Study Finds Contraceptives Save $1.8 Billion Each Year

Public money invested in family planning services saves taxpayers an estimated $1.8 billion a year in funds that would otherwise be spent on medical, welfare and nutritional costs resulting from unplanned pregnancies, according to a new study released Thursday.

Publicly funded family planning services prevented up to 3.1 million unwanted pregnancies, according to the report issued by the Alan Guttmacher Institute. It estimated that without government support for these family planning services, between 1.2 million and 2.1 million unintended pregnancies would occur each year, and at least four in 10 of these would end in abortion.

The report provides the first data since 1979 on the cost effectiveness of publicly funded family planning services. It said the services “play an important role in the United States by allowing substantial numbers of women to prevent unintended pregnancies, births and abortions.

“The amounts spent to provide these services are small relative to those for many other types of health care, but they result in large savings,” added the study, which is being presented at the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. meeting here today. Almost one in four American women who use contraception relies on a publicly funded source of care, either a family planning clinic or a private physician reimbursed by Medicaid, the report said. (The figures did not include sterilization.) The institute, a nonprofit organization that conducts research and policy analysis on reproduction and health care issues, was formerly associated with Planned Parenthood but has been independent for the past 11 years.

In fiscal 1987, federal and state governments spent $412 million on contraceptive services for women who otherwise might not have been able to obtain them, the study said. Without such services, the additional public expenses for medical care, welfare and supplementary nutritional programs, or for publicly funded abortions, would have cost an estimated $1.8 billion.

“These savings represent an average of $4.40 saved for every dollar of public funds spent to provide contraceptive services,” the study said.

But the report added that public spending for contraceptive services, when adjusted for inflation, has actually declined during the last 10 years. It also noted that “political conflict about family planning services has meant continual battles over the existence of such services and the form they should take, as well as over levels of program funding.”

Susan Tew, a spokeswoman for the institute, said that she couldn’t “understand why anyone opposed to abortion could oppose contraceptive services. One reason we have so many abortions is because we have so many unintended pregnancies in this country.”

But Doug Johnson, a spokesman for the anti-abortion National Right to Life, said that “in recent years, these (family planning) programs have become entangled in abortion-related services. Some groups are trying to advance a pro-abortion agenda under the cloak of contraception.”

He called the timing of the Guttmacher study “no accident,” since the Senate is about to take up re-authorization for Title X of the Public Health Service Act, which provides support for family planning and education services. Since it was enacted in 1970, the law has provided millions of low-income women with access to comprehensive family planning, basic health screening and referral information. While no Title X funds may be used to pay for abortions, clinics may nevertheless refer women to other facilities that perform them.

The study referred to the recent decision by Gov. George Deukmejian to allow a $20-million family planning bill to become law without his signature. The study noted that in 1989 he had cut state funding to family planning clinics by two-thirds, saying he did not believe the services had saved the state any money.

Tew said that the institute was studying the California figures and was planning to look at the specific cost/benefit ratio there. “We hope to have that information in a couple of months,” she said. “We really want to point to that.”