Here’s a fact that should be so obvious as to not need repeating: Providing free birth control reduces the number of women who have abortions. I mean really, really reduces the number. That’s the conclusion of a new study that provided free birth control to young women in St. Louis, MO and then compared their abortion rate with the rest of the country. From the abstract:
METHODS: We enrolled 9,256 adolescents and women at risk for unintended pregnancy into the Contraceptive CHOICE Project, a prospective cohort study of adolescents and women desiring reversible contraceptive methods. Participants were recruited from the two abortion facilities in the St. Louis region and through provider referral, advertisements, and word of mouth. Contraceptive counseling included all reversible methods but emphasized the superior effectiveness of LARC methods (IUDs and implants). All participants received the reversible contraceptive method of their choice at no cost. We analyzed abortion rates, the percentage of abortions that were repeat abortions, and teenage births.
RESULTS: We observed a significant reduction in the percentage of abortions that were repeat abortions in the St. Louis region compared with Kansas City and nonmetropolitan Missouri (P< .001). Abortion rates in the CHOICE cohort were less than half the regional and national rates (P<.001). The rate of teenage birth within the CHOICE cohort was 6.3 per 1,000, compared with the U.S. rate of 34.3 per 1,000.CONCLUSION: We noted a clinically and statistically significant reduction in abortion rates, repeat abortions, and teenage birth rates. Unintended pregnancies may be reduced by providing no-cost contraception and promoting the most effective contraceptive methods.
This is so obvious that your average 8 year old could figure it out. So why doesn’t the anti-abortion crowd promote access to free and low-cost contraception? Because they aren’t really anti-abortion, they’re anti-sex and anti-woman. Their goal is not to prevent abortions, it is to prevent women from having any control over their own reproduction.