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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat Got Lost in the Debate About Birth Control
By Erika Christakis | February 20, 2012
With this hysteria at a fever pitch, its easy to forget a few simple truths. Taxpayers spend more than $11 billion each year (in 2001 dollars) on costs associated with unintended pregnancy. Its a conservative figure that only includes public insurance costs and not the larger financial burden of bringing unwanted children into the world.
An estimated half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended according to an analysis by researchers at the Guttmacher Institute and published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, and of those unplanned pregnancies, a further half end in abortion. Thats an awful lot of unwanted children and fetuses. By age 45, more than 40% of all American women will have had at least one abortion, a rate almost twice that of Western Europe. A comprehensive study by the World Health Organization confirmed that abortion rates in countries that prohibit or restrict legal abortion are no different than abortion rates in countries with liberal abortion laws; the only reliable way to reduce abortion is through the provision of affordable, accessible contraception. To cap off last weeks debate came the news that there has been a surge in births outside marriage, the fastest growth being among white women in their twenties with some college education. More than half of births to women under 30 now occur outside of marriage. Is this really a time to try to limit contraception? What about the reckoning of the reality of human lives?
People who cry moral indignation about government-mandated contraception coverage appear unwilling to concede that the exercise of their deeply held convictions might infringe on the rights of millions of people who are burdened by unplanned pregnancy or want to reduce abortion or would like to see their tax dollars committed to a different purpose.
Why should an employers right to reject birth-control coverage trump a societys collective imperative to reduce unintended pregnancy? Should employers be allowed to withhold a polio vaccine or cataract surgery or safe working conditions on similar moral grounds?
Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/20/what-got-lost-in-the-debate-about-birth-control/?xid=gonewsedit#ixzz1mvSXxQru
With this hysteria at a fever pitch, its easy to forget a few simple truths. Taxpayers spend more than $11 billion each year (in 2001 dollars) on costs associated with unintended pregnancy. Its a conservative figure that only includes public insurance costs and not the larger financial burden of bringing unwanted children into the world.
An estimated half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended according to an analysis by researchers at the Guttmacher Institute and published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, and of those unplanned pregnancies, a further half end in abortion. Thats an awful lot of unwanted children and fetuses. By age 45, more than 40% of all American women will have had at least one abortion, a rate almost twice that of Western Europe. A comprehensive study by the World Health Organization confirmed that abortion rates in countries that prohibit or restrict legal abortion are no different than abortion rates in countries with liberal abortion laws; the only reliable way to reduce abortion is through the provision of affordable, accessible contraception. To cap off last weeks debate came the news that there has been a surge in births outside marriage, the fastest growth being among white women in their twenties with some college education. More than half of births to women under 30 now occur outside of marriage. Is this really a time to try to limit contraception? What about the reckoning of the reality of human lives?
People who cry moral indignation about government-mandated contraception coverage appear unwilling to concede that the exercise of their deeply held convictions might infringe on the rights of millions of people who are burdened by unplanned pregnancy or want to reduce abortion or would like to see their tax dollars committed to a different purpose.
Why should an employers right to reject birth-control coverage trump a societys collective imperative to reduce unintended pregnancy? Should employers be allowed to withhold a polio vaccine or cataract surgery or safe working conditions on similar moral grounds?
Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/20/what-got-lost-in-the-debate-about-birth-control/?xid=gonewsedit#ixzz1mvSXxQru
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What Got Lost in the Debate About Birth Control (Original Post)
csziggy
Feb 2012
OP
brewens
(13,547 posts)1. Precisely! When there is no cost, you don't actually have to pay. That's
why insurance companies went along with providing the contraception for free. They know they come out ahead on that one.
ejpoeta
(8,933 posts)2. yep. birth control pills are a lot less expensive than
prenatal visits and the hospital and all the other expenses.
JCMach1
(27,553 posts)3. What got lost? Women!
MIA from the media and the hearings...
The media deserves a serious for their discussions of the birth control issue. If I see one more old, pasty white (likely Catholic) man talking about birth control in the MSM, I'm gonna throw something.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)5. When it's hitting a M$M rag like Time, I think that is progress
If the Right Wing has gone over the line so far that even Time magazine is calling them on it, the GOP extremists have lost.
At least, I fervently hope so!
JCMach1
(27,553 posts)6. Exactly...
DCKit
(18,541 posts)4. For one thing, they're calling THAT a debate?
That explains a lot about those gatherings of Republicans running for POTUS, but nothing about why those talking heads from the MSM keep showing up.