Birth Control: September 2008 Archives

Great news from the Guttmacher Institute – the teen abortion rate has declined a whole bunch since 1974.

It’s dropped from 33% in 1974 to 17% in 2004. It took 30 years, but progress is progress, right?

The reason for the drop? Increased use of birth control and the availability of more effective methods. And for the record, the drop started before we had federally funded Abstinence Only programs, so we were already on the right track.

The only bad news in this good news is Black and Hispanic women obtain abortions at a rate 3 to 5 times higher than that of white women. Throw in a good dose of poverty, and the numbers increase.

Historically, these women are poorer and have less access to healthcare than the majority of white women – even white teenagers.

We need to think about what we can do to help young and poor women gain access to birth control. Voting for a candidate who sees the connections between poverty, access to birth control and abortion, is probably a good placed to start.