NEW YORK TIMES: Over the past six years, Colorado has conducted one of the largest experiments with long-acting birth control. If teenagers and poor women were offered free intrauterine devices and implants that prevent pregnancy for years, state officials asked, would those women choose them?
They did in a big way, and the results were startling. The birthrate among teenagers across the state plunged by 40 percent from 2009 to 2013, while their rate of abortions fell by 42 percent, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. There was a similar decline in births for another group particularly vulnerable to unplanned pregnancies: unmarried women under 25 who have not finished high school…
The methods are effective because, unlike the pill, a diaphragm or condoms, they do not require a woman to take action to work. And while an early incarnation, the Dalkon Shield introduced in the 1970s, had disastrous results, the modern devices are safe and have been increasingly promoted by doctors. Last fall, the American Academy of Pediatricspublished guidelines that for the first time singled them out as a “first-line” birth control option for adolescents, citing their “efficacy, safety and ease of use.”… (more)
WIKIPEDIA: “The average age of first sexual intercourse in the United States is 17.0 for males and 17.3 for females, and this has been rising in recent years. The percentage of teens who are waiting longer to have sex has been increasing For those teens who have had sex, 70% of girls and 56% of boys said that their first sexual experience was with a steady partner, while 16% of girls and 28% of boys report losing their virginity to someone they had just met or who was just a friend.”
EDITOR: The additional use of condoms is still essential to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
