[Mb-civic] Beyond Chastity Belts By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[Michael Butler]

The New York Times
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May 2, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Beyond Chastity Belts
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Abortion may be the single most polarizing issue in America today, but
there's one thing Democrats and Republicans mostly agree on: it would be
better if Americans had fewer abortions.

The best way to reduce the number of abortions, in turn, would be to reduce
the number of unwanted pregnancies. Every year, Americans have three million
unplanned pregnancies, leading to 1.3 million abortions.

So it should be a no-brainer that we increase access to contraception, and
in particular make the "morning after" pill available over the counter. That
would be the single simplest step to reduce the U.S. abortion rate, while
also helping hundreds of thousands of women avert unwanted pregnancies.

Plan B, the emergency contraceptive, normally prevents pregnancy when taken
within 72 hours of unprotected sex ‹ although it is most effective when
taken within 24 hours. It is now available in most of the U.S. only by
prescription, but the American Medical Association and the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have both endorsed it for
over-the-counter use.

President Bush's Food and Drug Administration has blocked that, apparently
fearing that better contraception will encourage promiscuity. But unless the
libidophobes in the administration mandate chastity belts, their opposition
to Plan B amounts to a pro-abortion policy.

One study, now a bit dated, found that if emergency contraceptives were
widely available in the U.S., there would be 800,000 fewer abortions each
year. And even though they are generally available only by prescription,
emergency contraceptives averted 51,000 abortions in 2000, according to the
Guttmacher Institute.

That's one of the paradoxes in the abortion debate: The White House
frequently backs precisely the policies that cause America to have one of
the highest abortion rates in the West. Compared with other countries, the
U.S. lags in sex education and in availability of contraception ‹ financing
for contraception under the Title X program has declined 59 percent in
constant dollars since 1980 ‹ so we have higher unintended pregnancy rates
and abortion rates.

Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have abortion rates only one-third of
America's, and France's is half of America's. France has made a particular
push for emergency contraception to lower its abortion rate by making free
morning-after pills available to French teenagers, without informing the
parents. Nurses in French junior high and high schools are authorized to
hand out emergency contraception pills.

That broad availability is the global pattern. While American women cannot
normally obtain emergency contraception without a prescription (by which
time the optimal 24-hour window has often passed), it is available without a
prescription in much of the rest of the world, from Albania to Tunisia, from
Belgium to Britain.

One thought that paralyzes the Bush administration is that American teenage
girls might get easy access to emergency contraception and turn into
shameless hussies. But contraception generally doesn't cause sex, any more
than umbrellas cause rain.

The reality is that almost two-thirds of American girls have lost their
virginity by the time they turn 18 ‹ and one-quarter use no contraception
their first time. Some 800,000 American teenagers become pregnant each year,
80 percent of the time unintentionally.

So we may wince at the thought of a 15-year-old girl obtaining Plan B after
unprotected sex. But why does the White House prefer to imagine her
pregnant?

Indeed, Plan B may be more important for teenagers than for adults, because
adults are more likely to rely on a regular contraceptive. Teenagers wing
it.

Granted, making contraceptives available ‹ all kinds, not just Plan B ‹
presents a mixed message. We encourage young people to abstain from sex, and
then provide condoms in case they don't listen. But that's because we
understand human nature: We also tell drivers not to speed, but provide air
bags in case they do.

The administration's philosophy seems to be that the best way to discourage
risky behavior is to take away the safety net. Hmmm. I suppose that if we
replaced air bags with sharpened spikes on dashboards, people might drive
more carefully ‹ but it still doesn't seem like a great idea.

So let's give American women the same rights that they would have if they
were Albanians or Tunisians, and make Plan B available over the counter.
It's time for President Bush to end his policies that encourage abortions.