A new report from the Guttmacher Institute shows that publicly funded family planning services prevent 1.94 million unintended pregnancies - that includes nearly 400,000 teen pregnancies and 810,000 abortions.

"The national family planning program is smart government at its best," says Rachel Benson Gold, the study's lead author. "Publicly funded family planning is basic health care that empowers disadvantaged women to decide for themselves when to become pregnant and how many children to have. It reduces recourse to abortion. And it saves significant amounts of taxpayer money."

For more information, check out these other reports from Guttmacher:

Next Steps for America's Family Planning Program: Leveraging the Potential of Medicaid and Title X in an Evolving Health Care System

Facts on publicly funded contraceptive services in the United States

Via Feministe.

2 Comments

February 25, 2009 12:30 PM

[0+]  Lisa said:

Imagine that. Giving people access to knowledge and medical care is more effective then screaming at them not to have sex.

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February 25, 2009 6:17 PM

[0+]  anitasaber said:

Now let's just hope this gets into the mainstream media and conservatives get wind of it.

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