Thursday, February 9, 2012

U.S. Teen Pregnancy Rate Lowest In 40 Years - Thanks To Contraceptive Use

The use of contraceptives is seen as the reason that the U.S. teen pregnancy rate has hit a 30-year low, according to a new study published this week by the Guttmacher Institute.

Teen pregnancies have declined dramatically in the United States since their peak in the early 1990s, as have the births and abortions that result; in 2008, teen pregnancies reached their lowest level in nearly 40 years, according to “U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2008: National Trends by Age, Race and Ethnicity,” by Kathryn Kost and Stanley Henshaw of the Guttmacher Institute.

In 2008, the teen pregnancy rate was 67.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19, which means that about 7% of U.S. teens became pregnant that year. This rate represents a 42% decline from the peak in 1990 (116.9 per 1,000). Similarly, the birthrate declined 35% between 1991 and 2008, from 61.8 to 40.2 births per 1,000 teens; the abortion rate declined 59% from its 1988 peak of 43.5 abortions per 1,000 teens to its 2008 level of 17.8 per 1,000.

“Continuing decreases in teen pregnancy more recently may be driven by increased use of the most effective contraceptive methods as well as dual method use,” the Guttmacher Institute explained. “In sum, teens appear to be making the decision to be more effective contraceptive users, and their actions are paying off in lower pregnancy, birth and abortion rates.”

Even with dramatic reductions in pregnancy, birth and abortion rates among all racial and ethnic groups, disparities between black, white and Hispanic teens persist. After peaking in the early 1990s, the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 37% among Hispanics, 48% among blacks and 50% among non-Hispanic whites; yet the rates among black and Hispanic teens remain 2–3 times as high as that of non-Hispanic white teens.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops (USCCB) are incensed at the decision by the Obama administration to guarantee that the women's health care benefit packages offered by employers includes contraceptive care. Beginning in August 2012, all of the services in this benefit package will be available in new employer insurance plans without any out-of-pocket costs to women. The rule specifically exempts pervasively religious institutions like houses of worship from offering their employees birth control coverage as part of their health insurance. But the Bishops claim that their religion also exempts them from providing preventive health care services to the millions of employees -- many of whom are not even Catholic -- at Catholic owned businesses, like hospitals and Universities!

Catholic Bishops object not only to the rule for business organizations they own, Bishops said Thursday that they would not be happy until the rule is scrubbed entirely, permitting any employer, religious or not, to deny contraceptive coverage to their workers.

But the Catholic Bishops do not speak for a majority of American Catholics, 52 percent of whom support requiring health plans to cover contraception. Several major Catholic universities and hospitals already offer contraception coverage. Ninety-eight percent of all American women, Catholic and otherwise, report using birth control during their lifetime.

States Line Up To Kill Voting Rights Act Sec. 5

WaPo:

Conservative activists and Republican attorneys general have launched a series of lawsuits meant to challenge the most muscular provision of the Voting Rights Act 0f 1965 before a Supreme Court that has signaled it is suspicious of its constitutionality.

Working their way to the high court are lawsuits from Arizona to North Carolina, challenging Section 5 of the historic civil rights act. The provision requires states and localities with a history of discrimination to get federal approval of any changes in their voting laws.

The combination of skeptical justices and an increasingly partisan political environment has led some experts to predict that the end is near for that requirement, which civil rights groups have called the most effective weapon for eliminating voting discrimination.

The Supreme Court’s recent actions “have indicated that Section 5 is living on borrowed time,” Columbia University law professor Nathaniel Persily told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last week. “Assuming the personnel on the court remains constant, the question is not whether the court will declare Section 5 unconstitutional, but when and how.”

The lawsuits are defending redistricting and a variety of new laws and electoral changes — including controversial requirements that voters show IDs at the polls — that Democrats and minorities charge will dilute minority rights.

Read the full story @ WaPo:

Pink Razors and Planned Parenthood

From the Most Excellent Margaret and Helen blog

In the past Margaret and I have stood up for Planned Parenthood. But that is no longer good enough. Today, tomorrow and every day that we have left on this planet, we won’t just stand up for them, we will stand up for women everywhere. We will vote for them. We will advocate for them. We will fight for them. And we will start right here. Right now.

