Free birth control cuts abortion rate dramatically, study finds

[skippyelephant]

By Brian Alexander, NBC News Contributor

A dramatic new study with implications for next month’s presidential election finds that offering women free birth control can reduce unplanned pregnancies -- and send the abortion rate spiraling downward.

When more than 9,000 women ages 14 to 45 in the St. Louis area were given no-cost contraception for

Comments

[apricotflower]

first of all: duh.

But I'm also really interested in the birth rate, because as it says, that one went wayyyy down too. (Obviously.) Which makes me wonder how much of a population control angle there is in the groups that are against abortions and birth control - i.e. they want as many children born as possible, to increase the workforce, etc. There are definitely many examples of that in history, but I am curious how much of that is an implicit goal of those who not only don't like abortions because they can be morally ambiguous, but because they honestly want to increase the population with no regard for the human beings that would physically be impacted by that (i.e. women).

[pleasure_past]

Carl Djerassi, of all people, has recently come right out and said that young Austrians [I don't think he ever singled young Austrian women out, but he was almost certainly thinking it.] are committing "national suicide" by not having three children each at the earliest convenience. It's skeevy in a whole fuckton of ways.

[maynardsong]

My mom had a theory that pro-lifers are worried that white women are underbreeding, so...
That was the first and only time she made any comment remotely political. Normally she hates all things controversial.

[apricotflower]

that's what I've heard too. It doesn't really make sense to me, because I would have thought that white people would disproportionately have access to education and birth control and abortion services, so more babies that were born through lack of access to these services would be of colour. But... maybe the prairies would make up for it? I don't know, not being American or having a lot of knowledge about the geo-racial politics of the area.

[maynardsong]

Well, yes. You're right. It doesn't have to make sense, and it certainly didn't make sense to my mom. But it's what goes on through pro-lifers' heads. Except in the same breath, they're all, "Oh noes, Europe is underpopulated white Asia and Africa are overpopulated" right as they push for defunding the UNFPA which gives contraception services to women in Asia and Africa. Fuck if I'll understand their minds.