Publicly Funded Birth Control Is Crucial

Kinsey Hasstedt is a public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, focusing on publicly financed family planning programs in the United States and immigrants' access to sexual and reproductive health care.

Updated July 13, 2015, 6:47 AM

All women should have the means to make fundamental choices about whether and when to have children. That is why the public investment in family planning that enables young and low-income women to plan their own pregnancies is smart government at its best. It leads to healthier mothers and babies, empowers women to finish their education or job training, and saves billions in taxpayer dollars.

In 2010, such services helped avoid 2.2 million pregnancies, with a net government savings of $13.6 billion — $7 for every public dollar spent.

Having access to the full range of contraceptive methods, including highly effective long-acting methods, and the information needed to choose the method that best fits a woman’s life is key to achieving planned, healthier pregnancies. But cost can be a significant barrier for many women to obtain the birth control method of her choice. That’s why federal and state investments in publicly supported family planning services are so crucial.

The enormous benefit of these investments is well documented: Guttmacher Institute research shows that in 2010, publicly funded family planning services helped women to avoid 2.2 million unintended pregnancies. These unintended pregnancies, in turn, would have resulted in 1.1 million unintended births and 760,000 abortions.

Further, while publicly supported family planning services enable low-income women to have healthier pregnancies and achieve their life goals, they also yield considerable dividends for taxpayers. In 2010, these services resulted in a net savings to the federal and state governments of $13.6 billion — $7 for every public dollar spent.

About half of these impressive gains come from family planning centers supported by the Title X national family planning program, the linchpin of the U.S. family planning effort. Without the services provided by these centers in 2012, the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions in the United States would be 32 percent higher.

Healthier pregnancies, a steep reduction in need for abortion and significant fiscal savings — policymakers of all stripes should line up to support such a hugely successful program, and for decades they had. Unfortunately, social conservatives in the U.S. Congress are putting ideology over evidence, with the House voting to eliminate Title X entirely and the Senate proposing deep cuts to the program.

Doing so is deeply irresponsible and, ultimately, self-defeating. Policy makers should instead respect Americans’ wishes by protecting contraceptive access. That means adequately funding Title X and implementing the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion in all states. Policymakers should not erect new barriers that raise the cost of birth control or otherwise interfere with a woman’s ability to use the contraceptive method that is right for her.

Tens of millions of people in the United States rely on contraception to achieve their childbearing goals. Let’s make sure the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies and space wanted ones is available to all who want it, regardless of their income.