Digital Family Planning: the Future is Now
Irregular Bleeding Due to Contraceptives
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Contraceptive efficacy: understanding how user and method characteristics play their part
Strategizing treatment for chronic heavy menstrual bleeding
Untangling the literature on obesity and contraception
High tech apps for no-tech FABM
Menstrual exacerbation of other medical conditions
From Princeton University: Thomas James Trussell (1949-2018)
The Short and Long of IUD Use Duration
Selecting a Method When Guidance Isn’t Clear-cut
Healthcare in the Time of Digital Expansion
The Scoop on Two New FDA-Approved Contraceptive Methods
Pregnancy of unknown location—meeting the challenge
Big “yes” (with caveats) to CHCs during perimenopause
The role of IUDs (LNG IUDs, too!) in emergency contraception
Combined pills’ effect on mood disorders
Abortion in the U.S.: safe, declining, and under threat
Hope for ovarian cancer screening test
Breast cancer still a small risk with some hormonal contraceptives
Record rate of HPV-related throat cancer
Viruses in semen potentially transmissible
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Teens births declining but geographic ‘hotspots’ defy trend
Online Medical Abortion Service Effective and Safe
Do Women Really Need to Wait That Long?
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PMDD: Genetic clues may lead to improved treatment
Breast cancer risk when there is a family history
Body weight link to breast and endometrial cancers (and 11 others)
Family Planning in 2017 and Beyond
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Managing implant users’ bleeding and spotting
Zika: Updated guidance for providers
Pharmacist-prescribed contraceptives
Hot off the press! 2016 MEC and SPR
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Good news on the family planning home front!
War Against Planned Parenthood Hurts Women
Win-win for both treatment and prevention
Menopause, mood, mental acuity, and hormone therapy
Emergency contraception for teens
Postpartum Contraception: Now, Not Later
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Be alert to VTE in hormonal contraceptive users
LARC among teens increased 15-fold, but not enough
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Free tools: Easy access to the US Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use
Alcohol consumption when pregnancy is unwanted or unintended
Latest Data on Contraceptive Use in the United States
LateBreaker sampler from Contraceptive Technology conference
Emergency Contraceptive Pill Efficacy and BMI/Body Weight
Handout on Unintended Pregnancy and Contraceptive Choice
Ask About Withdrawal (Really!)
Rules to Practice By: Safety First and Cleanliness is Close to. . .
What’s Vanity Fair Got Against the NuvaRing?
Promising New Treatment for Hepatitis C
Numbers matter, so make them simple for patients
The Recession’s Effect on Unintended Pregnancies
Lessons Learned from the Contraceptive CHOICE Project: The Hull LARC Initiative
Applying the “New” Cervical Cytology Guidelines in Your Practice
Acute Excessive Uterine Bleeding: New Management Strategies
Medical indications for IUD use in teens

It’s 2016, yet in the United States today, reproductive health care is being censured by State lawmakers and governors. Planned Parenthood is victim to forces that want to diminish it. The resulting fallout from reduced access to reproductive health services hurts women’s health, especially the health of poor women. A recent analysis showed that de-funding Planned Parenthood clinics was associated with a drop in number of claims for LARC methods with a corresponding increase in the number of births.
In the summer of 2015, fraudulent videos meant to destroy and indict Planned Parenthood suggested that the organization illegally sold fetal tissue. Although soon discredited, the videos nonetheless spurred federal and state lawmakers to strangle funding for the often-beleaguered clinics that have so well served women. Since July, 23 states passed bills to drastically cut federal funding; 11 have so far done so.[1] What might be the consequence of curtailing services for millions of women, especially for indigent women who have few if any other options?
A recent study in Texas may offer insight on how negatively impactful those consequences may be. In 2013, Texas excluded all Planned Parenthood affiliates from its statewide fee-for-service family planning program. Claims data between 2011 and 2013 showed 35.5% fewer claims were made in the state for LARC methods.[2] The percentage of women returning on time for subsequent injectable contraception dropped from 56.9% to 37.7%. In counties affected by the funding cuts to Planned Parenthood affiliates, the rate of Medicaid-covered childbirth increased 27.1% within 18 months. These significant adverse changes occurred above and beyond any changes that resulted earlier from an 2011 action by Texas to cut Title V and Title XX funding, resulting in the closing of 82 family-planning clinics; one-third were Planned Parenthood affiliates.
“These findings have implications regarding the likely consequences of proposals to exclude Planned Parenthood affiliates from public funding in other states or at the national level,” write the study authors, who are with the University of Texas and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
In an earlier analysis, The Guttmacher Institute noted that Planned Parenthood was the sole safety-net providers in some areas, and in those areas with other providers, Planned Parenthood served far more contraceptive clients.[3]
It is more than contraceptive care that could be adversely affected, too. In Indiana, Planned Parenthood was Scott County’s only HIV testing center. After its 2013 closure, an HIV outbreak quickly followed.1 Further limiting reproductive health services, Indiana just signed a bill that bans abortions for fetal abnormalities and makes doctors performing abortions in those cases legally liable.1
–Deborah Kowal, MA, PA. Executive editorof Contraceptive Technology
[1] The state assault on women’s health. Op-Ed. New York Times, March 28, 2016.
[2] Stevenson AJ, Flores-Vazuez IM, Allgeyer RL, Schenkkan P, Potter JE. Effect of removal of Planned Parenthood from the Texas Women’s Health Program. N Engl J Med 2016;374:853-60
[3] Frost JJ, Hasstedt K. Quantifying Planned Parenthood’s crtical role in meeting th need for publicly supported contraceptive care. News in context. Guttmacher Institute website, Sept. 8, 2015.