The Guttmacher Institute has released a new report:

The recession has put many women in an untenable situation. They want to avoid unintended pregnancies more than ever, but are having trouble affording the contraceptive services they need to do so," says Dr. Sharon Camp, Guttmacher president and CEO. "The very providers these women turn to in times of crisis are themselves struggling to make ends meet. It is time to bolster the nation's family planning system to help women avoid unintended pregnancies and the unplanned births and abortions that would result."

The nation's publicly funded family planning centers provide contraceptive services and related health screenings to women across a broad socioeconomic spectrum, and these centers are the primary safety-net providers of these services to economically disadvantaged women. Compared with Americans overall, women of reproductive age are more likely to lack health insurance, and lower income and younger women (those 29 and younger)-who are already at the greatest risk for unintended pregnancy-are even less likely to be insured.

Why the hell aren't Stupak, Pitts, Vitter, and Nelson sponsoring amendments to solve this problem?

Recession Puts Strain On Family Planning Centers As Demand Rises And Resources Shrink [Guttmacher Institute]

As we mentioned yesterday, the report found no correlation between abortion rates and legality of abortion. That is, regions where abortion is banned don't actually have lower rates of abortion — they just have lots of women getting unsafe abortions. Unfortunately for women all over the world, the pro-choice argument that women will seek back-alley abortions if the procedure is forbidden turns out to be totally true. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that 70,000 women die every year from unsafe abortions, another 5 million need to be treated for complications, and 3 million suffer such complications but never get treated at all. The sample methods of unsafe abortion the Institute lists are chilling, and include drinking manure and jumping off a roof.

What does reduce the rate of abortions? Contraception. Worldwide, the rate of unintended pregnancy has dropped, just as the rate of contraceptive use among married women has risen. And Eastern Europe, where the greatest decline in abortion was reported, has seen a corresponding rise in contraceptive use. Unfortunately, only 28% of married African women use contraception, and one in four has an unmet need for contraceptives — meaning she is fertile and sexually active but does not currently want to have a child. Most commonly, the problem is lack of availability.

The Catholic Church, which has a lot of influence in many of the developing countries where the most unsafe abortion occurs, is pretty much holding its hands over its ears and singing through this news. Deirdre McQuade of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities says, "We need to be much more creative in assisting women with supportive services so they don't need to resort to the unnatural act of abortion." This stance is pretty unsurprising. A little more disturbing is McQuade's take on contraception. According to the AP, she says "that use of artificial contraception could increase a women's health risks and said they would fare better using natural family planning methods approved by the church." Given that "natural family planning" can require careful timing on the part of both partners, it may not be an effective method in places where women's status in a relationship is low. And of course, it doesn't protect against STDs. It would have made sense for McQuade to cite religious objections to contraception, but describing as a "women's health risk" the very thing that can protect women from both unsafe abortion and disease just seems ridiculous. Luckily, Guttmacher Institute president Sharon Camp says,

The Catholic Church has informally at least stopped fighting against contraception to the degree it once did and put more of its energies into fighting abortion. On the ground there are priests and nuns who refer people to family planning services.

It's important to remember that unsafe abortions don't happen only in developing countries. Yesterday a 17-year-old Utah girl was released after being charged with murder for paying a man to beat her in order to induce abortion. Why would an American teenager resort to this? Maybe because as of 2005, Utah had only six abortion providers, and 93% of counties had no provider? Or because Utah has a parental consent law that would have required the girl's parents to agree to the abortion? The Guttmacher Institute report makes three recommendations: improve postabortion care, expand access to contraceptives, and expand access to safe and legal abortion. These measures are just as necessary in the US as they are around the world.

Abortion And Unintended Pregnancy Decline Worldwide As Contraceptive Use Increases [Guttmacher Institute]
Facts On Induced Abortion Worldwide [Guttmacher Institute]
Unsafe Abortions Kill 70,000 A Year [Guardian]
Unsafe Abortions Kill 70,000 Annually [AP]
Girl Who Tried Killing Her Fetus Released [UPI.com]

52% of the 947 women surveyed (PDF) report being worse off financially than they were a year ago, 75% are more concerned about money, and "Sixty-four percent of women agree with the statement, 'With the economy the way it is, I can't afford to have a baby right now.'"

But while 29% agreed with the statement ""With the economy the way it is, I am more careful than I used to be about using contraception every time I have sex," 8% sometimes skipped birth control altogether to save money, and 18% of women on the Pill reported using it inconsistently to cut costs. 23% are having a harder time affording birth control than in the past, and that "rises to one out of three among financially worse-off women."

