Obamacare will reduce abortions. Not that conservatives care.
by David Atkins
Once again with feeling: if you want to reduce the number of abortions, the best way is through education and expanded healthcare:
A new study focusing on low-income women in St. Louis, MO concludes that expanding access to free contraception — just as the health care reform law does through its provision to provide birth control without a co-pay — leads to significantly lower rates of unintended teen pregnancy and abortion. Researchers found that when women weren’t prohibited by cost, they chose more effective, long-lasting forms of birth control and experienced many fewer unintended pregnancies as a result.
Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis worked in partnership with the local Planned Parenthood affiliate to track over 9,200 low-income women in the St. Louis area, some of whom lacked insurance coverage, during a four-year Contraceptive CHOICE study. The CHOICE project simulated Obamacare’s birth control provision by allowing teens and women to select from the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive options and receive their preferred method at no cost. They found that birth rates among the teens who received free birth control in the CHOICE project were less than a fifth of the national teen birth rate — just 6.3 births per 1,000 teens, compared to 34.3 per 1,000 teens nationwide in 2010 — and abortion rates were less than half of both the regional and national rates.
But for conservatives, the goal has never been actually reducing the number of abortions. It has always been about controlling women’s sexual freedom. Expanded sex education and health coverage gives women greater sexual freedom while reducing abortions, so on balance conservatives hate that. Given the choice between more abortions and more freedom for women, conservatives will pick more abortions every time.
And that tells you everything you need to know.
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