Breaking News: Increasing Family Planning Services, Decreases Teen Pregnancies

From Matthew Yglesias...

In a new Brookings paper, Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine reach the startling conclusion that when you increase the number of teenagers eligible to receive family planning services through Medicaid you get fewer teen pregnancies. Imagine that! It seems worth mocking but, honestly, the absurd thing isn't so much the research as that the relevant policies aren't already in place. For the record: "The authors estimate the policy cost of preventing an unwanted birth to be around $6,800. They conclude that this is a cost-effective policy intervention relative to other policies and programs targeted at reducing teen and unwanted births."

Health and Human Services Now Say the use of Contraception is Abortion

Last week I posted about one of McCain's surrogates saying that it isn't fair that insurance companies cover Viagra, but not birth control.

Well, on Monday the Department of Health and Human Services announced that they hope to define contraception as a form of abortion.

In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion. Doing so protects extremists under the Weldon and Church amendments. Those laws prohibit federal grant recipients from requiring employees to help provide or refer for abortion services.

McCain's Uncomfortable Position on Birth Control

Carly Fiorina, a McCain surrogate, said early this week that if is unfair that insurance companies cover prescriptions for Viagra, but not for birth control.

So the question was posed to McCain. His answer was filled with rolling of his eyes, an uncomfortable pause, and no comment...



See, McCain has voted against requiring insurance companies to cover prescription birth control.

He knows the Rightwing Dobson clan would be surely be upset if he was in favor of this. However, McCain knows that if he wants to appear moderate and attract women voters who were former Clinton supporters, he needs to be in favor of this.