Comprehensive sex education
Comprehensive sex education (also called “abstinence plus” or “medically accurate”) teaches that abstinence is the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It also provides accurate, age-appropriate information on contraception, STIs, HIV/AIDS, and the implications of becoming sexually active. Exposure to comprehensive sex education does not cause teens to start having sex. In fact, it can help young people delay sexual activity. If young people who have received comprehensive sex education become sexually active during their teen years, they are more likely to use contraception and less likely to become pregnant. A recent poll found that 76% of voters nationwide favor requiring schools to teach sex education.

Funding for family planning
Half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Many negative outcomes are associated with unintended pregnancies, including inadequate prenatal care, maternal smoking and drinking during pregnancy, low birth weight babies, and poor post-partum health for the mother. The most effective way to prevent unintended pregnancy and to reduce the number of abortions is to support women who do not want to be pregnant in their efforts to use contraception regularly and effectively.

Publicly subsidized family planning programs are a cost-effective way to increase access to contraception and reduce unintended pregnancy. Over 40,000 women in Delaware are in need of publicly subsidized family planning services. Current programs cover only 50% of the population in need. Increased funding could prevent an additional 4900 unintended pregnancies and 2500 abortions each year. Every dollar spent to provide publicly funded birth control services saves approximately $3.00 in public costs for maternity and newborn care.

Roe v. Wade
In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the decision to have an abortion is a private one between a woman and her doctor, and that the only justifiable state interest in regulating abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy is to preserve the woman’s health. In Roe, the Court further ruled that during the third trimester of pregnancy, it is allowable for states to restrict abortion in order to protect the potential life of the fetus, as long as the law also provides protection for the pregnant woman’s health and life.

Refusal to Care for Patient Due to “Moral Objections”
In recent years, anti-choice groups and policy makers have tried to erode the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision through different methods. Some of these methods are under the guise of non-discrimination of health care provider beliefs. The most recent example is a proposed regulation that would allow any health care provider working for an entity receiving federal dollars from US Health and Human Services to refuse care due to “moral beliefs” regarding abortion or contraception. For example, if a woman comes into the emergency room of a hospital after being the victim of rape, she may be refused care and treatment for an unintended pregnancy where the normal course of treatment would include being offered emergency contraception or Plan B as it is also known, along with mental health counseling.

Waiting period/state-mandated counseling
Planned Parenthood trusts women as moral decision makers about their own reproduction. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is intensely personal. It is best made by a woman in consultation with her doctor and loved ones. Delaware women do not need the state to intervene by imposing a waiting period and biased counseling. Abortion services already include accurate and non-biased information on the nature, consequences and risks of the procedure, and on alternatives available to the woman, so as to assure an informed and responsible decision concerning the continuation or termination of the pregnancy.

Mandatory waiting periods delay abortions and impose substantial burdens on women. Research shows that when waiting periods are enacted, the percentage of abortions performed in the second trimester increases. The requirement of two trips to a clinic (one for “counseling” and the other for the procedure) means that women in rural areas, low-income women, women in abusive relationships, and women with small children face additional financial and logistical obstacles. Therefore, they delay their procedure as they scrape together money, childcare, and time.

Parental Notification for Abortion
Most teenagers involve at least one parent or legal guardian in the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Those who do not talk with a parent or legal guardian have compelling reasons, like the threat of abuse.

In 1995, the Delaware General Assembly crafted a compromise bill on this extremely difficult issue. The Delaware law requires that at least one parent or a grandparent be notified 24 hours before a teen under 16 years of age can obtain an abortion. If a teen refuses to have a parent notified, she has the option of going to a licensed mental health professional who will counsel her on her options and assess whether it is in the minor’s best interest to waive the parental notice requirement.

The Delaware law mandates some parental involvement for young teens, but simultaneously provides them with a bypass option that is less threatening than appearing before a judge.

Clinic regulations
Anti-choice groups have proposed that clinics where abortions are provided require special regulations. Planned Parenthood is opposed to targeted regulation of abortion providers because it is unfair, and perhaps unlawful, to impose regulations on clinics providing one type of service, which women have a constitutional right to obtain, without applying these rules to all outpatient settings. This strategy is clearly intended to limit access to abortion services rather than to make them safer.

Clinics that provide abortions are regulated to the same extent as other clinics and doctor’s offices where outpatient surgical procedures are performed. This is an appropriate level of regulation. More complicated surgical procedures such as plastic surgery, which may require several hours of general anesthesia, are frequently performed in outpatient settings. Abortion is one of the safest surgical procedures available. Most procedures last less than ten minutes and use only local anesthesia. The risk of death for a first trimester abortion is 1 in 200,000 and the risk of serious complications requiring additional surgery and/or hospitalization is less than one-half of one percent. Childbirth is ten times riskier than abortion.

Sources for additional information:
Planned Parenthood of Delaware - www.ppdel.org, 302-655-7296
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, www.plannedparenthood.org
Alan Guttmacher Institute, www.guttmacher.org