(CNN) -- The announced pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears -- the 16-year-old children's television star and younger sister of beleaguered pop star Britney Spears -- is casting new light on how states deal with the thorny issue of consensual sex among teens. 
Spears, the star of Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101," told OK! Magazine that she's pregnant and that the father is her 18-year-old boyfriend. There has been no public talk of criminal prosecution in the case. Consensual sex between the two may well have been legal, depending on where and when it took place. But critics of the nation's statutory rape laws say that laws that are ignored in some cases can be used to put other teens in prison and land them on sex-offender registries.
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