In a study released this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports record declines in the rates of teen pregnancies and abortions. The drop in teenage pregnancy rates continues a long trend: the decline of 38 percent is a fall from an all-time high in 1990 to an historic low in 2004. Significantly, the CDC, the nation’s largest public health agency, stated that their report is the most comprehensive study of this decade.

Teen pregnancies were only 12 percent of the total pregnancies in 2004, down from 15 percent in 1990. Teen abortions were at a historical high in 1990 at 1.61 million, but had declined by 24 percent (1.22 million) by 2004. Another way of looking at the data is to note that among 15- to 44-year-old women, abortions per 1,000 women declined from 30 per thousand in 1990 to only 19.7 per thousand in 2004.