10 Important Facts About Contraception
Know the facts about contraception. 1. Contraception is basic health care for women.
The average woman will spend five years pregnant or trying to get pregnant and nearly three decades trying to avoid pregnancy. (1) Without contraception, a woman between the ages of 20 and 44 could give birth approximately 12 times. (2) 2. Family planning is a sensible investment
Family-planning services provide millions of women access to reproductive health care they otherwise would not be able to afford. In addition, for every $1 the government spends on contraceptive services, taxpayers save approximately $3 that otherwise would have been spent on pregnancy-related and other care through Medicaid. (3) 3. Responsible sex education does not encourage teens to engage in sex.
Young people who receive instruction that includes both abstinence and contraception/STD prevention wait longer to start having sex, have fewer partners, and use contraception more often than their peers. (4) 4. Right-wing politicians have responded to the U.S. teen-pregnancy epidemic with ideology, not science.
Instead of funding honest, realistic sex-education programs, which are proven effective, they spend tax dollars on unproven, risky "abstinence-only" programs. By law, these curricula censor any positive discussion of contraception's benefits, and even worse, many contain medically inaccurate information about vital health topics like HIV and AIDS. 5. Medical experts believe that teens should be able to obtain contraceptives confidentially.
The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Public Health Association support a minor's right to obtain contraceptives confidentially, without government-mandated involvement of parents. (5) 6. More than 40 million women of reproductive age are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant, but could if they do not have access to reliable contraception. (6)
A growing movement of rogue pharmacists is refusing to fill women's legally prescribed birth-control prescriptions. Any delay caused by a pharmacist's refusal can increase a woman's risk of unintended pregnancy or exacerbate a medical condition for which she may be using the contraceptives. (7) 7. Nearly 8 in 10 U.S. voters supports laws requiring health plans to cover contraceptives. (8)
However, 24 states have yet to pass laws ensuring equitable contraceptive coverage for women. (9)
8. Emergency contraception (EC) - also known as the "morning-after pill" - is a concentrated dosage of ordinary birth-control pills that can dramatically reduce a woman's change of becoming pregnant if taken soon after sex. (10)
EC does not cause abortion; rather, it inhibits ovulation, fertilization, or implantation before a pregnancy occurs. EC should not be confused with ifepristone (also known as RU 486), an early-abortion option. EC accounted for up to a 43% decrease in abortions between 1994 and 2000. (11) In August 2006, the FDA approved Plan B® an emergency contraceptive, for over-the-counter sales to women 18 and older. 9. Almost half of all pregnancies in the United States each year are unintended. (12)
Contraceptives are the most effective way to prevent unintended pregnancies. 10. FDA-approved contraceptives prevent pregnancy; they do not cause abortion.
Pregnancy begins with the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. All FDA-approved methods of contraception, including birth control pills, injectable and implantable methods, barrier methods, IUDs and emergency contraception, work before a pregnancy begins — usually by preventing fertilization or ovulation. (13) September 2006 Notes
1. Rachel Benson Gold, The Need for and Cost of Mandating Private Insurance Coverage of Contraception, Guttmacher Rep. on Pub. Pol'y, Aug. 1998, at 5.
2. Guttmacher Institute, Sharing Responsibility: Women, Society and Abortion Worldwide, at 18 (1999).
3. Jacqueline Darroch Forrest and Renee Samara, Impact of Publicly Funded Contraceptive Services On Unintended Pregnancies and Implications for Medicaid Expenditures, 28 Fam. Plan. Persp. 193 (1996).
4. Guttmacher Institute, Facts in Brief: Sexuality Education (Aug. 2002).
5. See Fact Sheet, NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, Save Confidential Family Planning Services: New Restrictions on Title X Would Jeopardize Teen Health (Jan. 6, 2006).
6. Guttmacher Institute, Facts in Brief: Contraceptive Use (Jan. 2005).
7. American Public Health Association Policy, Ensuring that Patients are Able to Have Contraceptive Prescriptions Filled at Pharmacies, APHA Governing Council (adopted Dec. 13, 2005).
8. NARAL Pro-Choice America & NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, The Contraception Report: A State By State Review of Access to Contraception, at viii (2001).
9. NARAL Pro-Choice America & NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, Who Decides? The Status of Women's Reproductive Rights in the United States (15th ed. 2006), at http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/choice-action-center/in_your_state/who-decides/.
10. Press Release, Women's Capital Corporation, A New Generation of Emergency Contraception Has Arrived (July 28, 1999). While labels for FDA-approved ECPs indicate that they should be used within 72 hours after unprotected sex, recent research shows that ECPs can be effective up to 120 hours after sex. However, ECPs are more effective the sooner they are taken. Charlotte Ellertson et al., Extending the Time Limit for Starting the Yuzpe Regimen of Emergency Contraception to 120 Hours, 101 Obstetrics & Gynecology 1168, 1168-71 (2003); Helena von Hertzen et al., Low Dose Mifepristone and Two Regimens of Levonorgestrel for Emergency Contraception: a WHO Multicentre Randomised Trial, 360 The Lancet 1803, 1803-10 (2002); Gilda Piaggio et al., Timing of Emergency Contraception with Levonorgestrel or the Yuzpe Regimen, 353 The Lancet 721 (1999).
11. Guttmacher Institute, Issues in Brief: Emergency Contraception: Improving Access, No. 3 (Jan. 2003).
12. Robert A. Hatcher, et al., Emergency Contraception: The Nation's Best-Kept Secret 29-31 (1995).
|
