NEW YORK, February 22 (C-FAM) --
By Rebecca Oas, Ph.D.
A new Guttmacher Institute report on Uganda recommends increased access to contraception and abortion as a way to improve women's health and reduce unintended pregnancies. Yet the abortion advocacy group uses questionable data to push its priorities onto people who, it acknowledges, want children and reject abortion.
Guttmacher estimates that just over 54% of pregnancies in Uganda are unintended, and "[t]he high level of unintended pregnancy and the gap between actual and desired fertility in Uganda can be attributed largely to insufficient contraceptive use." According to 2006 data from the UN Statistics Division, the unmet need for contraception in Uganda is 38%.
By Guttmacher's reasoning, increased contraceptive access in Uganda would drive down the rate of unintended pregnancy. Yet the United States, which boasts an unmet need for contraception of only 6 - 7%, is also classified as having nearly half of its pregnancies as unintended (See Figure 1).
While experts call the concept of "unmet need" for contraception "baseless," it remains the basis for the United Nations Population Fund's call for $8.1 billion annually for family planning worldwide....
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