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

[wuvvumsoc]

I've seen people protest and oppose clinics that give out birth control and condoms, even if it reduces the rate of abortion. One of them in a video said something like "it promotes the usury of women" (even though usury refers to a lending practice).

I just can't get how people are so pompously opposed to birth control, or at least birth control on the taxpayer dollar. It was practically free to get if you were low-income in my town, and I don't think I ever saw more than two teen pregnancies during my time in high school.

[luminescnece]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO really?!

I thought all women would be using abortions as birth control if they had their fucking druthers! *Hands to face*

Edited to add: My MP was on about this recently, hence the rage and incredulity. He voted for the reopening of discussion on abortion in Canada and by goodness, I will be working hard to vote him out of office.

[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.

[pleasure_past]

What?! You mean that if you help prevent women from getting pregnant with unwanted fetuses, women are considerably less likely to abort unwanted fetuses?! I am shocked.

Regardless of your views on abortion, virtually everybody says preventing unintended pregnancies is smart.

Except for people who hate women and think we whores deserve to be punished with unwanted childbirth, especially since the children are disproportionately likely to grow up to be under-educated and easily-exploited.

Which, incidentally, is the vast majority of anti-choice people anyway. (Or, perhaps more accurately, that's the people whom the vast majority of anti-choicers listen to.)

[solarseraphim]

youdontsay.jpg

I have to facepalm on this one. It's common sense to me.