By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
An official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) says the Ryan-DeLauro bill, the Obama administration’s attempt at finding common ground in the abortion war, is so pro-contraception it might as well be called the “Planned Parenthood Economic Stimulus Package of 2009.”
Susan E. Wills, Assistant Director for Education and Outreach in the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities at the USCCB, said the Ryan-DeLauro bill, also known as the “Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act,” will spend billions on the same contraception and sex ed programs that have failed to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions for the last three decades.
Providing increased access to contraception and comprehensive sex ed programs might look like a good idea on paper, but it’s one that has never worked in real life.
“ . . . (S)ince at least 1980, taxpayers have been funding ‘family planning services’ to the tune of over $1 billion per year. In 2006 such public expenditures totaled $1.85 billion. So today, virtually all teenagers who are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant are already using contraception. Only 7% are not using it, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
”Second, contraceptives don’t work very well in real life. In the first 12 months of contraceptive use, 16.4% of teens (1 in 6) will become pregnant. Among low-income cohabiting teens, the failure (pregnancy) rate over 12 months is 48.4% for birth control pills and 71.7% for condoms.
In addition, numerous studies in the United States and Europe have found that greater access to contraception fails to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions, she writes.
“Why does increased access to contraception fail at the population level? Thinking they are protected from pregnancy and disease, more young people become sexually active and have more partners, offsetting any reduction in pregnancy from individual contraceptive use. And the increased level of sexual activity causes STD rates to soar. In the U.S., 1 in 4 teen girls has at least one STD; many of these are incurable and some are fatal.”
The sharpest decline in unintended pregnancies and abortions since 1990 has occurred among those under 18, due not to comprehensive sex ed or contraception, but chiefly to the growing number of young people choosing to remain abstinent.
In addition, the Ryan-DeLauro bill will substantially increases funding for the federal Title X Family Planning Program, through which Planned Parenthood receives millions in subsidies.
Wills says the real abortion-reduction bill in Congress right now is the Pregnant Women Support Act and says the Ryan-DeLauro bill would be better named the “Planned Parenthood Economic Stimulus Package of 2009.”
For more facts about the failure of contraception to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions, visit http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/contraception/contrafactsheet.pdf
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
