: Girls 16 and younger who lived in upscale Gloucester, Mass., conspired to get pregnant.

A Massachusetts city is investigating an apparent teenage "pregnancy pact" that may be partially responsible for the fact that at least 17 girls at one high school are expecting babies, four times more than last year, including many age 16 or younger. A high school health clinic in Gloucester became suspicious after seeing a surge in girls seeking pregnancy tests.

Fewer teens are engaging in sexual activity than in the past, and those that do are more likely to use contraceptives, the government said Friday. The National Center for Health Statistics said that for girls ages 15 to 17 the percentage who had ever had intercourse declined from 38% in 1995 to 30% in 2002. For boys, the agency said, the decline was from 43% to 31%. "There is much good news in these results," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said in a statement.

The outlook for children in Orange County appears brighter than it did a decade ago, with sharp reductions in gang violence, teen pregnancy, child abuse and suicide, according to a government report released Tuesday. But the level of poverty among the 872,000 residents ages 19 and under in Orange County concerns Michael Riley, director of the county's Children and Family Services Department.

Unintended as it appears, "An Outsider Takes On L.A.'s Gang Problem" (Opinion, May 25), the interview with the Rev. Eugene Rivers, and "GOP Focus Should Be Kid Stuff," the May 25 commentary by Robert Fellmeth, pound home the same message: Youth today need parents, especially fathers, in their lives to commit to their well-being. The fact is that many children don't have fathers in the home, and we must not punish them but offer solutions. Mentoring in its many forms is a necessary prevention and, often, intervention strategy to help youth stay on the right path.

People like to say that children are the future, but for the El Nido Family Centers of Los Angeles County, that future is now. The organization, which has been around in one form or another since 1925, promotes the social and emotional development of youths and their families in the region. Many of its clients are from economically disadvantaged households.