Title: Abortion Rates Highest Among Black Teens, Study Shows, But Accuracy May Be Hard To Measure | HuffPost
Headings: Abortion Rates Highest Among Black Teens, Study Shows, But Accuracy May Be Hard To Measure
Abortion Rates Highest Among Black Teens, Study Shows, But Accuracy May Be Hard To Measure
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Content: Others, like Rachel Jones, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute, say the cause may be far simpler. She noted that poverty and a lack of attention given to teenagers at high risk for teen pregnancy could be potential causes for the high abortion rates among African-American teens. “There’s no definitive research that’s actually been able to answer that question. We just do know that African-American women, including African-American teenagers, just have more pregnancies,” Jones told The Daily Caller. Cheryl L. Somers, associate professor and director of the School & Community Psychology program at Wayne State University agrees, and argues that data on abortion rates cannot be counted unless it factors in teen pregnancy rates as a whole. “The [studies] on abortion are missing a key piece on information and that is the raw difference in pregnancy rates,” Somers told The Huffington Post. “ Per capita, there are going to be more abortions, because we know that African Americans have a high teen pregnancy rate. So this doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s almost irresponsible, because it misleads the public... and it really perpetuates racial bias,” she said. Somers is currently investigating the efficacy of school-based teen pregnancy prevention programs among minority middle-school students in the Midwest.