Birth Control Affects Everyone – even people who never use it

I recently wrote testimony for a state legislative committee on family planning funding. My first “office” job was as a file clerk for a Planned Parenthood (they had paper files!); I got this job because my father was on their board. I can honestly say that birth control changed the direction of my life path. I hope you enjoy it!

If a healthy economy and healthy families are our goal, then a vote for LD 143 is the logical choice. This is because family planning supports those goals not only for the people using the service but also for everyone who does not.

Without easy access to a family planning clinic when I was in my 20s, I would have been a young mother and limited my own and my children’s life choices. Instead, I was able to choose when to have children and how far apart to space them. My children were in elementary school when I went back for a master’s degree in health policy. I am now an epidemiologist, and I specialize in poverty.

When women have more control over having children, they tend to have

• More education.

  • Women’s enrollment in and graduation from college surged in the 1960s and 1970s after the first birth control pill was approved by the FDA. (See the graph for percent of physicians who are female.)

• Employment and higher-paying jobs due to finishing their education

• Children who are less likely to be in poverty and are more likely to finish their education. This increases their lifetime earnings.

  Accessible birth control has

• Lowered the rate of teen pregnancy by 84% since 1990. This has dramatically reduced the number of children born into this kind of disadvantaged home.

  You may never use a family planning service yourself, but you have a doctor, lawyer, chef, nursing home aide, epidemiologist, and many other women in the workforce thanks to them having control over pregnancy. Each provides valuable services, pays taxes, and supports your community.

  Healthy communities are strengthened by people's ability to plan their own families. LD 143 makes that possible for women in our state. I urge you to vote in support.