“Likely Increase In Births Has Some Lawmakers Revisiting
Cuts”
Lawmakers passed
a two-year budget in 2011 that moved $73 million from family planning services
to other programs, which they are now paying the price for. It is causing birth
rates to increase and in the long-run, costing them more in health care. This
law would only benefit people that don’t believe in birth control or wealthy
people that can afford alternative forms of contraception. This is especially
harmful to people in low-income areas and people of color that have a harder
time accessing birth control and often can’t afford to health insurance. The
article says, “Poor women will deliver an estimated 23,760 more babies than
they would have, as a result of their reduced access to state-subsidized birth control.”
That statistic speaks volumes about how much influence this new law is already
having on already increasing birth rates. This will increase health care costs,
population rates and children born into unfit families. The author of the
article, Emily Ramshaw, says, “The additional cost to taxpayers is expected to
be as much as $273 million — $103 million to $108 million to the state’s
general revenue budget alone — and the bulk of it is the cost of caring
for those infants under Medicaid.”
Personally, I know a lot of girls that have utilized plan parenthood and
depended on the free contraception they offer to protect them. Without plan
parenthood and the option of free contraception, we will have an increase in
unprotected sex and unplanned pregnancies. The government thought they would
benefit from the new law but in reality, no one really benefitted from the
decrease in funding towards family planning services. In fact, most people lose
from these new laws and it will lead to more negative than positive outcomes.
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