May 04, 2006

Color Me UNsurprised

Unintended pregnancies and abortions are up among poor women, probably a consequence of cutbacks in family planning funding to throw money away on abstinence only programs.

Based on nationwide data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics and other sources, the researchers found that from 1994 through 2001, the rate of unplanned pregnancy increased by almost 30 percent for women below the federal poverty line. For women in families comfortably above poverty (now $16,000 annually for a family of three), the rate of unplanned pregnancies fell by 20 percent during the same time.

Asked what was driving the trends, the authors noted that some state and federal reproductive health programs have been cut and made more restrictive in recent years, and the decline in contraceptive use could be a result of those changes. Both have increasingly focused on abstinence rather than contraception, and some have argued that switch is also leading to reduced contraceptive use and more unintended pregnancies. Many social conservatives argue, however, that contraceptives all have limitations and that the only way a woman can ensure she will not have an unintended pregnancy is to refrain from sexual intercourse until she is ready to have a child.

The finding that poor and wealthier women are having such increasingly different experiences with unintended pregnancy is part of a larger study of pregnancy and abortion. It found that the overall abortion rate has declined steadily for years and that a higher percentage of women with unintended pregnancies are carrying them to birth. It also concluded that women who do get abortions are doing so considerably earlier in their pregnancies, when it is safer for the woman, than in the past.

But as with unintended pregnancies generally, the differences between the experiences of poor and more affluent women in these categories were diverging, too. Among poor women, the proportion of unintended pregnancies that resulted in live births increased by almost 50 percent between 1994 and 2001, while it declined for women in families whose income was at least twice the official poverty level. Poor women who had abortions did so on average six days later in their pregnancy than women of greater means.

Next up, pathetically insufficient aid to those women and their children, and "welfare queen" rhetoric.

Posted by binky at May 4, 2006 12:13 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Reproductive Autonomy


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And of course, the impact of all this pro-life, forced-birth loveliness? The US has embarrassing levels of infant mortality:

Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia's rate is 6 per 1,000.

"We are the wealthiest country in the world, but there are still pockets of our population who are not getting the health care they need," said Mary Beth Powers, a reproductive health adviser for the U.S.-based Save the Children, which compiled the rankings based on health data from countries and agencies worldwide.

The U.S. ranking is driven partly by racial and income health care disparities. Among U.S. blacks, there are 9 deaths per 1,000 live births, closer to rates in developing nations than to those in the industrialized world.

Via Born at the Crest of the Empire.


And, in its usual weirdness, CNN titles the link "U.S. baby deaths high for modern world" ... modern world?

Posted by: binky at May 9, 2006 11:13 PM | PERMALINK
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