Georgetown University Lack of Access to Family Planning Services Discussion Please post your thoughts about the reading. You are encouraged to make 4 separ

Georgetown University Lack of Access to Family Planning Services Discussion Please post your thoughts about the reading. You are encouraged to make 4 separate points so as to make the grading straightforward. Why access to the pill is more important than you thought | Wor…
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/viagra-birth-control-…
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Free Viagra but no birth control?
Here’s how that works out
economically
55 million American women risk losing access to family planning. The consequences will affect an
entire nation
Image: REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
18 Oct 2017
Stéphanie Thomson
Writer
“There is, perhaps, one invention that historians a thousand years in the future will look
back on and say: that defined the 20th century,” The Economist wrote in 1999. “That
invention is the contraceptive pill.”
To some, this might sound like hyperbole. After all, the 1900s gave us such life-
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changing innovations as the world wide web, microprocessors and airplanes. But to
think that way would be to vastly underestimate how much this tiny pill has changed the
modern world.
By allowing women to choose if and when they would have children, the contraceptive
pill ushered in a cultural, gender and economic revolution. But now that revolution is at
risk of stalling. Thanks to a change of policy, it just became a lot more difficult for
women in the US to access this miracle drug.
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, far fewer women in the US had to fund their own family planning
Image: Kaiser Family Foundation
A healthcare system that covers Viagra but not the
pill
It’s hard to wrap your head around these latest developments without at least a basic
understanding of the US healthcare system, and in particular the changes it has
undergone in recent years.
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Because group policies tend to be more affordable than individual ones, the majority of
Americans get their health insurance through their employer. This means that the level
of coverage someone receives very much depends on their company’s generosity.
Until relatively recently, many companies chose not to cover birth control, meaning that
women generally faced higher out-of-pocket health costs than men. In 1998, for
example, only 33% of large group health plans covered oral contraception. That same
year, when the male impotence drug Viagra hit the market, more than 50% of
prescriptions received coverage.
The Affordable Care Act – also known as Obamacare – changed that, requiring
insurance companies to cover all FDA-approved contraception. There were a few
exceptions – churches and some religious groups, for example – but the impact was still
enormous. Within two years, the share of women paying for oral contraception fell from
almost 21% to 3.6%.
This month, those exceptions became much broader. In keeping with a campaign
pledge, the Trump administration announced that any company with “sincerely held
religious beliefs or moral convictions” can refuse to cover contraception. This means
that 55 million American women who currently have access to free birth control risk
losing their coverage.
The socio-economic case for birth control
While the administration’s announcement was heavy on spiritual and moral references,
many deeply religious nations do understand the economic importance of access to
birth control.
For example, the Philippines – the world’s third-largest Roman Catholic nation – has
committed to providing universal modern family planning by 2018. The pledge is part of
a larger government push to eradicate poverty.
Indeed, research suggests that these two things – family planning and poverty – are
inextricably linked. At the most basic level, when governments limit access to birth
control, it’s poorer women who bear the brunt. That’s what experts fear will now happen
in the US. “More affluent women will be able to pay out of pocket,” Martha J. Bailey
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explains. As a professor of economics, she has spent years studying the socioeconomic impact of access to contraception.
And for those who can’t afford the added cost? “Research suggests that unintended
pregnancies will increase,” Bailey points out. “It’s hard to say by how much, but we
know what happens as a result. In 2011, 42% of unintended pregnancies ended in
abortion.”
The relationship between poverty and family planning runs even deeper, though. All the
research points to the fact that reliable, affordable birth control helps empower women
economically. In 2005, for example, the economist Heinrich Hock found that between
1969 and 1980, women in the US with access to oral contraception were more likely to
enroll in higher education and 35% less likely to drop out.
Those same women then went on to better and higher-paying jobs than those available
to their mothers. Research from Bailey and two colleagues, Brad Hershbein and Amalia
R. Miller, estimates that the pill accounted for 10% of the narrowing of the gender gap in
the 1980s and 30% in the 1990s.
“The pill’s power to transform childbearing from probabilistic to planned shifted
women’s career decisions and compensation for decades to come,” the authors
concluded.
The multiplier effect
Why does any of this matter? Well for one thing, as the latest Global Gender Gap Report
points out, there is the issue of fairness. “There is a fundamental moral case for
empowering women: women represent one half of the global population and it is selfevident that they must have equal access to health, education and earning power,” the
report states.
But even if you don’t believe that women’s educational and economic empowerment is
important, family planning programmes still make sense. That’s because the positive
effects aren’t just felt by individuals. In fact, families, communities and even countries
benefit.
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“Malthusianism, one of the oldest models in economics, showed how childbearing can
affect the entire economy. This is still true today: the costs of unintended pregnancies
affect us all,” Bailey says. “Family planning programmes raise parental incomes and
reduce the incidence of child poverty and government expenditures on public
assistance.”
The genie is out of the bottle
What’s next for women in the US affected by this change of policy? Kitty Kolbert, a
former reproductive rights attorney, thinks government, business and citizens each have
a role to play.
“More pro-choice women in elected office and in key leadership roles across
government and business is important,” she says. “But equally important is for families
to register their displeasure openly and vigorously when companies and politicians deny
them access to these important drugs and devices.”
Whatever happens, Bailey is sure of one thing: women in America aren’t going down
without a fight. “I think putting the genie back in the bottle is going to be hard,” she
adds. “Women won’t give up their progress lightly.”
