Family planning perspectives
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Eighty-two percent of never-married American women aged 20-29 have had sexual intercourse; black women are somewhat more likely than white women to have had intercourse. In all, 53 percent of never-married women in this age-group had intercourse at least once in the four weeks preceding the 1983 National Survey of Unmarried Women. Black women are more likely than white women to have done so (62 percent compared with 51 percent). ⋯ Thirty-three percent of unmarried 20-29-year-olds have had at least one pregnancy (about 40 percent of those who have ever had intercourse). Thirty-two percent of sexually active white women have been pregnant, compared with 70 percent of comparable black women. Furthermore, whereas 14 percent of white 20-29-year-olds have had an out-of-wedlock birth, 62 percent of black women have done so.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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In 1983, the federal and state governments spent +340 million to provide contraceptive services--four percent more than they spent during the previous year. Title X of the Public Health Service Act, still the leading source of funding, accounted for +117 million, or 34 percent of all public expenditures. Almost as important was the +108 million (32 percent of total expenditures) provided through Title XIX of the Social Security Act (Medicaid). ⋯ Ninety percent of sterilization expenditures were made by the federal government--86 percent through the Medicaid program. In addition, the states and the federal government spent +71 million to provide 216,000 abortions in 1983. Unlike public funding for either contraceptive services or sterilization, almost all of the funding for abortion came from the states rather than from the federal government.