Beyond the bullet points, the survey shows, as the report puts it, that "Family planning and childbearing decisions are not made in a vacuum, but have always been influenced by broader economic and other external forces." It's hard to believe we needed a survey to demonstrate that, but apparently, it still needs to be said. And while healthcare reform is the issue of the hour, let's not forget what Amie Newman notes over at RH Reality Check:

Pregnancy and cesarean sections can both be considered "pre-existing conditions" for which women are denied coverage. According to Think Progress, most individual health insurance markets don't cover maternity care services either. All of these kinds of policies leave women struggling to pay for the reproductive health decisions they make – in more ways than one.

I spent my entire adult life in Canada until 2005, and when I moved back to the U.S., I started looking at the cost of private health insurance, since coverage doesn't come with a freelance writing career. That was the first time I realized that a "maternity rider" costs a lot extra, and the expense was already so great I chose to gamble and skip health insurance entirely. (I went without it for three years until I got married last winter. Lucky me, being allowed to get married.) I had no desire to have a baby any time soon, but that was the first time it really hit me: I could neither afford to get pregnant by accident nor to be insured just in case. In Canada, I'd taken it for granted that if I got knocked up, my decision about whether to proceed with the pregnancy would be entirely based on my feelings about raising a child. Crossing the border meant I suddenly had to consider the cost of prenatal care and giving birth, let alone keeping the kid in food and shoes. And even for someone financially stable, those costs were great enough to potentially be a dealbreaker. It's ridiculous.

So it's nice to see a report like this highlighting the role economic considerations play in family planning. Now it would just be nice if we could get it together to address the problem with a more workable solution than "If you can't afford to get pregnant, don't spread your legs."

RECESSION HAS DRAMATICALLY RESHAPED WOMEN'S CHILDBEARING DESIRES [Guttmacher Institute]
To Have A Child or Not? Sometimes It's All About the Economy Finds Guttmacher Institute [RH Reality Check]

Another new wrinkle in the analysis of recent abortion statistics is that women who have abortions now are much more likely to already be mothers than women who had abortions 30 years ago. Back then, most of the women getting abortions were teens and college students. According to NOW President Kim Gandy, "Women are making a decision, 'Can I feed another mouth? Did my husband leave me with three other kids? Is this going to mean that I can't feed my kids?' There is a real life decision that a woman has to make."

Day Gardner, the president of the National Black Pro-Life Union, claims that the number of inner city abortion clinics is the reason for higher rates of abortion among black women. She tells the L.A. Times, "It doesn't have as much to do with poverty as that the abortion facilities are there, ingrained in the neighborhoods." (Riiiight — these women are mere abortion pawns, not adults with their own agency who have made the choice that's right for them. Think of the children!) Unfortunately, the anti-choicers are getting their way in some cases, as University of Alabama assistant political science professor Michael J. New tells the Washington Post, "The states with the most active pro-life laws have seen the biggest abortion declines."

Abortion Rate Is Down, But Report Cites Racial Disparity [LAT]
The Changing Face of Abortion [Newsweek]
Study Finds Major Shift In Abortion Demographics [Washington Post]

Louisa Bradshaw Jessop gave birth to a son — her third child — in Austin, Texas. Jessop says that she is 22, though state authorities believe her to be 17. Jessop's husband, Rulan Danial Jessop, 24, "filed a habeas corpus petition in Austin last Wednesday that argues his wife is being improperly detained by the state," according to the Salt Lake Tribune. For now, a Texas judge has allowed a temporary restraining order against the Department of Family and Protective services to prevent them from moving Louisa and her baby to San Antonio.

We don't know how big Louisa's baby is, but if it is a super wee one, the boy has a greater chance of growing into an angry young man. According to research from the University of Helsinki, low birth rate and slow growth in childhood lead to "increased levels of hostility in adults," and this hostility is a harbinger of health troubles like heart issues and type 2 diabetes. Maybe that woman who's still breastfeeding her eight-year-old is just doing it to prevent her child's ire!

28 Million Women At Risk Of Unwanted Pregnancy [Reuters]
Second FLDS Mother Gives Birth While In Texas Custody [Salt Lake Tribune]
Smaller Babies Become Hostile Adults: Study [Newser]

Earlier: At What Age Is A Kid Too Old To Breastfeed?