Study: Free birth control leads to fewer abortions

No s***. You'd think the social conservatives would be ALL OVER this concept as a way to drastically, drastically reduce the abortions that they feel so strongly about; instead, they whine and moan about it anyway.

http://news.yahoo.com/study-free-birth-control-leads-fewer-abortions-210623724.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — Free birth control led to dramatically lower rates of abortions and teen births, a large study concluded Thursday, offering strong evidence for how a bitterly contested Obama administration policy could benefit women's health.

The project tracked more than 9,000 women in St. Louis, many of them poor or uninsured. They were given their choice of a range of contraceptive methods at no cost — from birth control pills to goof-proof options like the IUD or a matchstick-sized implant.

When price wasn't an issue, women flocked to the most effective contraceptives — the implanted options, which typically cost hundreds of dollars up-front to insert. These women experienced far fewer unintended pregnancies as a result, reported Dr. Jeffrey Peipert of Washington University in St. Louis in a study published Thursday.

The effect on teen pregnancy was striking: There were 6.3 births per 1,000 teenagers in the study. Compare that to a national rate of 34 births per 1,000 teens in 2010.

There also were substantially lower rates of abortion, when compared with women in the metro area and nationally: 4.4 to 7.5 abortions per 1,000 women in the study, compared with 13.4 to 17 abortions per 1,000 women overall in the St. Louis region, Peipert calculated. That's lower than the national rate, too, which is almost 20 abortions per 1,000 women.

In fact, if the program were expanded, one abortion could be prevented for every 79 to 137 women given a free contraceptive choice, Peipert's team reported in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The findings of the study, which ran from 2008 to 2010, come as millions of U.S. women are beginning to get access to contraception without copays under President Barack Obama's health care law. Women's health specialists said the research foreshadows that policy's potential impact.

"As a society, we want to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortion rates. This study has demonstrated that having access to no-cost contraception helps us get to that goal," said Alina Salganicoff, director of women's health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"It's just an amazing improvement," Dr. James T. Breeden, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said of the results. "I would think if you were against abortions, you would be 100 percent for contraception access."

The law requires that Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives be available for free for women enrolled in most workplace insurance plans, a change that many will see as new plan years begin on Jan. 1.

The policy is among the law's most contentious provisions because it exempts churches that oppose contraception but requires religious-affiliated organizations, such as colleges or hospitals, to provide the coverage for their workers. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and many conservative groups say that violates religious freedom, and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has voiced similar criticism.

This week, a federal judge in St. Louis dismissed a lawsuit challenging the contraception mandate; nearly three dozen similar suits have been filed around the country.

Thursday's data didn't sway the critics.

Jeanne Monahan of the conservative Family Research Council suggested contraceptive use can encourage riskier sexual behavior.

"Additionally, one might conclude that the Obama administration's contraception mandate may ultimately cause more unplanned pregnancies since it mandates that all health plans cover contraceptives, including those that the study's authors claim are less effective," Monahan said.

Here's why this is a public health issue: Nearly half of the nation's 6 million-plus pregnancies each year are unintended. An estimated 43 percent of them end in abortion. Low-income women are far more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy than their wealthier counterparts.

"We shouldn't have, in my view, a tiered system where the women with money can get family planning and the women without cannot," said Peipert, noting that 39 percent of the women in his study had trouble paying basic expenses.

About half of unplanned pregnancies occur in women who use no contraception. As for the other half, condoms can fail and so can birth control pills or other shorter-acting methods if the woman forgets to use them or can't afford a refill.

In contrast, you can forget about pregnancy for three years with Implanon, the implant inserted under the skin of the arm. An IUD, a tiny T-shaped device inserted into the uterus, can last for five to 10 years, depending on the brand. Change your mind, and the doctor removes either device before it wears out.

Only about 5 percent of U.S. women use long-acting contraceptives, far fewer than in other developed countries. Peipert said insurance hasn't always covered the higher upfront cost to insert them, even though years of birth control pills can add up to the same price.

Yet three-quarters of his study participants chose an IUD or Implanon, and a year later 85 percent were sticking that choice — compared to about half who had initially chosen the pill, patch or other shorter-acting method.

Cost isn't the only barrier. Doctors don't always mention long-acting methods, maybe because of a long-outdated belief that IUDs aren't for young women or just because they assume women want the most commonly prescribed pill.

That was the case for Ashley England, 26, of Nashville, Tenn., who enrolled in the study while in graduate school in St. Louis. She had taken birth control pills for years but struggled with a $50 monthly copay. She switched to a five-year IUD, and loves that she and her husband don't have to think about contraception.

"No one had ever presented all the options equally," England said. "It's not telling you what to do. It's giving you a choice unhindered by money."

 

There's already a thread on this exact topic. Try to pay attention, please.

http://www.politicalforum.com/curre...-control-dramatically-cuts-abortion-rate.html

 

Republicans generally care more about being selfish pricks - just like Jebus told them to be - than they care about stopping abortion or teen pregnancy. Seems so incredibly stupid of them. They don't like poor people and don't want to spend money on them, and they don't like abortion, but they keep on creating more poor people and more abortions by fighting legitimate sex education and contraception.

