Economics

Study: Free Birth Control Leads to Fewer Abortions

This apparently needed to be studied and wasn't completely obvious

|

A new study suggests that free birth control led to dramatically lower abortion rates and teen births.

Researchers tracked more than 9,000 poor or uninsured women. When price wasn't an issue, more women used the most effective contraceptive methods, like an IUD implant, a goof-proof method that typically costs hundreds of dollars upfront to insert. Dr. Jeffrey Peipert of Washington University in St. Louis said these women experienced far fewer unintended pregnancies as a result.

For teen pregnancy, there were 6.3 births per 1,000 teenagers in the study. This is a striking difference to the national rate of 34 births per 1,000 teens in 2010.