While we havent really taken apart the Reproductive Health journal article Religiosity and teen birth rate in the United States, there's at least two implications to the conclusion that "Increased religiosity in residents of states in the U.S. strongly predicted a higher teen birth rate" which deserve at least a closer look, if not criticism.

One, in the study abstract, at least, the word "conservative" is used almost equivalently with "religious", without exploring that there may exist counterpoints which are less "conservative" but no less "religious".  We wonder if the data were to break out a difference between teens who had relatively liberal religious beliefs vs relatively conservative religious beliefs if the liberals, in so many words, might be somewhat less likely to become pregnant, at least unintentionally, as they might be more likely to use contraception reliably, assuming they chose to do so, of course.

While "conservative" and "religious" seem to go together in the study, the study doesn't differentiate between "conservative" and "liberal" religious beliefs.  We haven't looked at the Pew Study which this report references for it's data set on religiosity to see if it makes that differentiation, it would be interesting to explore, because it may not be so much whether a teen is religious or not but their belief in socially conservative values independent of religion or political positions which may either disincline teens to use contraception reliably when they are sexually active or to not seek abortion if they become pregnant.

The report cites eight questions which, depending on the extent to which they are answered affirmatively, measures "religiousity" but clearly doesn't differentiate between someone who would have religiously conservative (perhaps anti-contraception, which might at least be proposed to go together with someone who is personally strongly religiously conservative) values and someone who is less so:

1) Belief in a God or universal spirit: Absolutely Certain.

2) There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion.

3) Scripture should be taken literally, word for word.

4) How important is religion in your life: Very Important.

5) My religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life.

6) Frequency of attendance at religious services: at least once a week.

7) Frequency of prayer: at least once a day.

8) How often do you receive a definite answer to a specific prayer request: at least once a month.

Questions like 2, 3, and 5 above suggest that one has fundamentalist religious values, but not necessairly conservative religious values.  One might consider oneself to be devoutly religious and answer "yes" to those and other questions here, and perhaps even self-describe oneself as fundamentalist, without subscribing to the stereotypes, anyway, that many people have of religious conservatives.

On another point, the study says (from the abstract) that "we conjecture conservative religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging use of contraception among their teen community members than in discouraging sexual intercourse itself." Teens in these conservative relgious communities in the states referenced with high teen pregnancy rates may become pregnant and choose (however inevitable the choice may seem to be) to carry the pregnancy to term, and so increase the teen birth rate which the study uses as it's dependent variable more frequently than less conservative communities or states, but it may as much be because teens with so-called conservative religious beliefs are more likely to feel that if they do become pregnant and try to carry their pregnancy to term that they will be more supported in doing so, maybe even directly by that conservative relgious community that they live in.  People of comparatively liberal religious faith can be (and usually are, we think) just as accepting and supportive as people of conservative faith can be of teen parents, though as liberal churches may be smaller and do less "PR" to include more teen parents in their flock it may not seem that way.

There's surely clearer, more scientifically valid ways to make this critique than what we've quickly written here, but some of this should make sense to readers here. 

--southern students for choice, athens

I believe that another factor that must be considered is the fact that abstinence-only education is what is being taught in more conservative and probably religious parts of the U.S. Research studies show that teens who participated in ab-only ed are just as likely to become sexually active at the same average age as those who did not receive ab-only education.

Wait-you mean that the teenagers who make mistakes in those communities and get pregnant when their birth control fails or they forget to use it ACTUALLY CARRY THOSE PREGNANCIES TO TERM? Oh, the horror...

"Well behaved women seldom make history."-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

i think that is due to lack of abstinence education and don't depend on religiosity