Colorado Republicans vote to defund award-winning program that reduced teen births by 40 percent
Republicans want more abortions too--those were reduced by 35%.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/30/1381522/-Colorado-Republicans-vote-to-defund-award-winning-program-that-reduced-teen-births-by-40
Colorado Republicans narrowly took over the state Senate last November and they're already working their magic on reproductive health. On Wednesday evening, an all-male Senate committee voted to defund a program that had reduced the teen birth rate in the state by 40 percent over four years. A day before the GOP voted to dismantle the program, the initiative had earned Colorado an award from the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association for providing outstanding public health access.
Dr. Larry Wolk, executive director and chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, brought the award with him to the hearing, just before the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee killed the bill on a 3-2 party-line vote.
“We have the will to make this program successful,” Wolk said. “The will of the governor, the will of a number of legislators, the will of evidence-based organizations ... who say long-acting reversible contraceptives are safe and the preferred method of birth control for these young women.”
The 40 percent drop in teen pregnancies was accompanied by a 35 percent reduction in teen abortions. Overall, the program, known as the Colorado Family Planning Initiative, saved the state an estimated $42.5 million. Originally, it had been funded through an anonymous grant. The legislation would have allocated $5 million toward expanding the initiative.
The successful effort to defund the program was fueled by runaway religious objections to the distribution of IUDs. Such birth control devices usually prevent an egg from being fertilized, but in very rare instances, eggs get fertilized anyway and the IUD keeps that egg from attaching to the uterine wall. To the religious fundamentalists who apparently control the Republican Party in Colorado, that amounts to an abortion.
