Essay about Free Contraception

Submitted By Peacelovelifexo
Words: 808
Pages: 4

Free contraception may prevent abortions
In this article, Elizabeth Landau introduces a new form of contraception, an "intrauterine device” or IUD. An IUD is a T-shaped device made of plastic that is inserted into the uterus to prevent pregnancy. She believes this longer-lasting alternative to condoms and birth control pills to be more effective in helping to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies in women as well as the number of abortions (esp. at no cost.) She uses an example of a study that was published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology that used over 9,000 women who were at risk for unintended pregnancy. Given the new contraception at no cost to the participants whatsoever, researchers came to find that the numbers decreased drastically cutting teen births among a group of women that used the contraceptive devices down from to 6.3 per 1,000 from the original national rate of 34.1 per 1,000! Studies also showed drastic changes in the number of abortions, preventing one abortion from every 79 to 137 women who participated. Landau discusses how the many researches done in the past that proves this new contraceptive method to be “as much as 20 times more effective than the birth control pill, the hormone patch and the hormonal vaginal ring.” She believes the IUD to be more effective than the methods used nowadays because the IUD does not require remembering to take pills every morning or to change a device in your body like with the vaginal ring. She points out the advantages such as these that make this device much more practical in the sense that it drastically lowers the risks of having an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. Landau wraps up the article by stating the only real downfall of the device to be its cost which is said to be cost-effective considering it can last anywhere from three to ten years, which if covered by health insurance, cost would no longer be a matter of debate. Other factors however play into part as well including clinicians’ concerns about exposing the generation of young women to this new method, the demographics used which were not tested on a large enough regions, and the limited amount of information about the effectiveness and overall efficiency of this device. Having said this, Landau proves that given all these factors, the IUD is still at a greater advantage in lowering the numbers for unwanted and unplanned pregnancies/abortions when it is being compared to the alternatives used in our generation today.
I agree with Landau that the IUD is a much more effective contraceptive than using birth control pills, condoms, or etc. in helping to prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies. If I was speaking on behalf of the women population I would say that most women would agree with the fact that it must be nice to not have to worry about condoms breaking and the forgetting of taking pills in the morning that later induces so much stress into the body to always have to worry about