Family planning perspectives
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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.
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More than one in 10 legitimate births that occurred in the United States during 1968, 1969, and 1972 were not wanted at all, and more than one-quarter of the births were timing failures. A substantial reduction in unwanted childbearing took place between 1968 and 1972. The proportion of legitimate births reported by their mothers to be unwanted ever declined from 13 percent in 1968 to eight percent in 1972. ⋯ Viewed from the cross-sectional perspective of period rates of population change, the elimination of unwanted legitimate childbearing would have had a substantial effect on population growth in each of the study years even without decreasing marital mistimed births or illegitimate fertility. The data also suggest that eliminating unwanted marital childbearing could significantly reduce completed family size. However, this conclusion must be viewed with great caution, since we do not know the future variations in timing and spacing of births, and the extent to which the childbearing experience of the sampled mothers is representative of their birth cohorts.