My grandson tells us that people from all over the nation and even from other countries read this web page blog of ours. Well, I can’t imagine why, but if you are going to read it, then you should use your head for something other than a hat rack and learn a thing or two about the real Planned Parenthood.

Yes. They provide abortion services. Deal with it because they also do so much more and we remember the world before them. It wasn’t pretty.

I called a Board Member for Planned Parenthood in my community and we had a good talk. I found out that even I didn’t know the whole story. And after you read this, I challenge you to do what she asked me to do: inform the uninformed and educate the misinformed.

Planned Parenthood provides healthcare – pap smears, breast and pelvic exams, colposcopies, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and birth control for both women and men – most without access to any other health care services. About 97% of their services are for this basic healthcare.

If you want to talk about abortion services then you should at least know the truth. Providing that service for women who are faced with that daunting decision accounts for less than 3% of what Planned Parenthood does nationally. Less than three percent. They also provide prenatal care, vasectomies and adoption referrals. One Planned Parenthood clinic does more in a day to prevent abortions than the entire Pro-Life movement does in a year. We might not agree on abortion, but we should at least be able to agree that they should be safe, legal and rare.

If you want to talk about Planned Parenthood then talk about the thousands of uninsured women for whom the doctor or nurse at Planned Parenthood is the only health professional they will see this year. Tell them about the divorced 40-year-old woman who, for the first time, finds herself without health insurance and how she turned to Planned Parenthood to ensure that she is able to maintain her health and wellness. Planned Parenthood has never been just about sex and birth control. It has always been about ensuring women are healthy enough to care for the children they one day may bring into this world. And yes, it is also about making sure they are informed in their decisions not to bring children into this world.

Tell your Tea Party friends what good fiscal sense Planned Parenthood education and prevention programs make – that for every dollar spent providing family-planning services, $4 are saved in Medicaid costs. Remind them that more than one-third of the individuals who seek help from Planned Parenthood make less than $50 a week. That’s right – $50 a week.

If you are going to talk about Planned Parenthood, then at least have the courage to speak the truth. We knew the Komen decision was politically motivated because we know that far right politicians are the ones who continue to spread untruths and misinformation about Planned Parenthood.

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich all stand ready to restrict a woman’s access to birth control and her right to make her own childbearing decisions. They will cater to the far right and happily deny essential health care to millions of women. The Republican field is united in its determination to overturn Roe v. Wade; to appoint Supreme Court justices supportive of that goal; and to end government funding of any kind to Planned Parenthood for family planning services, cancer screenings and other vital health services provided to low-income women. By the way, Planned Parenthood does not receive government funding for abortions. Although for the life of me, I can’t imagine why not.

Mr. Gingrich has called for punishing judges who make abortion rulings not to his liking. Mitt Romney supported the “personhood” initiative in Mississippi that would have given human fertilized eggs the legal rights and protections that apply to people, and outlawed abortion as well as some of the most widely used forms of contraception and in vitro fertilization. For goodness sakes Rick Santorum, the candidate who won the first primary this year, doesn’t even believe in birth control at all.

If you really, honestly want to reduce abortions in this country, the last thing you want to do is vote for a Republican. If you want to reduce abortions start in your own home by educating your children. Teach your sons to respect women and arm your daughters with information about birth control. If you are so outraged by abortions that your only criteria for a presidential candidate is that he be obsessed with my uterus, then arm your daughters with all the information she needs to protect herself from all those sons who were raised by politicians in Texas and Virginia. And if you really care, make a donation to Planned Parenthood or this other organization called Annie’s List. My grandson says that if you “click” on the underlined words in the previous sentence it will take you to a place you can make a donation on the internet. It couldn’t be any easier than that.

This November, I say we show them what it really means to Fight Like A Girl. Somebody call Gloria Steinem because we’ve got some more balls to bust. I mean it. Really.

Read the full post @ Margaret's and Helen's blog