Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2011
The publication in 1976 of a 64-page pamphlet with the unlikely title 11 Million Teenagers: What Can Be Done About the Epidemic of Adolescent Pregnancies in the U.S. (AGI, 1976) precipitated a dialogue quite new to the American public. For the first time, attention was centred on the fact that pregnancy among teenagers was almost as prevalent as the common cold and that those who were getting pregnant increasingly were younger, and more of them were white and middle class. The figure of one million pregnancies experienced by women aged 15–19 showed that one in ten female adolescents and one out of four sexually active teenagers are conceiving each year.