If you’re real social policy goal is to reduce the number of abortions and unplanned pregnancies, increase access to long-term birth control:
By increasing access to long-term birth control such as intrauterine devices, Colorado has reduced teen pregnancies by about 20 percent in zip codes near clinics that receive federal funding, a new report finds.
Teen births have dropped through a state program that helped clinics cover the costs of expensive contraceptives such as IUDs, making them more accessible to low-income women, according to the report by the National Bureau of Economic Research [Jessica Seaman, “Colorado Teen Pregnancies Dropped 20 Percent Near These Clinics. Now Their Funding Is at Risk,” Denver Post, 2019.03.22].
But if you don’t give a real hoot about abortion rates and teen pregnancy rates and just want to stroke fundagelical voters and punish women for sexual activity, well, go ahead and yank Title X funding from effective birth control practices:
“The risk there is that those funds were going to be providing contraceptives or preventive care,” said Andrea Kelly, a co-author of the study and Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University. “Now, if they are going away… it’s even harder to provide those services.”
…Officials, including Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, have said the changes to the Title X program could result in jumps in teen births, unintended pregnancies and abortions. Multiple states, including Colorado, are seeking to stop the changes via lawsuits [Seaman, 2019.03.22].
Oregon is leading the 21 states suing over Trump’s oppressive and wrong-headed funding cuts to family-planning clinics. South Dakota lacks the policy foresight, moral honesty, and legal acumen to join this lawsuit.
This whole article sets up a false dichotomy… It only works if you replace ‘increase access’ with ‘use tax money to pay for’ … There is nothing about spending tax dollars on these programs that increases access… These are the types of things that allow people ‘providing access’ to overcharge for their services by letting taxpayers fund said services instead of being fiscally responsible for themselves and either raising their own money (operate as a non-profit and get your own donations) or charge their customers for services provided.
To restate the original point, ‘increasing access’ is just a cover for broadening the cost basis by becoming taxpayer funded – not actually increasing availability.
If it prevents abortions, count me in as a full throated supporter of broadening the cost basis via tax. Better than sanctimonious turds waving signs.
If you decrease unwanted pregnancies and abortions, sounds like a big savings in pesos for each state and the Fed.
People who want Planned Parenthood unfunded are the pro-abortion goons wingnuts always complain about. If you won’t help stop unwanted pregnancies and abortions- you are part of the problem.
Northern Mississippi could fund birth control through a tax on pot if they ever get caught up to the 21 st century.
Matt if you were not sexually active until your one and only marriage i commend you but if you were like me and many many other 18-30 year-olds, we tried to pry sexual favors from any females we dated. We used alcohol, drugs, any cunning persuasion without regard for consequential pregnancies. Just saying the female always gets the problems and we guys usually got what we wanted.
Now too late i can see my selfish acts and have a (different than you have) insight into unwanted pregnancies. Universal and freely available birth control should be a given, yet the right wing tries to prevent birth control access right along with putting obstacles to abortion. OK so now the SD Legislature has their pet anti abortion bills passed; next they will work on elimination any and all birth control. go figure.
…. well, I’m sure Matt left out the power of prayer. Just sayin’
Oh bull, Matt, tax payer dollars are utilized in any number of ways to incentivize behavior.
Denison… As I stated, there is nothing preventing access to birth control. It is widely available. It is a stretch to say that because it is not made ‘available for free’ that access is being blocked. This is a slippery slope to trying to make everything free, and that is not sustainable. If someone wants it, take some of your money and go get it.
Leslie… True, and even this should be limited, moving towards disappearing… I can see some tax policy being structured to incentivize GOOD behavior, but not spending tax dollars to incentivize bad behavior. And just to cover the other possibilities in this simple scenario – Tax policy should not incentivize bad behavior and tax dollars should also not be spent to incentivize good behavior. Tax dollars should be used for running the government, that is all. Tax dollars (and the government as a whole, for that matter) should have very little involvement in the day to day lives of citizens.
Tax dollars are needed to help provide insurance for the needy (except wingnuts give said tax dollars to the greedy) and food and shelter, etc. Can’t get around that if you believe in the constitution.
As for keeping government out of people’s lives, South Dakota’s wingnut goons provide poor examples of keeping their hands off women and women’s reproductive rights among other things.
Matt,
Did you read the article? It pretty articulately explains that these title X funds increase access by providing the more expensive, but more effective, forms of birth control, like IUDs, to the women most at risk of unplanned pregnancy… the ones that cannot currently afford the more expensive forms… this saves the government money in the long term, and manages to both decrease abortions AND empower women so EVEN IF it were a cost to taxpayers I could hardly find many rational people that would oppose such a great program.
Matt, Trump and the GOP aren’t trying to block these funds with the intent of rushing to fund family-planning clinics with their own private dollars and inspiring other charitable individuals to follow suit. They are blocking Title X funds with the intent of killing these clinics and the birth control and other helpful services they provide, services that, as indicated by the study, help achieve those Republicans’ stated policy goals of reducing rates of abortion and teen pregnancy.
The study shows that government funding helps achieve a specific policy goal. Republicans want to remove that funding and not see it replaced. No amount of clever false-dichomtomizing will change the fact that Republicans don’t care about what they say they care about; they just want to punish women for sex that, as Denson notes, is too often forced on them by a selfish misogynist culture… embodied by the rutting male pig who signed the executive order restricting that important, practical, and beneficial funding.
Depends on what the SDGOP and national GOP really want. If they enact measures such as these to greatly reduce the necessity of abortions, what new catastrophe will the GOP flog that will be as effective in mobilizing their information starved devotees? They don’t want to give up a proven excitant.
The GOP loves the abortion wars. To hell with the real pain they’re causing to US families. That’s just collateral damage, irrelevant to them.
If you obstruct the natural production of babies, in any way, you prevent The Lord Jesus from possibly being loved by yet another one of his creations. That’s why masturbation is a sin, because a seed should always go to good use – should never be wasted. “Never produce seeds you do not intend to plant.” I think it’s in the Bible somewhere – like the Book of Agriculture or somethin.
Here is a poem that is an example of what women think, from a woman who appears to be in her 20s. What she recites is not uncommon. Contrast it with your male experiences to get an idea of how different and dangerous is the world women live in.
https://www.facebook.com/1539955764/posts/10218686933874725/?sfnsn=mo