Should policies aimed at reducing the number of abortions focus on prevention or punishment? At Planned Parenthood, the answer has always been a no-brainer.
The best way to reduce the number of abortions is through policies that prevent unintended pregnancies — policies, for example, that support medically accurate sex education and expand access to birth control.
Punishing women who have unintended pregnancies by restricting access to reproductive health care does nothing to reduce the number of abortions — it just makes them less safe.
In a recent editorial, the New York Times let the world know it agrees. Drawing data from the Guttmacher Institute’s 14th census of abortion providers, the Times gave a clear snapshot of the rate of abortion in the United States, arguing that if more were done to prevent unintended pregnancy, the abortion rate would be even lower still.
Singling out states that have the largest declines in abortion rates — California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia — the Times made a direct correlation between a decline in the number of abortions and the state’s commitment to comprehensive sexuality education and access to birth control:
The lesson: prevention works. Restrictions on abortion serve mainly to hurt poor women by postponing abortions until later in pregnancy.
The Times has clearly caught on to Planned Parenthood’s commonsense message about pregnancy prevention. Let’s hope it’s not too long before our nation’s policymakers do.