A significant amount of pregnancies that occur in the United States are unplanned, but with the amount of opportunities available for students to obtain birth control pills and contraception, it doesn’t make sense why.

By the age of 45, more than half of all women in the United States will have an unintended pregnancy and about one-third will have an abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Another shocking statistic is that 36.2 million sexually active women in 2006 were in need of contraceptive services and supplies and did not have means of obtaining them, the Guttmacher Institute said.

At Syracuse University’s Health Services, free condoms are given out to students and doctors are able to prescribe birth control pills at a reduced price to students who come in and make an appointment.

Planned Parenthood, which has an office on East Genesee Street, also gives out free condoms. In some states there are also a variety of programs allowing Planned Parenthood to give out birth control for free or at reduced prices. So why, with all of these methods of obtaining birth control, are there so many unintentional pregnancies?

‘I think that one of the ways we can help women is by making birth control affordable,’ said Betty Defazio, director of community affairs and public policy for the Syracuse and Rochester region of Planned Parenthood.

In New York State, there is a program called the Family Planning Benefit Program that helps low-income and no-income women obtain affordable birth control. Their eligibility is based on their income and the number of dependents they have. Minnesota also has a similar program to receive free birth control.

‘When women have access to affordable birth control, they are far more likely to be able to control the size of their families and plan their families more effectively,’ Defazio said.

Unplanned pregnancies among unmarried women in their 20s resulted in nearly 600,000 abortions in 2001, or half of all abortions nationwide, according to the most recent National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy study.

Defazio says to lower the amount of unintentional pregnancies there should be more opportunities of obtaining sex education for all students. This would better inform them about how to prevent unintended pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted infections once they become sexually active, she said.

A 2008 article published in the health guide of nytimes.com titled ‘Weighing the Health Benefits of Birth Control’ cites a study that says nearly one-third of women who start a new type of birth control stop within a year. This is usually because of a change in their insurance, resulting in the inability to afford the pill.

Women need to utilize their resources in a more efficient manner, so that 3 million women don’t have babies each year that they don’t want or have the ability to take care of. Using birth control, though not always effective, is better than having unprotected sex and leaving the chances of getting pregnant and sexually transmitted infections wide open. The statistics are already shocking enough.

Rebecca Toback is a sophomore magazine journalism major and the health columnist. Her columns appear every Thursday. She can be reached at rltoback@syr.edu.

Published on November 11, 2009 at 12:00 pm