Anti-Choice Republicans Likely to Ignore Key Reason for Abortion Rate Decline

by mobanmarketin NEWSon 30/09/2020

Improved contraceptive use was a major factor in the just-revealed U.S. abortion rate decline, but Republican attempts to gut critical healthcare programs could reverse those gains, experts warned Tuesday.

The Guttmacher Institute, which works to advance reproductive health and rights through research and policy initiatives, announced Tuesday that in 2014, the U.S. abortion rate reached the lowest level ever recorded. In addition, the number of abortions in the U.S. dropped under one million for the first time since 1975.

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In an analysis published alongside the report, Guttmacher’s Joerg Dreweke argues that while anti-choice organizations are sure to claim that increased abortion restrictions led to the decline, improved birth control use and access “likely played a larger role.”

“Several data points support this hypothesis,” he wrote:

But with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare—which covers FDA-approved contraception—and Planned Parenthood on the chopping block under President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican majority in Congress, those trends could soon be reversed.

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Repealing the ACA or cutting Medicaid “would result in many reproductive-age women losing insurance coverage altogether or seeing their health plan’s contraceptive coverage severely degraded,” Dreweke wrote. “Many of them might then seek out care from a family planning safety net that will itself be fighting for survival, even as it already struggles to serve those who remained uninsured under the ACA, including many immigrant women.”

And as Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards told NPR, “We shouldn’t go backwards on access to birth control.”

Of course, there’s little doubt that state-level healthcare restrictions will proliferate under emboldened Republican-led legislatures—indeed, they already have. But whether those policies are effective or just is another question entirely.

For one thing, Dreweke noted,

What’s more, he added, “the question is not and should never be whether coercive approaches ‘work’ in reducing abortion incidence. Rather, these coercive approaches are unacceptable in principle.”

“Taken together, this looming onslaught against a broad swath of reproductive health services threatens a massive rollback of women’s health, rights, and autonomy,” Dreweke said of the looming right-wing agenda. “It’s a dangerous policy mix that could stop or reverse progress in empowering women to avoid unintended pregnancies and more generally meet their childbearing goals.”

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