Family Planning and Reproductive
Health in the United States
The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals hosts a Web site that provides information about emergency contraception. Photo courtesy of Laurence Penn, Dynamic Digital Media, and the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals.
The rates of abortion, sexually transmitted infections, and teen pregnancy in the United States are among the highest of all industrialized countries. In fact, almost half of the 6.3 million pregnancies in the United States each year are unintended. The burden of poor reproductive health falls particularly hard on those with low incomes, teens, and women of color. The Foundation makes grants in three areas to address these problems:
Supporting effective family-planning policies. The Foundation supports changes in policy to increase the availability of reproductive-health services through such means as expanding scientifically accurate sex education in schools and increasing federal funding for Title X and Medicaid.
According to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a Foundation grantee, expanding federal funding to Medicaid for family planning would significantly reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions, and result in a net savings in federal spending as well.
As a result of this research, legislation has been introduced in the Senate to adopt this strategy. While the legislation is still working its way through Congress, we are confident that the independent research of our grantees will help improve public policy on this issue.
The effective regranting of the Ms. Foundation, another Hewlett grantee, to state coalitions, contributed to the decisions in three states to reject federal funds for abstinence-only-until-marriage sex-education programs, bringing to nine the total that have rejected the funds. Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs have been shown to be ineffective in reducing teen pregnancy. In 2007, two states—Colorado and Washington—passed bills mandating sex education in schools.
Supporting access to information and services. Opinion polls continue to show strong public support for a wide array of reproductive services and health information.
Thanks in part to the success of Foundation grantees, sixty U.S. medical schools now use curricula that provide reproductive health education; sales of emergency contraception have doubled since the Food and Drug Administration authorized over-the-counter emergency contraception for adults in 2006; and fourteen states now require hospitals to provide women with information about emergency contraception.
Engaging new constituencies to broaden support for family planning and reproductive health. Our grantees are helping low-income communities of color advocate for better family-planning and reproductive-health services through policy briefings. They are also conducting and disseminating research, hosting conferences, and training activists to get their message out.
In 2007, we funded two Latina reproductive-health organizations to conduct research that can be used to advance their public education and advocacy efforts.
Family Planning and Reproductive Health in the United States Grants authorized in 2007.
2008 Goals
- Encourage four additional states to reject federal abstinence-only-until-marriage funds and promote the reduction of federal abstinence-only-until-marriage appropriations
- Support grantees that continue to work to increase family planning through Medicaid
and Title X
- Continue advocacy against state-level restrictions on safe abortion services
- Promote the requirement that hospitals provide information about emergency contraception to sexual-assault survivors
- Support research about the reproductive health needs of Latinas and increase the number of activists recruited by organizations that serve women of color
For more information, please visit the Foundation Web site.
