50 Years After Birth Control Pill's Approval, Barriers To Access Remain

Although FDA announced its intention to approve the first birth control pill 50 years ago this week, millions of the poorest women in the U.S. continue to face barriers to affordable family planning, Medill News Service/McClatchy reports. According to data from the Guttmacher Institute, nearly 59% of women who are in need of subsidized family planning services nationwide are not receiving care. Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate at the institute, said, "People think you can just go to the corner drugstore and have your needs taken care of." She added, "Unfortunately, there are lots and lots of men and women who need subsidized care in this respect."

A 2006 study -- Guttmacher's most recent assessment of access to subsidized family planning -- found that 17.5 million women of reproductive age needed assistance paying for contraception. The study was released when the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.7%, about five percentage points lower than the current rate. Clare Coleman -- CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which represents 90% of federally funded family planning clinics in the U.S. -- said that advocates "can only predict that new data [are] going to be worse." Meanwhile, economic constraints are leading several states to reduce or eliminate family planning funding from their budgets.

Medill News Service/McClatchy reports that California's Family PACT program plan is considered one nation's most successful public-private partnerships for family planning, providing assistance to about 1.8 million residents with incomes of less than 200% of the federal poverty level. Despite the program's reach, only 55% of the California women who need services are receiving them, according to Guttmacher. Laurie Weaver, chief of the state health department's Office of Family Planning, said the "cost of the [Family PACT] program benefit is about $311 per year per client," but the program's most recent survey in 2002 found that it was saving the state and federal government "nearly a billion dollars every two years" by preventing pregnancies.

According to Guttmacher, Medicaid is the most common source of funding for subsidized and no-cost contraception. Under the Medicaid expansion included in the health care reform law (PL 111-148), states no longer will need waivers from the federal government to expand eligibility for Medicaid family planning services, Medill News Service/McClatchy reports.

Some advocates hope that the issue of funding family planning to reduce unintended pregnancies will attract support from both sides of the aisle. Kellie Ferguson, executive director of the Republican Majority for Choice, said that "more and more Republicans are certainly coming around to saying that we can separate prevention and planning from abortion." She added, "Whether you're pro- or anti-choice, we all want to see the rate and need for abortion to go down" (Snell, Medill News Service/McClatchy, 5/6).

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said, "I don't care whether you are a Democrat, a Republican or a red state or a blue state, [unintended pregnancy] is a problem that we all have to take steps to address." She added, "A window is now open with a government that understands (free or affordable access to contraception) is a basic women's health issue" (Peisner, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/10).

Editorial Discusses Abortion, Contraceptive Access Among Poor Women

A recent Guttmacher study finding "that the prevalence of abortion among poor women ... increased dramatically" from 2000 through 2008 provides "disturbing information for people on both sides of the abortion debate who agree that the procedure should be less common," the Philadelphia Inquirer says in an editorial. Guttmacher President and CEO Sharon Camp said that "broader, persistent economic and social inequities" have fueled a growing disparity in unintended pregnancies between lower-income and more affluent women since the mid-1990s.

According to the editorial, the economic recession "didn't help the situation." The editorial continues, "While the resulting financial constraints may have led more poor women to delay childbearing, or limit their number of children, the report said their poverty also may have made it more difficult to obtain contraceptives." Although there are "multiple reasons why a woman may decide to terminate a pregnancy," the editorial concludes that the "best public policies would ensure that fewer women believe they have no other choice" (Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/8).















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