PSRH Blog

State Abortion Restrictions and Women’s Contraceptive Choices

Over the past two decades, the U.S. abortion policy environment has become increasingly restrictive. In light of the 2018 appointment to the Supreme Court, it seems likely that this trend will continue, at both the national and the state levels. We know that restricting abortion does not...

Abortion Law, Policy and Funding

An Early Look at Insurance Coverage of Abortion

In 1970, abortion was legal in the U.S. only, for the most part, when it was necessary to save a woman’s life. Reform was under way at the state level, but Roe v. Wade was still three years in the future. And legal access wasn’t the only impediment for women who wished to terminate...

Abortion Law, Policy and Funding

Does Title X Funding Enhance Clinic Services?

Recent decades have seen both a growing need for publicly subsidized family planning services and repeated threats to federal funding for such care, so an assessment of whether the Title X program provides expanded access to sexual and reproductive health services is useful. In an analysis of...

Contraceptive Methods Law, Policy and Funding STDs

Confronting New Obstacles to Family Planning

Little is known about how legislation reducing access to family planning services affects the women who rely on these services. A 2015 article in Perspectives examined the experiences of low-income...

Abortion Contraceptive Methods Law, Policy and Funding Teens

How Has the ACA Affected Title X Services?

What you may think: Given the health insurance landscape created by the Affordable Care Act, clients at Title X–supported sites have coverage for services, and costs to clinics are therefore reduced.

What the research shows: Two studies that have run...

Fact Check Law, Policy and Funding

December in [email protected]

In the final month of our celebration of the first half century of Perspectives, we focus on legal, policy and funding issues. These topics were central to the journal’s mission from the beginning—our inaugural issue described proposals for a national family planning agency and reviewed...

Law, Policy and Funding

The Brief Wondrous Life of a Perspectives Department

Thirty years ago, folks who wanted to read the text of an important Supreme Court decision on abortion—instead of relying on a superficial news story—had a couple of options. One was to call a bunch of libraries, find one that collected the Court’s annual compendiums of opinions and wait many...

Law, Policy and Funding

How the HIPAA Privacy Rule Helped Teens (or Didn’t)

A federal rule took effect in 2002 with the goal of strengthening privacy protections for individuals’ health information and medical records. Based on portions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (or HIPAA), the rule might have been a boon to teens, for whom...

Adolescents Law, Policy and Funding

Unintended and Uncounted

Between 1967, when Colorado became the first state to loosen its restrictions on abortion, and 1973, when the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling established the right of all women to have the procedure, the number of legal abortions in the U.S. soared. By 1977, the number of pregnancy...

Abortion Law, Policy and Funding Unintended Pregnancy

Sex Ed Veers to the Right

The history of sex education in U.S. schools is marked by countless twists and turns, and no small amount of controversy. Undoubtedly one of the biggest changes came in the early 1980s, when the federal government started pouring money into programs that focused on abstinence, rather than taking...

Adolescents HIV/AIDS Law, Policy and Funding Sex Education STDs

Guttmacher Institute

Good reproductive health policy starts with credible research

Abortion is essential health care. Always.