“In the US, one in 19 girls gets pregnant before her 20th birthday — a number that is much higher than most other industrialized countries. The teen pregnancy rate, now at historic lows, has declined considerably over the last three decades, mostly as more young women have started using contraceptives and, to a lesser degree, waited to start having sex. The programs facing cuts focused on preventing unwanted pregnancies through education and access to birth control, not by encouraging abortions, mostly among girls from poor and marginalized communities. Countless studies have found that abstinence-only sex-ed doesn’t delay when adolescents start having sex, and can lead to increased teen pregnancy and STI rates.”