Headline from Vox says it all: “St. Louis gave teens free birth control, and they now have very low abortion rates.”

Sarah Kliff reports on a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine on a unique program in St. Louis: 

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Since 2007, a program in St. Louis has offered teenagers free access to all types of birth control. They can choose pills, intra-uterine devices or any other FDA-approved contraceptive.

These St. Louis teens have had markedly lower pregnancy, abortion and birth rates than the rest of the country, new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows. This is what their pregnancy rates look like, compared to the rest of the United States [see chart above].

Kliff also notes that once financial barriers are removed, teens choose more effective forms of birth control such as IUDs. 

To the extent that the the goal of someone like Sen. Jason Rapert is to reduce the number of abortions, there are means which would be more effective than political grandstanding to pass unconstitutional laws. 

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