 

And you liberals, on the other hand, care so much about other people, you're willing to raise taxes on some other guy as much as it takes to pay for all these programs. Hilarious stuff.

Normally, I would educate you on the record of who's more generous with their own money, liberals or conservatives. But quite frankly, you seem to far gone to reason with.

With that in mind, have a nice day.

 

These programs are liable to have a net positive effect on the budget, actually, because the more we pour into the cheaper preventative measures (like, say, giving women IUDs when they want them) the less we have to deal with the more costly things like child welfare or emergency-room stays due to pregnancy, or productivity-sapping things like maternity leave. It's the classic case of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" – we can either spend money now to stop them from doing these things, or we can spend considerably more money later to stop their children from starving, and lose workforce productivity. Oh, and then there's the issue of abortion. Which I understood was thought to be murder by most conservatives?

 

Right, because taxing someone who can afford taxes so that children can be educated and properly supplied with the information and tools necessary to keep from having the abortions and teen pregnancies and increased welfare that republicans care about is totally the same thing. derp. We're smart enough to do something that prevents the things that conservatives claim to care about, but they do things that are directly counter to what the claim to care about (well, besides "MINE, ALL MINE").

Go ahead and try. Make sure to account for donations that are given by the legal definitions of "charity" but are actually hate groups, like the Mormon church. And account for the actual charity WORK that liberals give as compared to conservatives. And then tell me how any of these numbers change the fact of this ironic situation with republicans.

 

If you are talking about charity, are more charitative conservative because charity goes against the ideology of the leftist. Charity is something for the right to feel better with their own life. To think that they help others.

The left tries to make that everybody have a better life and teach them to fish.

 

You linked to a thread...on another message board as proof that I haven't been paying attention to this message board?

Wow, you fail on an almost hourly basis, don't you?

 

Study----keeping your legs together results in fewer abortions.

 

So we ought to be investing in restraints rather than acknowledging the fact that folks are going to have sex?

@OP: This is really nothing new to be honest, I honestly don't get the opposition to it. Maybe someone can explain?

 

Which is funny, because abstinence fails. A lot.

 

You lost me at "taxing someone who can afford taxes"...who are you to presume that we should all be without savings? What about our own children? Should we not have that extra money to pay for their college, their healthcare, their activities which are also more likely to keep them out of trouble?

 

Abstinence doesn't fail. Willpower does.

 

And now we know who doesn't have compassion! LOL
And we also know that if Acefrehley were to ever need some help.................we shouldn't help him at all. It would be wrong of us to do. He can't even go to a charity, because the charity(which takes from one to give to another less fortunate) is completely wrong since it displays an ounce of compassion. Sad, huh?

 

I believe he was talking about abstinence programs, those are most definitely failures if the goal is to reduce unwanted pregnancies.

 

You're a kinda interpreter than I.

 

I try to give the benefit of the doubt when it's reasonable =)

 

I share the same opinion as most of you when I say, "DUHHHHHHHHHH!"

I only replied to keep the thread at the top because some people actually don't know this stuff

 

exactly how does one become pregnant while practicing abstinence? If the sperm does not contact the egg----------------------is there some secret known only to liberals

 

The practicing part is the problem, people don't abstain and that's been proven time and time again... and yet some folks keep preaching it, why is that?

 

Because they aren't having sex and it works for them.

 

Thing is, it's never folks abstaining that are preaching it, it's usually adults in monogamous relationships talking to teens with raging hormones.

 

No, she's right. I consider abstinence a high-failure form of contraception.

It is necessary when calculating the rate of success of a contraceptive to include among the relevant factors "can be realistically used right, regularly". I'd count cases where a person relies on a contraceptive but, for whatever reason, does not or cannot use it as "failure", much in the same way that you would count "failed to take them regularly" as a failure for the pill. And in this point, abstinence fails miserably. To say "abstinence is 100% effective" ignores all the times it has failed due to usage error. I mean, if there was a way of contorting your body (say, putting your left leg behind your head during sex) which had a 100% effectiveness rate of blocking sperm from entering the vagina, and a whole bunch of people tried (and failed) to use it, with the expected consequences, would you think it reasonable to consider it a 100% functional contraceptive?

But beyond the technical stuff, the fact remains: abstinence as a strategy, as something we recommend to teens? It doesn't work. At all. Teens are big balls of unwise, unsanitary hormones, and making stupid mistakes for cheap thrills is essentially the teenager modus operandi, is it not? When everything in your genetic code and millions of years of evolution is screaming, "PUT YOUR PENIS IN THAT HOLE, (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)!", you think a promise ring is going to stop you?

 

because of STDs, Aids, and other things that kill people that go around screwing everyone they can.

I am all for the use of contraceptives, but birth control pills do not prevent STDs and Aids. neither do condoms in all cases----because sometimes you may kiss the person you are screwing.

 

If people actually adhered to abstinence you'd have a point, but they don't, so you don't.

The problem is abstinence is people don't abstain. As has been shown time and time again.