One bright spot in the study revealed that 70 percent of teens surveyed said they might hesitate on having sex "if they had plans for the future."
"Feeding your dreams gives you something to plan," Shoket said.
Palin agreed.
"I wasn't thinking about the future," she said. "Think before you act."
"I don't believe in abstinence, but I think Bristol Palin could have some influence," said Delwara Begum, a 16-year-old from Beacon High School in Manhattan. "I don't believe it's realistic, but she is speaking out and giving some kind of caution."
Still, her classmate disagreed.
"When you say, 'Don't have sex,' teens will rebel," Ajanay Squire, 16, told ABCNews.com.
Many studies have shown that abstinence-only programs, like those funded by the federal government, are ineffective, according to David Landry, senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute, which advances sexual and reproductive health worldwide.
"Good comprehensive sex education does an excellent job in promoting abstinence," he told ABCNews.com. "It is the most effective way of avoiding pregnancy.
"But the problem with abstinence alone, it's terribly ineffective and young people like Bristol Palin do not adhere to it. And when they don't have the proper information and when they are sexually active, they often have unprotected sex."
"I just feel for [Bristol Palin]," said Landry. "She seems to be caught in the middle of a political firestorm, and I'm not sure how much of it is by her own free well. Circumstances propelled her."
Some teens wondered if a high-profile teen like Palin could understand their own situation.
"It's about peer pressure," said Joy Ocean, 16, from Brooklyn's John Dewey High School. "It's a little overwhelming, and she hasn't been in our shoes."
"I saw [Bristol Palin] on TV and how hard it was on her with her mother in the spotlight," said Mignonette Brathwaite, Ocean's 15-year-old classmate. "She knows her mother is worried about her political campaign. She wouldn't want her to mess up her image."
Their classmate, Rose Acevado, 16, knows the pain of a teen pregnancy. Her sister suffered a miscarriage after hiding a pregnancy for nine months. Today, her sister is pregnant again.
"This is a good thing," she said of the message of abstinence, but not from Bristol Palin. "We'd take it from someone true and honest, not a celebrity."
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