New Report Reveals the Cost of Teen Childbearing in Illinois

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unintended Pregnancy’s new report is the latest in a series of recent publications to find that unintended pregnancy and teen childbearing cost taxpayers roughly $11 billion annually.  View the campaign's press release here.

According to the report, between 1991 and 2008 there have been approximately 380,195 teen births in Illinois, costing taxpayers a total of $11.9 billion over that period.

Those costs reflect health care and other expenditures that could be avoided if young people had the education and services they needed to prevent pregnancy.  This set of analyses further supports calls by Planned Parenthood and advocates of family planning and sex education for young people to have broad access to evidence-based sex education programs, which encourage teens to delay sex and to use contraception and condoms once they do become sexually active.  View the report information here.

Past studies have shown that comprehensive sex education programs help prevent teen pregnancy by helping young people to delay intercourse and to use contraception and condoms once they initiate sexual activity.   Abstinence-only programs have not proved successful in helping teens delay sex or avoid pregnancy.  To learn more about the costs of unintended pregnancies, click here.

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