it's starting: Unintended Pregnancy Linked to State Funding Cuts

[donsu]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801450.html

First-of-Its-Kind Study Cites Impact On Teenage Girls and Poor Women

At a time when policymakers have made reducing unintended pregnancies a national priority, 33 states have made it more difficult or more expensive for poor women and teenagers to obtain contraceptives and related medical services, according to an analysis released yesterday by the nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute.

From 1994 to 2001, many states cut funds for family planning, enacted laws restricting access to birth control and placed tight controls on sex education, said the institute, a privately funded research group that focuses on sexual health and family issues.

-snip-

The report, the first to measure the impact of state actions on reproductive health care, is based on a comprehensive census by the institute using the most recent available data. Advocates involved in the intense political debate over abortion were reluctant to comment on the findings, but experts on women's health and family planning praised Guttmacher for offering an agenda both sides could support.

-snip-

At the same time, states as different as Nebraska, Ohio and Utah were among the worst when it came to providing access to contraceptives for needy women and teenagers, as well as gynecological exams and information on preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
-snip-
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it's past time us women took pre-menstrual girls aside and tutored them in the real facts of life in america. can't count on parents/teachers/religious to do it right.

consider the tutoring as saving girls lives.

[StClone]

1. Abstinence the only option

We need monastic strength to overcome a 100 million years of evolution to eat, breath and reproduce. Wait don't they isolate monks so they have no opportunity to fornicate?

[jrw14125]

2. what's "different" about "Nebraska, Ohio and Utah"?

[donsu]

3. read the article

nt

[valerief]

4. I know. I know.

<<At the same time, states as different as Nebraska, Ohio and Utah were among the worst when it came to providing access to contraceptives for needy women and teenagers, as well as gynecological exams and information on preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.>>

Nebraska has 8 letters, Ohio has 4 letters, and Utah has…

No, that's not it.

Okay, then, Nebraska is flat, Ohio is hilly, and Utah is mountainous. That must be it!

[Caution]

5. Gee and what happened in 1994?

[phaseolus]

6. Something the article isn't telling me

...unless I am just not reading it carefully enough. Help me out --

Is there, or is there not, a correlation betweeen "smart" policies - access to contraceptives, common-sense (not 'abstinence only') education, funding for public health - and rates of abortion and teen pregnancy??

As much as it makes sense to me that our way reduces pregnancy & abortion combined to the Republican-Politically-Correct way, are we seeing the rates go down in CA, NY, AL, and SC while they go up in NB, OH, and UT??