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Southwest Life Health And the West is History Community Travel

Birth-control program at risk

Without grant, Legislature must approve $5M in funding
Greta Klingler, center in green, of the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment’s Family Planning Unit, spoke last week about the importance of funding a birth-control program for long-acting reversible contraceptives during an open house at San Juan Basin Health Department. Dr. Larry Wolk, right, executive director and chief medical officer for CDPHE, also addressed the crowd of about 200.

It’s one of the terrific, sad ironies of the human experience:

Sex makes babies. Yet, our enthusiasm for sex – much like our biological ability to reproduce – has nothing to do with whether we are ready, able or willing to parent a child.

The tragedy of unwanted pregnancies is enduring. Ancient philosophers wrote of grief-stricken, panicked young women, barely older than children, committing suicide when they could not secure abortions.

Many public-health advocates say thousands more women and girls in Colorado may soon know that kind of desperation – unless the Legislature votes to dedicate $5 million to continuing an enormously effective, statewide program that provides teenagers and low-income women with long-acting reversible contraceptives, or “LARCs.”

Since 2009, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has supplied more than 30,000 teenage and low-income women with LARCs like hormonal implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs) – the safest, most effective types of contraceptive – thanks to a grant by a private donor.

On the open market, IUDs can cost anywhere from $500-$900 each. Over the long term, IUDs end up being cheaper than oral birth control and diaphragms, but until the state started administering the LARC program, IUDs’ hefty sticker price spurred many young and poor women to opt for less effective and reliable and eventually costlier forms of birth control.

Colorado’s LARC initiative is hugely successful, said Denver’s Greta Klingler of CDPHE’s Family Planning Unit, who was in Durango plugging the program Wednesday at San Juan Basin Health Department’s well-attended open house with CDPHE’s director Larry Wolk and 200 others.

Teen births drop dramatically

Since the LARC program started operating, Colorado’s teen-birth rate dropped 40 percent, sparing the state about $80 million in Medicaid spending.

“It’s reduced the abortion rate across Colorado, as well as infant mortality. You even see it trickling down in other statistical indicators – like, now, there are fewer babies born with abnormally low birth weight,” she said.

In La Plata County, where San Juan Basin Health Department has provided 533 LARCs, the teen-birth rate dropped 35 percent between 2009 and 2013.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, because of this initiative, the state now “leads the nation in providing the most effective forms of birth control to low-income and teenage women through Title X family planning clinics.”

The CDC found that in Colorado, 26 percent of the women aged 15-19 who used Title X services in 2013 opted to use LARCs, versus the national rate of 7 percent.

Grant funding for the LARC program is scheduled to end June 30, and CDPHE asked the Legislature for $5 million to continue it.

According to people who watch Denver closely, the bill is likely to pass in the Democratic-controlled House but widely expected to fail in the Republican-controlled Senate.

State Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, did not return calls requesting comment on her position. A similar measure sponsored by Roberts earlier this session failed when fellow Republicans voted to kill it in the Senate.

A social, economic issue

Local supporters say the medical, social and financial rationales for funding the LARC program are overwhelming.

Longtime nurse with Southwest Women’s Health Associates Karen Zink said, “I’ve seen some terrible, very sad things happen to women and young girls with unintended pregnancies,” describing increased risk of depression, birth defects, substance abuse and physical violence – for both mother and child.

“In my opinion, it’s an economic issue,” she said. “I don’t know if the Republican Party can see this. If we keep girls in school, they get in education, and they’ll get jobs and contribute to tax base. If they’re out of school, pregnant, they’ll never fulfill their job or educational potential and are much likelier to live on government subsidies.

Zink, who was voted “Best Nurse” in the Durango Herald Reader’s Choice Awards 2013, said, “As a taxpayer, I’m covering the cost of an unintended pregnancy: Let’s say a baby is born with problems and transferred to a hospital in Denver. That costs $500,000 – that problem could have been solved with LARCs, and with that money, we could afford a lot of LARCs.”

Zink said she was impatient with politicians who refuse to fund LARCs on the basis that contraception is immoral or somehow scientifically tantamount to abortion, noting that nationally, the loudest such opponents tend to be male.

“It’s easy for someone who isn’t likely to ever get pregnant in their entire lifetime to hold others in judgment about this,” she said.

Though staunchly pro-life, 59th District Rep. J. Paul Brown, R-Ignacio, said in an interview Thursday he isn’t judgmental.

“I don’t personally have anything against contraceptives at all,” he said.

He said he knew some legislators in his party had vowed to vote against the bill out of their belief that IUDs cause abortions.

“But I haven’t seen any proof of that,” he said.

In fact, fiscal conservative Brown said he was leaning in favor of voting for the $5 million bill despite his long-standing worries about the potential waste of taxpayers’ money.

“I haven’t decided how I’ll vote yet. But I know it saves abortions and money – and I am all in favor of that,” he said, though he also said he might change his mind on further studying the issue.

cmcallister@durangoherald.com

An earlier version of this article misstated Karen Zink’s title. She is a nurse.



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