ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310017
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
CUTTING AND stalling U.S. aid for family planning in developing countries does not reduce abortion. Effective contraception does.
Congress should ponder this before deciding, sometime in February, whether to hand another Pyrrhic victory to abortion foes who last year won both dramatic cuts in this assistance and lengthy delays in distributing what money was left.
Studies from former Soviet-bloc countries, Latin America and Africa show that over 15 to 20 years, as contraceptives become widely available and women learn how to use them effectively, abortion rates drop substantially. Abortion rates also are lower in countries where modern contraception is used than in those where less effective, traditional methods are the norm.
The Office of Population in the U.S. Agency for International Development reports that in one study done in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, 73 percent of the women hospitalized for abortion reported that they were not using contraception when they became pregnant. A separate study, surveying married women in Turkey who said they had had an abortion in the previous five years, showed that 34 percent had not been using any contraceptive method, and 45 percent had relied on withdrawal - obviously not a reliable means of avoiding pregnancy.
In the capitals of both Colombia and Mexico, however - where U.S. aid has contributed significantly to programs expanding the availability of contraceptives - abortion rates have declined dramatically.
In Bogota, contraception use increased by one-third between 1976 and 1986, and the abortion rate fell by 45 percent, from 49 to 27 per 1,000 women. In and around Mexico City, contraception use grew about 24 percent between 1987 and 1992, and the abortion rate went down to 25 from 41 per 1,000 women.
Early next month, Congress is expected to vote on whether to release U.S. international family-planning funds earmarked for 1997 sooner - as early as March 1 - or later - not until July, nine months after the federal fiscal year begins.
A vote for sooner would be both pro-choice and pro-life.
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