Florida abortion ban sends Palm Beach County woman to Illinois
The Palm Beach County woman couldn’t get the healthcare she needed to end her pregnancy in Florida. So she traveled 1,200 miles to where it was legal.
The math behind an unintended pregnancy is not complicated.
A woman whose reproductive years span four decades with a monthly menstrual cycle can expect to ovulate — release an egg that can then be fertilized by sperm — at least 400 times.
That can add up to a lot of opportunities to get pregnant.
The math of preventing an unintended pregnancy is more complicated.
That can include the number of hurdles between a woman and effective contraception — whether a medical appointment is needed, whether the method is covered by insurance and the cost. It also includes a method’s failure rate — how many people out of 100 get pregnant in the first year of using a method and how many of those are due to the human factor known has user error.
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Birth control pills, for example, have a failure rate that can be close to zero — with 0.3% of women on the pill becoming pregnant in the first year of using it — with “perfect use.” That would be never missing a pill and taking it at the same time each day. With “typical use” — in everyday lives with pill-taking schedules diverted by unexpected events — as many as seven out of 100 women might become pregnant in the first year on the pill, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Still, the pill is among the more effective methods of birth control. By comparison, condoms have a failure rate of from 2% with perfect use to 13% with typical use. But while condoms can be found at convenience stores, until recently getting birth control pills required finding medical care.
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In the past year, in what Dr. Chelsea Daniels of Planned Parenthood calls “a revolutionary breakthrough,” birth control pills became available for the first time without a doctor’s prescription.
Still she notes, an obstacle remains. While insurers are required to cover prescribed birth control pills, they do not have to pay for ones sold over the counter. The cost, about $60 for a three-month supply, can be out of reach for some women, Daniels said.
In what could be the next breakthrough, the Biden administration has just proposed a new rule that would require private insurers to cover the costs of over the counter birth control methods including birth control pills, condoms and emergency “morning after” contraception.
The federal rule, however, would not affect people on state-controlled Medicaid, the insurance for those with the least money to spare.
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Birth control: Effectiveness vs. side effects
Every method of birth control comes with considerations of priorities, Daniels notes.
Intrauterine devices, which are inserted in a medical setting, with a failure rate of close to zero and no risk of user error, are covered by most insurance plans including Medicaid. But if they’re not covered, they can be expensive — around $1,500. Insertion can be painful. Some women experience unexpected bleeding between menstrual periods, that they find unacceptable.
Another highly effective measure has gained popularity since the Dobbs Supreme Court decision two years ago reversed Roe v. Wade and cost millions of people access to abortions in their own states. Demand for vasectomy care, which Planned Parenthood began to offer it in the past year, has risen steeply, particularly among men in their 30s.
All patients have different priorities, Daniels notes.
She finds herself repeating one message the most often, though.
“Abortion doesn’t cause infertility,” She said. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve had one abortion or eight, abortion doesn’t cause infertility. It’s important that patients understand that.”
Antigone Barton is a reporter with The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at [email protected]. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
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Publish date : 2024-10-28 07:10:00
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