Counting Contraception and Unintendeds

In 2000, the federal government established a national public health goal of reducing unintended pregnancies by 40 percent over the next 10 years. [Because, well, nearly half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, and that's kinda high.] The Alan Guttmacher Institute recently released a report ranking states' efforts to aid in reaching this goal. States were scored in three main categories: availability of contraceptive services, family planning laws and policies, and public funding for family planning services.

The results were a little surprising: The wealth and political leanings of a state weren't fool-proof predictors of rank at all. States as diverse as California, South Carolina, Alabama, New Mexico, and Wyoming scored in the top 10.

Minnesota ranked a mushy middling 28th overall, doing better in the public funding category and worse in service availability (with only 40 percent of women and 41 percent of teenagers in need of publicly funded contraceptive services having their need met). *Watch that rank fall* over the next few years as the consequences of new sex education guidelines and more conservative reproductive rights laws really kick in...

But looking at the performance of individual states obscures the overall picture -- that no state's doing particularly well. Even perennial top dog California only scored a 73 out of a possible 100. And the Washington Post reports that during the time of the study, 33 states made it harder for poor women and teenagers to obtain contraceptives and other family planning services. Unless things turn around dramatically over the next 4 years, we're looking at another public health goal that's all bark and no bite. Or condoms.