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Don’t like abortion? Then you should be in favor of free contraceptives.

If you don’t like abortion, you should be in favor of free contraceptives.

This really isn’t a complicated idea. In fact, I’ve posted about it here, here, here, here, and probably other places that I’ve forgotten about.

The research is crystal clear. If you want to reduce the amount of abortions that are occurring, the best way to do so is by increasing access to contraceptives.

Regardless if you’re for or against abortion, we can all agree that the lower the rate of abortions, the better. So it comes as great news that rate of abortions has been steadily declining for decades, and is now at an all-time low.

abortion rate decline graph
Soure: Guttmacher Institute

The Guttmacher Institute report found that:

In 2006, Iowa expanded access to family planning for low-income women, and between 2007 and 2013, a privately funded initiative sought to increase access to [long-acting reversible contraceptive] methods among the same population.31 Areas of the state with the most exposure to these programs experienced larger declines in abortion than did those with less exposure.31

Evidence has repeatedly shown us that comprehensive sex education paired with access to birth control is the best method to limit undesired pregnancies. With all the research on the subject that is currently available, this is not debatable.

The rationale behind legislation like this likely comes from religious groups’ influence on lawmakers. A Pew Research Center study in 2011 found that the amount of religious advocacy organizations in Washington, DC have more than doubled since the early 90s. Conservative estimates put these groups’ expenditures at over $350 million a year in their lobbying efforts.

These groups use their faith as a basis to push their views onto others. Religious groups who oppose birth control believe that abstinence-only sex education should be taught in schools. Abstinence-only sex education simply is not effective. It results in “virginity pledges” that lead to teens engaging in oral and anal sex at a similar rate to their peers. Abstinence-only education actually increases the teen pregnancy rate, and has similar STI rates as their non-ridiculous-pledged peers.

It is incredibly hypocritical of lawmakers to use their faith as justification for these laws. They simply cannot claim moral high ground when they are attempting to infringe upon the rights of others. What you are doing is attempting to instill your religious ideology on others by means of legislation. These people are not morally superior and they are not making legislative decisions based on actual evidence. They are allowing their faith-based, emotional opinion to guide them in restricting the freedoms of others.

If your goal is to prevent abortion, comprehensive sex education and access to contraceptives is literally the best way to accomplish it.

If you’ve read this far, I highly encourage you to donate to the ACLU.

Written by Dan Broadbent

Science Enthusiast. Atheist. Lover of cats.

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