The birth rate among teenagers 15 to 19 in the United States rose 3 percent in 2006, according to a report issued Wednesday, the first such increase since 1991.

The finding has “fueled a debate about whether the Bush administration’s abstinence-only sexual education efforts are working,” thank goodness.

It may be that the changes track a lessening of fear about aids; however, the US figures are out of line with the “developed” world’s.

Kristin A. Moore, a senior scholar at Child Trends, a nonprofit children’s research organization, said the increase in the teenage birth rate was particularly alarming because even the 2005 rate was far higher than that in other industrialized countries.

A spokesman from the conservative heritage foundation tells us that the teenagers wanted to get pregnant, but

Dr. Santelli of Columbia said that many abstinence-only educational efforts tended to emphasize that contraceptives often fail. “They scare kids about contraception,” he said