Thursday, December 20, 2007

Let 'em fornicate

For the record, this is my theory in terms of economic impact:

availability of low cost birth control < unplanned pregnancy < government funded abstinence programs

What I'm getting at here is, economically, the most efficient thing that could be done is to correct the mistake, in the Deficit Reduction Act from 2005 which led to the large price increases in birth control available from on-campus medical providers. College and university health centers were accidentally left off the list of providers eligible for pharmaceutical discounts. Furthermore, spending $1 billion dollars on an abstinence program that provides no signs of success, instead the teen birth rate has increased for the first time in 14 years. It seems like the least efficient thing we could be doing is funding this sort of program... maybe we'd be better off just letting this one go.

More from Slate.

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