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Teen birth rate report fixed to slam abstinence, analyst says

A pro-family leader is charging the federal government with misrepresenting teen birth rate statistics in order to cut funding for abstinence-only sex education and transfer the funding to so-called "comprehensive" sex education programs.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a report this week indicating a slight increase in teen birth rates for the first time in 14 years. Though the rate had dropped consistently since 1991, government statisticians claimed a three-percent increase in births in 15- to 19-year-olds from 2005 to 2006. Co-author of the report, CDC's Stephanie Ventura, said the findings, "took us by surprise."

But Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse -- senior fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute of Concerned Women for America -- disputes those findings, saying the claims are misleading at best. "What they have done," Crouse argues, "is lump together 15- to 19-year-olds, because the 18- to 19-year-old rate did edge up just slightly."

Crouse says the numbers for 10- to 17-year-olds actually continue on their downward trend, which indicates that abstinence education is showing positive results. And that, she says, is the reason for the misleading government report.

The misleading "bundling" of the statistics is an obvious attack on abstinence education, she says, and an attempt to get more federal funding for condom distribution and abortion providers. "You can bet this is data that will be used to say, 'Abstinence programs do not work,'" she says.

Crouse blames the report on abortion supporters who are willing to distort the facts to get federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.