Abortion, long on a downward trend, now ends 42 percent of 2.8 million unintended pregnancies, prompting Washington to push a “robust” new bid to help couples with family planning and contraception, according to the administration’s population chief.
What’s more, the cost of teen pregnancies has reached $10 billion annually and the Zika crisis is raising new concerns about the safety of giving birth.
“I can say I have never seen a greater need, or a better opportunity, to help Americans achieve their family planning goals,” said Susan B. Moskosky, acting director of the Office of Population Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.
With Zika hitting hard, she said that the virus has “elevated the need for expanded access to quality family planning services to an emergency level.”
In a white paper published in the authoritative journal Public Health Reports, Moskosky said that the government is pushing a new contraception effort, one that Obamacare supports.
“We have the needed technology. A wide range of safe and effective methods of contraception is available, including the long-acting reversible methods of contraception (LARC) (i.e., intrauterine devices and implants). A robust effort is underway to develop and disseminate the use of clinical performance measures to drive change in contraceptive care. These measures encourage the use of the more effective methods of contraception and address the critical need to ensure that services are offered in a client-centered, non coercive manner. Furthermore, we have a mechanism to pay for these technologies,” she wrote.
She listed abortion, Zika, teen pregnancies, and rapid succession pregnancies as big issues to deal with. From her paper:
— Each year, approximately 2.8 million women have an unintended pregnancy. Approximately 42% of these end in abortion, and the cost of unintended births exceeds $20 million annually. [That totals 1,176,000 abortions, up from 699,202 in 2012.]
— More than 250,000 teens gave birth in 2014, and the public cost of teen pregnancy was estimated in 2010 to be almost $10 billion annually.
— About one-third of all U.S. pregnancies occur too soon after a previous pregnancy (i.e., within 18 months of a preceding birth). This close birth spacing contributes to poor infant health outcomes, including 9.6% of infants born preterm and 8.0% born with a low birthweight in 2014.
— The threat of local spread of Zika virus to the United States in 2016 has elevated the need for expanded access to quality family planning services to an emergency level. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of August 3, 2016, there had been 1,825 cases of Zika infection reported in the continental United States; 1,818 of those cases were travel-related and one was laboratory-acquired. In the U.S. territories, 5,548 cases of Zika infection have been reported, 5,525 of which were locally acquired. Infection with the Zika virus in a pregnant woman is linked to microcephaly and other problems, such as absent or poorly developed brain structures, eye defects, hearing deficits, and impaired growth.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
