A Doctor's Take on the Stimulus Package
One cannot help but wonder whether congressional Republicans actually want to maintain the current rates of abortion, teen pregnancy, unnecessary public spending, or decreased productivity. Their policy on contraception suggests that they do.
House Republicans dogmatically refused to vote for any stimulus program that permitted states to fund contraception for Medicaid eligible citizens and those living off incomes just above the poverty level. This policy will lead to more unplanned pregnancies (with the associated abortions) and will block billions of dollars in savings.
To understand how this works, it is helpful to look at California's experience with a state-funded contraception and family planning initiative for women with incomes between 100% and 200% of the poverty level:
Four years after implementing the program, California saved an estimated $500 million in public health care spending, net of what they spent on the program itself. In fact, for every dollar invested in the program, the state of California saved an estimated $5.33, over a period of five years. These are conservative estimates that do not include money saved through increased productivity and cost savings from reductions in paid medical leave and sick days that result from unplanned pregnancies. Few other public spending plans can boast such a positive return on investment.
While I respect the opinions of those who oppose abortion, I do not understand why those same leaders would oppose policies proven to reduce abortions. Modest estimates put the number of undesired pregnancies averted in California at over 108,000 with over 41,000 abortions prevented within the first 4 years after expanding access to contraceptive options. Over a quarter of those pregnancies would have been in adolescents under the age of 20, accounting for over 11,000 prevented abortions.
A proven path to fewer abortions and marked reductions in federal spending, what is a conservative not to like? Perhaps it is the mistaken belief that the availability of contraceptive access will increase premarital sexual activity. This belief simply fails to stand up to the evidence. In 2002, the Department of Health and Human Services (under Republican Secretary Tommy Thompson), released a report documenting an increase in contraceptive use with a decrease in sexual activity between 1995 and 2002. Supplying contraceptives and educating adolescents about sex during the late 1990s did not increase their likelihood to engage in sexual activities; it did keep them from getting pregnant. Even supplying emergency contraception to adolescents, prior to sexual activity, has been proven not to affect sexual behaviors.
Following conversations with republican leaders, President Obama requested that the contraceptive waiver, which would allow states to fund such programs through Medicaid, be removed from the stimulus package. While I appreciate the President's attempt to find a bipartisan compromise and show goodwill, only evidence-based health policies should be supported. Access to contraception is proven to decrease unintended pregnancies, abortions, and reduce overall health expenditures.
Now that house republicans rejected the stimulus bill, I hope President Obama and congressional leaders will consider writing this provision back into the bill. It makes economic, social and public health sense.
My husband and male colleagues do not fear me. They respect me and help me to reach my full potential.
Stan Weed writes an excellent article showing that the drops in teen pregnancy we saw in the 90s are convincingly due to abstinence education, rather than increased access to contraceptives.
Take a chance--be open-minded, as I have been in reading your posts, and read his article at:
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/99rlweed.shtml
I appreciate the assertiveness of your comments. I beg that you provide yourselves with a more well-rounded education and rely less on your emotions.
Can religious people have some mercy on the poor , the teens, and the disadvantaged , who really need to avoid getting pregnant and ruining their lives and of their offspring as well.? Its just common sense that its a big long term responsability to bring another life into the world. It shuld be planned and wanted and not happen accidentally when unwanted . there are already enough people on this planet, not to have to put unwanted ones. Family planning is part of using your brain and making responsible decisions about very important matters and contraception should be free and available to all who want and need it w/o prejudices from religious narrow minded zealots!
woman 's health ,it is always decided by a man.
If it was a subject of what it is good for men, there is no problem it would always be passed.
Now who was it that ate the apple? Adam was cast out of the Garden of Eden also
If you can't respect that then you have no starting point!
The fact that the Catholic Church can document every Pope since Christ and their writings/observations about the issues of life on earth...
Wake-up!
There is nothing truly human in the Republican way of treating this. It's vicious & selfish.
Not to mention clearly close-minded to those who are not hard core Christians.
Plus, it's very male dominated. Like in Victorian times- where midwives were doing
a job they've done for centuries, then along comes a male doctor and WHAM! control.
Then what happens? Disease, death and the loss of birthing as a natural occurrence rather
than a treatable malady.
Another way to keep the little guys down, I suppose.
Another reason to support Planned Parenthood!! Donate!!
In addition to the facts in this well-written article:
1) Reproductive and free education does have something to do with the economy!
Preventing unwanted pregnancies and possible abortions helps women work and go to school and not rely on the state to help feed their children. It helps income go around for the children she has. It keeps women in the workforce who would otherwise be staying home taking care of children. Teenagers will not be frozen in an undereducated, dependent class.
2) Nobody -- at all -- speaks about the importance of giving away condoms in the prevention of HIV/AIDS. This subject just is not touched on in the 'contraceptives' debate. Witness Rick Warren who went to Uganda to persuade the president to halt the effective 'safe sex/use condoms' campaigns with these slogans on billboards, in favor of changing the same billboards to 'use abstinence' (that means no sex! not likely!) whereafter the rate of HIV/AIDS has gone way up again. His fanatical and twisted campaign to stop people using condoms -- never mind how many die of AIDS -- seems the quintessence of what the Republicans are doing. It's very Taliban-ish, isn't it? Very barefoot-and-pregnant-ish, isn't it?
(Notice it is men politicians who are happy to have single women and married women as pregnant as they can get -- some consciously and unconsciously see pregnancy as a just punishment for women's having sex.)
That is the legacy the religious right has fought against, and it’s that agenda that cut funding for family planning."
Ruth Rosen at
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/29-1
Number 2- California is a bad example to use for saving taxpayer's money.