Family planning perspectives
-
In 1979, federal and state governments spent a total of $285 million to finance family planning clinic services in the United States. As a result, about 695,000 pregnancies (239,000 births, 370,000 abortions and 86,000 miscarriages) were averted among low- and marginal-income patients; and at least $570 million was saved in government expenditures during the following year for childbirth, postnatal and pediatric care, abortions and welfare payments that would have been required in the absence of the clinic services. ⋯ Although teenagers accounted for only one-third of the clinic patients served in 1979, nearly half of the government savings can be attributed to family planning clinic services to women in their teens. Costs were greater than savings for patients aged 30 and older, but these older patients represent only 12 percent of the clinic patient population.