Experts in teen pregnancy prevention were nervously holding their breaths as the Trump administration stocked key positions at the Department of Health and Human Services with advocates of ineffective abstinence-only sex education programs and opponents of birth control. Over the last couple of weeks, 81 teen pregnancy programs around the country have been informed that their grants will end in the next fiscal year, or as of June 30, 2018. “As public health experts and policymakers, we must normalize sexual delay more than we normalize teen sex, even with contraception,” she told PBS last year. Penny-wise and plain foolish: The bottom line of this chart from a Brookings Institution study shows that pregnancy prevention programs pay their way many times over. That’s because teen pregnancy rates have been coming down in the U.S. for years — and especially since the advent of the Affordable Care Act, which vastly expanded the availability of contraceptives, typically at no cost.

Source: Los Angeles Times July 18, 2017 21:59 UTC