Written by
Stéphanie Thomson, Writer
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Explore context
Healthcare Delivery Systems
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‘Pink tax’ means women still pay more for goods and services
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/03/29/pink-tax-…
‘Pink tax’ means women still pay more for goods and
services
Nicole Zelniker, USA TODAY
Published 8:56 a.m. ET March 29, 2018 | Updated 11:28 a.m. ET April 3, 2018
Corrections and Clarifications: An earlier version of this story attributed data about women’s salaries to the
wrong year and provided an incorrect comparison of black women’s salaries. Also, the shaving products
company Billie was actually founded in 2017.
Is pink a luxury color?
That’s what Pascale Boistard, France’s State Secretary for Women’s Rights, asked on Twitter in 2014.
(Photo: Ben Pruchnie, Getty Images)
She was making the point that women pay a kind of “pink tax” whenever they are charged more for feminine
items, or even general services, such as dry cleaning.
Four years later, in the midst of Women’s History month, the question still looms.
Young girl’s clothes cost 4% more than boys’ clothing. Women pay 7% more than men for accessories such as tote bags and watches, 8% more for
clothing and 13% more for personal care such as deodorant, according to NYC.gov (http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Study-ofGender-Pricing-in-NYC.pdf).
“It doesn’t take any more chemicals to make women’s deodorant than men’s deodorant,” says Angela Hattery, director of the women and gender studies
department at George Mason University. “Part of the point is being able to take advantage of a group of people — in this case, women — by extracting
more resources from them.”
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And it’s not just these “taxes” that erode equality between women and men, but other obstacles and biases as well.
More: Why 401(k) investors might be more vulnerable to tech stock rout than they think (/story/money/2018/03/29/tech-stocks-rout-401-k-impact
/465873002/)
More: Rent is rising more slowly, easing strain on Americans (/story/money/2018/03/29/rent-rising-more-slowly-easing-strain-americans/467908002/)
More: Micro-influencers: How small businesses sidestep traditional advertising to grow sales (/story/money/small-business/2018/03/29/microinfluencers-how-small-businesses-sidestep-traditional-advertising-grow-sales/465217002/)
According to the American Association of University Women, women in the U.S. make 80% of what a man makes, according to 2016 data. Not only are
women charged more than men, but they’re not making as much.
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And, according to the AAUW, most black women make 63% of what white, non-Hispanic men make.
“Women make less money, particularly women of color,” says Dana Berkowitz, associate professor of sociology and women and gender studies at
Louisiana State University. “Taxing them has more devastating consequences.”
Plus-sized women are also at a disadvantage. Women often are charged more for plus-sized clothing, while men are not (http://www.buzzfeed.com
/sapna/old-navy-explains-why-it-charges-more-for-womens-plus-size-c?utm_term=.ddvm1mqX6#.mfdvMvp7d).
The average women’s size in the U.S. is about 14 (http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/11/13/old-navy-explains-why-woman-pay-more-for-plus-sizeclothing-petition-body-image-big-design/). Usually, that is where plus-sized clothing starts (http://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-05-10/plussize-could-save-retailers). Plus-sized women account for 67% of the population according to Plunkett Research, a global market research company
based in Houston.
“These companies know that there are plenty of women out there whose bodies don’t conform to their ‘traditional’ sizing charts but who still want to be
fashionable and keep up with trends,” says Ammarie Grassle, an Instagram model. “They’re using that fact to make extra money off us.”
Manufacturers justify the added expenses by stating that they use unique elements and design patterns on plus-sized clothing, which have more features
overall.
These women are in “double jeopardy,” Hattery says. She believes not only are they charged more because they are women, but also because of their
race or size.
But all over the world, activist organizations are fighting the pink tax.
Girl Talk HQ (http://girltalkhq.com/) works to educate Canadians about the price gap and gather enough support to get the government’s attention.
Some U.S. states are also working to fight the “tax.”
New York, for example, effectively ended the tampon tax in 2016, no longer taxing tampons as though they were luxury items. Also in 2016, California
introduced a bill that would outlaw gender-based pricing.
Companies such as Billie, a woman-oriented shaving company, do not charge more for feminine items. Founded in 2017, 75% of company employees
are women.
“I was actually buying men’s razors out of principal,” Georgina Gooley, Billie’s co-founder, says about why companies need to stop charging more for pink
razors. “Why charge women more for anything, right? There’s just no reason.”
Boxed, a bulk-item shipping company, is another company working to eliminate the pink tax by charging the same amount for men’s and women’s items.
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According to Ashish Prashar, the vice president of communications at Boxed, the company has made more money since charging the same amount for
men’s and women’s items because it has attracted more customers.
“We absorb the costs ourselves,” Prashar said. “It doesn’t matter if we break even on those products because it is the right thing to do.”
There are several things women can do before they shop to avoid the pink tax:
Compare prices:
Some companies will charge more for things such as dry cleaning women’s clothing, while some will not. Make sure to look up those brands beforehand
to get the best deal.
Buy men’s products:
Often, the only difference between a pink and blue razor is that the blue one works better. Shop down the men’s aisle to compare prices.
S p re a d t h e wo rd :
The more people know about the pink tax, the more pressure there is on businesses to charge women the same as men for the same products.
Spreading the word about the pink tax could be the key to ending it once and for all.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2pOZ4RT
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