Public-sector savings resulting from expenditures for contraceptive services

Almost one in four U.S. women who use a reversible method of contraception rely on a publicly funded source of care, either a family planning clinic or a private physician reimbursed by Medicaid. According to three scenarios of alternative contraceptive use patterns, if publicly funded services were not available, these women would have between 1.2 million and 2.1 million unintended pregnancies over one year--substantially more than the approximately 400,000 they currently experience. If these women relying on publicly funded services were using no method of contraception, they would be expected to have more than 3.5 million unintended pregnancies in one year. In FY 1987, federal and state governments spent $412 million on contraceptive services for women who otherwise might not have been able to obtain them. If these services had not been available, the additional public costs for medical care, welfare and supplementary nutritional programs during the first two years after a birth or for publicly funded abortions would have totaled $1.2-$2.6 billion. These savings represent an average of $4.40 saved for every dollar of public funds spent to provide contraceptive services.