Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

By Rachel Walden

With the unemployment rate higher than it has been in more than 20 years, news reports have begun to suggest that interest in fertility-controlling measures such as vasectomies and abortions may be rising, as well.¹ Although it is too early for comprehensive trend data (the most recent national data on abortion are from 2005), anecdotal reports describe increased interest in these procedures. In a recent New York Times article, a vasectomy provider reported experiencing a 13 percent increase in requests this year compared with last year, and a nearly 20 percent increase in visits to a website offering vasectomy information.² Providers who offer information about abortion and abortion fund coordinators also report increased levels of contacts and requests from the public.

This interest appears to be driven by the terrible economy, the significant costs of expanding a family, and very real concerns about continued access to reproductive and health care services. Yet, the anti-choice activists are responding by stepping up their efforts to reduce or eliminate funding for providers of critical reproductive health services. While anti-choice zealots historically focus on ending or limiting abortion services, they have recently seized upon the economic situation as a reason to deny private and public funding for the critical services provided by family planning clinics. Their argument is typically focused on Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), which receives approximately one-third of its budget from government grants and contracts, arguing that this organization is wealthy enough and does not need government support for its work to provide contraception, sexuality education, and non-abortion-related health services.

The Family Research Council (FRC) recently distributed talking points on “fiscal responsibility” to help others make this case.³ The FRC and other key players making this argument have long and vitriolic anti-choice histories, and the fiscal argument is simply a new spin on an old effort to restrict access to abortion specifically, and to reproductive health care in general.

Rather than acknowledging the reality that having a family costs money and working to ease the pain caused by the economic situation, anti-choice groups are actively working to reduce access to affordable health care, including reproductive health care and contraception. Yet, reduced access to reproductive health care will inevitably lead to an increase in the number of unplanned and unintended pregnancies -- and in the number of abortions women seek. As William Saletan argued in Slate, “If you think Planned Parenthood is sufficiently funded, fine. Write your check or award your grant to some other, smaller organization that does similar work. But don't imagine that defunding birth control will buy you fewer abortions. It will buy you more.”⁴

It seems obvious that in the current economy, many people have lost their jobs and their employee-sponsored health insurance. Even those who still have decent-paying jobs may reasonably be worried that they may become unemployed and lose their health insurance benefits. Given this situation, we need more access to comprehensive reproductive health care – not less – so that every woman can make the best decision about her reproductive choices, including whether or not to have a child at this time. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that interest in sterilization and abortion procedures increases as available funds decrease. The correlation between income and abortion rates has actually been noted before. For example, a 2002 Guttmacher Institute analysis noted that abortion rates decreased as income rose. Among those with incomes below 100% of the Federal poverty threshold, the abortion rate was 44 procedures per 1,000 individuals; for the highest-income women earning at least 300% of the Federal poverty threshold, the rate was significantly lower, at 10 abortions per 1,000 individuals.⁵ The need for affordable health services -- such as that provided by family planning clinics -- is greatest among those whose access to services, information, and opportunities are already reduced, and who lack private health insurance and other economic privileges.

Discussions about women and families who are carefully considering their reproductive and health care choices often overlook out one important fact, however: poor women have always faced this situation. (And, they have historically been targeted for coercive efforts to restrict their childbearing by forced contraception and/or sterilization efforts.) Worries about the affordability of health care and decisions about having additional children aren’t new -- they’re simply being experienced by a broader range of people than usual right now. One Planned Parenthood staffer who was interviewed by National Public Radio said it was “a very different decision today than it was a year ago to expand your family and to have a child.”⁶ For many low-income families, however, economic instability, limited access to health care, and concerns about reproductive and family choices are sadly familiar. For example, the Hyde Amendment forbidding public/Medicaid funding of abortion has been hampering low-income women’s access to health services since 1976. (For more on this topic and reproductive justice in general, see SisterSong’s Reproductive Justice Briefing Book.⁷)

While it is difficult to be optimistic about the current economic situation, it presents the opportunity for something good of it -- a broader understanding of the decisions and stresses faced by low-income individuals and families, the tenuous nature of access to health care in the U.S., and the need for all people to have access to affordable care -- including family planning.

Rachel R Walden, MLIS is a medical librarian and blogger for Women’s Health News and Our Bodies Our Blog.

References:

1. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey,” Washington, DC, 2009. Accessed on-line http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_num.... See also National Partnership for Women and Families, “Statistics Show Drop in Births, Lower Demand for Infertility Services During Recession,” Daily Women’s Health Report, May 27, 2009. Available online at: http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?abbr=daily2_&page=NewsArticle&id=17563&security=1201&news_iv_ctrl=-1
2. Alderman L, “Uptick in Vasectomies Seen as Sign of Recession,” New York Times, April 10, 2009. Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/health/11patient.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=vasectomies&st=cse; and Alderman L, “Birth Control Options for Women, New York Times, April 10, 2009. Available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/health/11tube.html?ref=health
3. Simon S, Abortion Foes Open a New Front, Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2008. Available online at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122887137793993355.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
4. Saletan W, “The Pro-life Case for Planned Parenthood” Slate, Thursday, December 11, 2008: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/humannature/archive/2008/12/11/the-pro-life-case-for-planned-parenthood.aspx
5. Jones RK, Darroch JE, Henshaw SK. “Patterns in the socioeconomic characteristics of women obtaining abortions in 2000-2001,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 2002; 34(5):226-35. Available online at: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.html
6. Lohr K, “Economy Puts Focus On Family Planning,” All Things Considered, March 19, 2009. Available online at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102128206
7. SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, Reproductive JusticeBriefing Book: A Primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change, Georgia: SisterSong, June 2007. Available online at: http://www.protectchoice.org/downloads/Reproductive%20Justice%20Briefing%20Book.pdf