RH Reality Check today launches a new section devoted to the ongoing search for common ground on abortion and related issues. The On Common Ground section will be moderated by author, commentator, and all-around good egg Cristina Page. Cristina has long been a keen observer and chronicler of the ongoing culture wars over abortion and various efforts to reach common ground.

National Campaign CEO Sarah Brown will be a regular contributor to the Common Ground site along with others including the very thoughtful Rachel Laser of Third Way.

Read Sarah's initial contribution to the common ground discussion and marvel as I did as she seamlessly weaves together a narrative involving Barbie dolls, Cleopatra, family planning, and common ground.

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) today released final teen birth data for 2006.  As expected---preliminary national data were released a year ago---the overall teen birth rate increased 3% between 2005 and 2006 after 14 years of continuous decline.  Again, just to make the point, after more than a decade of steady declines nationally, declines in all 50 states, and declines among all racial/ethnic groups, the teen birth rate is on the rise.

Not too good.

The NCHS report does include new state-by-state teen birth rates. If I were choosing a word to describe the state findings that word would be b-l-e-a-k.  My boss describes the NCHS data was a "four-alarm fire."  Consider the following.  :

• National teen birth rate increased 3% between 2005 and 2006
• 26 states posted statistically significant increases in the teen birth rate between 2005 and 2006 and only three states and the District of Columbia saw significant decreases.
• Teen birth rates are up among all major racial/ethnic groups.
• Teen birth rates are up in states nationwide, from California to Florida, Alaska to Alabama, Montana to Texas.

For more information and analysis, including some thoughts on what communities can do, policymakers can do, etc, go here:

Like most Americans, I am profoundly moved by the election of Barack Obama. The reasons are numerous and I have little to add to the outpouring of eloquence within the U.S. and around the world. 

My modest addition is this: imagine our nation finding common ground centered on a simple thought: getting pregnant is one of the most important life events that occurs to any of us, with profound effects reaching into future generations.  It requires thought, care, support, communication and open discussion.  We need to develop better systems of education and services to support this critical decision and life stage, and we need to foster a deeper sense of personal responsibility attached to getting pregnant and raising families.  President-elect Obama has spoken to this combination of responsible policies and responsible behavior in general AND in relationship to the matters that concern us at this National Campaign.  I am luxuriating today in my hope that by the singular act of electing him President, America might be poised to make progress on "our" profoundly important, consequential issues.

Campaign CEO Sarah Brown and others guests appeared on NPR's Diane Rehm Show yesterday (CNN pooh bah and all-around-good-egg Frank Sesno was the guest host) for lively discussion of the state of sex education in the United States. 

The one-hour program also featured:

• Valerie Huber, executive director, National Abstinence Education Association
• Debra Hauser, executive vice president, Advocates for Youth
• Stan Weed, director and CEO, Institute for Research and Evaluation
• Douglas Kirby, senior research scientist, Education, Training and Research Associates

To listen in Real Audio move your mouse and click here.

To listen in Windows Media Player make that mouse click here.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy issued the following in response to the announcement that Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is pregnant:

• The teen pregnancy and birth rate have declined dramatically since the early 1990s (down 38% and 32% respectively) driven by decreases in sexual activity and increases in contraceptive use.
• Even so, recent data show that the declines in teen sex and improvements in contraceptive use have leveled off and that the teen birth rate is on the rise for the first time in 15 years.
• At present, 3 in 10 girls in the United States become pregnant by age 20.
• At present, half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned and about 8 in 10 pregnancies to teens are unplanned.
• The teen pregnancy and birth rate in Alaska is below the national average and, since the early 1990s, has declined more steeply than the national average.

The increase in the teen birth rate, Jamie Lynn Spears, the Gloucester un-pact, and---who knows, the performance of Michael Phelps in the Olympics---have all elicited a serious round of media finger-pointing.  You know the argument; the media is providing a heavy coat of coarse to teen culture and they are to blame for our increasingly sexualized culture.

Fair?  Of course not. 

Read what Sarah Brown thinks about all this in an op-ed that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and check out the accompanying editorial.

Just in time for the DVD release of Juno tomorrow, CDC's National Center for Health Statistics has released new teen pregnancy data.  Good news---teen pregnancy declined 5% between 2002 and 2004. 

Of course, this news may leave some scratching their heads and wondering, "didn't the CDC just say that teen pregnancy rates were increasing?"  Close but not quite.  In December 2007, NCHS reported a 3% increase in the teen birth rate, not the pregnancy rate. 

Still confused?  Read on and be enlightened.

Read a statement from NC CEO Sarah Brown here.   Read a data cheat sheet here.  Read the NCHS report here.