How Family Planning Programs Save Taxpayers Billions of Dollars Each Year
Publicly-funded family planning services help low-income Americans avoid serious health conditions while saving billions of dollars each year, according to a new analysis — benefits that go beyond providing contraception that can prevent unintended pregnancies.
Past research from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports publicly funded family programs, already found that family planning services helped prevent an estimated 2.2 million unintended pregnancies in 2010, which would have resulted in about 1.1 million unplanned births.
A new Guttmacher report out Tuesday morning finds that the public investment in family planning actually saved taxpayers $13.6 billion in 2010 from the costs of those unintended pregnancies, as well as from other services the programs provide, like testing for sexually transmitted infections and cervical cancer.
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