Preventing Unintended Pregnancy Best Route To Reducing Need For Abortion, Column Says

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Pregnancy / Obstetrics;  Abortion
Article Date: 26 Jan 2010 - 3:00 PDT

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In a Roe v. Wade anniversary column in the Anchorage Daily News, Clover Simon of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest writes, "Reasonable people on both sides of the issue have touched for years on the subject of 'common ground' regarding abortion. It involves ratcheting down the volume, stepping back to look at relevant statistics and honestly looking at ways to find a workable approach to this issue." She argues that "the most realistic opportunity for reducing the need for abortion lies in preventing unintended pregnancies." The best way to prevent these pregnancies is through education and family planning, she says. She notes that about half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended and that about 40% of those end in abortion.

To reduce unintended pregnancy and the need for abortion in the U.S., "people need medically accurate and age-appropriate education in the way their body functions," she says. According to Simon, "The message of delaying sex is a good one, but students also need to know how to use birth control and how to prevent sexually transmitted infections." She continues that the "second important tool is support and funding for family planning," adding that "[b]irth control, STI screening and treatment, and regular checkups for cervical cancer need to be available and accessible."

Outlawing abortion, on the other hand, "is clearly the wrong choice" to lower the abortion rate, Simon writes. An October 2009 study by the Guttmacher Institute found that "women around the world will access abortion services whether they are legal or not and whether they are safe or not," she continues, adding, "The lowest abortion rates are from countries in Western Europe where abortion is legal, sexual health is taught in home and at school, and people have access to contraception" (Simon, Anchorage Daily News, 1/22).

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