A Super Simple Way To Cut Teen Pregnancy and Abortion Rates by 75%

[progree]

15. Huh? Looks like a big problem to me

Reading the graph, the pregnancy rate is 56 per 1000 teen women, or 5.6%. And that's per year. Like you say, the Guttmacher statistics are for all teen women, not just the sexually active ones. So it's somewhat higher rate for the sexually active ones.

This from the Population Connection Reporter 10/2011 -

49% of US pregnancies a year are unintended. Unintended pregnancies cost American TAXPAYERS $11 billion a year for women and their infants up to age one (and of course still more after age one).

Only 0.8% of women using the copper IUD become pregnant within one year, and only 0.2% for the hormonal IUD. Hormonal implants (Implanon) have a failure rate of only 0.05% (1/2,000).

In contrast, the failure rate of birth control pills is 9% ((1 in 11 chance per year, or over 5 years a 38% chance (1 - .91^5) )), primarily through incorrect or inconsistent use.

As for access - many women do find the highly reliable forms of birth control to be prohibitively expensive -- according to The Nation 12/19/12, the IUD is $800 to $1000 up front (though it lasts many years). Thus they may opt for less reliabile methods such as birth control pills, which though they are inexpensive in the short run, still at $30 - $50 a month, it is still quite a hit on a low income person's budget.

That's why the Obama administration has pushed so hard to include free contraceptive coverage in the Affordable Care Act.