Page 82 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

80
by other public policies that limit one’s economic prosperity and potential; no woman makes reproductive health care decisions in a vacuum . The economic circumstances of her life impact her reproductive decisions, just as her reproductive decisions have a personal economic impact .
Access to Family Planning
At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and three in ten of those unintended pregnancies end in abortion .6 But these general statistics hide the very real disparities that exist for women for whom the economic costs of childbearing are most difficult . Women with incomes at or below the federal poverty level are five times more likely to experience unintended pregnancy than are women with the highest income levels .7 Unintended pregnancy rates are three times higher for women without a high school degree than for college graduates, and twice as high for Black and Hispanic women as that of White women .8
The rates underscore the need for publicly-funded family planning services, which include contraception, screenings and treatment for sexually-transmitted infections, cervical cancer screening and prevention services, and other reproductive health care . In 2010, almost nine million women received publicly-funded family planning services .9 Further, publicly funded family contraceptive services helped women by preventing 2 .2 million unintended pregnancies .10 Between 2000 and 2012, there was an 11 percent increase in the number of women of reproductive age who needed contraceptive services and supplies, with a disproportionate increase in need being experienced by low-income women, younger women, Latino women, and Black women .11
Despite the demonstrated demand for and benefit of contraceptive access for women and their families, funding for family planning programs continues to be at risk . Over the last several years, funding cuts, insurance coverage restrictions, and reproductive health center closures have all threatened women’s ability to obtain contraceptive services . Since 2010, multiple states have made drastic cuts to family planning programs, resulting in huge decreases in the number of women served .12 Funding restrictions also impact the ability of providers to offer a full range of contraceptives, with half of the facilities receiving public funding reporting that they were unable to offer certain methods due to cost .13 In Congress, lawmakers have threatened to defund Title X—the nation’s family planning funding program—multiple times and have almost shut down the federal government in their attempts to do so .14 The expansion of contraceptive equity in
6 Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, guTTmacher insTiTuTe (Feb. 2015), http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/ FB-Unintended-Pregnancy-US.html.
7 Id.
8 Adam Sonfield et al., Moving Forward: Family Planning in the Era of Health Reform, guTTmacher insTiTuTe 9, http://
www.guttmacher.org/pubs/family-planning-and-health-reform.pdf.
9 Id. at 4.
10 Id. at 21.
11 Jennifer J. Frost et al., Contraceptive Needs and Services, Update, guTTmacher insTiTuTe 7 (Aug. 2014), http://www.
guttmacher.org/pubs/win/contraceptive-needs-2012.pdf.
12 Rachel Benson Gold, Besieged Family Planning Network Plays Pivotal Role, 16 guTTmacher policy review 1, 16, (2013), http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/16/1/gpr160113.html.
13 Publicly Funded Family Planning Services in the United States, guTTmacher insTiTuTe (Oct. 2014), http://www. guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contraceptive_serv.html.
14 Gold, supra note 12.
Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality