Guttmacher Institute

WASHINGTON -- Positive peer pressure from close friends is helping teens avoid risky sexual behavior, according to reports issued today on Capitol Hill.Rates of pregnancy, birth and abortion continue to drop among teens, according to a 50-state report released by the Alan Guttmacher Institute of New York.The institute reported these national trends for 1996 among women ages 15 to 19:* Pregnancy rates fell 4 percent from 1995, to 97 per 1,000 women.* Birth rates also fell 4 percent, to 54 per 1,000.

While contraceptives might seem readily available almost anywhere today, many health insurance plans actually do not include coverage of birth control, or neglect to give information about the coverage they provide.A new study says managed care organizations frequently offer no such coverage out of a misplaced concern about costs."It's undeniable that for an insurer to pay for pregnancy is many, many, many times more expensive than paying for contraception," said Rachel Gold, a researcher with the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a family planning research and advocacy organization that sponsored the study.

When Houston officials launched a frantic search for a child named Cindy Garcia, believed to be 10 years old and eight months pregnant, the nation was horrified. More so when the girl's mother said she had been running away from home since the age of 8 to have sex with her 22-year-old boyfriend.When the child and her boyfriend were found and the facts were clarified -- she is 14, not 10, and they had been living as husband and wife in a modest Houston bungalow decorated and stocked with baby things -- this horrific tale appeared to lose some of its edge.

With the Republican Party poised to reaffirm its position that abortion should be banned, an abortion-rights institute is to release a study today revealing that thousands of women who have had the procedure are affiliated with religions that crusade against abortion.The study of nearly 10,000 women nationwide who had abortions in 1994 and early 1995 found that despite the Roman Catholic Church's strong opposition to abortion, 31.3 percent of the abortion patients surveyed were Catholic. And 18.1 percent of the 10,000 patients identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians.

The number of abortions performed in the United States fell in 1992 to the lowest level since 1979, a decline that suggests a greater acceptance of unwed motherhood as well as a drop in availability of abortion in some parts of the country, a new study says.A survey by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York found that 1,529,000 abortions were performed in 1992. In 1979, there were 1,498,000 abortions. But that number rose, and throughout the 1980s it remained near 1.6 million, the researchers said.

Washington. -- If you wonder why President Clinton is risking another emotional war in Congress by trying to lift the 16-year ban on federal funding of abortions for poor women, let me say that the president knows some things that you need to know.The first is that the amendment banning the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortions for needy women has cost this nation a fortune in tax dollars, human anguish and social damage.Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., author of the amendment banning abortion funding for impoverished women, has charged that Mr. Clinton wants to ''coerce tax dollars'' from millions of Americans ''whose consciences forbid them from becoming accessories in perhaps a million more abortions per year.

A new national study on male sexual behavior, the most thorough examination of American men's sexual practices published since the Kinsey report more than four decades ago, shows that about 2 percent of the men surveyed had engaged in homosexual sex and 1 percent considered themselves exclusively homosexual.The figures on homosexuality in the study released yesterday by the Alan Guttmacher Institute are significantly lower than the 10 percent figure that has been part of the country's conventional ,, wisdom since it was published in the Kinsey report.

Early editions of The Sun on Tuesday incorrectly referred to the Alan Guttmacher Institute in second reference as Mr. Guttmacher. In fact, Dr. Guttmacher, a Baltimore and New York obstetrician for whom the institute was named, died in 1974.The Sun regrets the error.WASHINGTON -- Forty-five percent of teen-agers seeking abortions consult their parents in states where they are not required by law to do so, the first major study in a decade of teen-agers and abortions shows.Overall, in 61 percent of the cases, at least one parent knows of the their daughter's decision.

Moral EquivalentsnTCEditor: The changing attitude of the Justice Department toward the plight of prisoners (as reported in The Sun, Jan. 15) is a disgrace. Overcrowding in prisons is a violation of the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. Part of society's rationale for incarcerating criminals is that the rule of law demands a moral consistency that is lacking among those imprisoned. How can the moral requirements of the law be reconciled with the moral expediency of inadequate prison space?

MEXICO CITY -- It's been years since Dr. Rosa Luz Castro treated the 23-year-old woman she calls Josefina. But her memory of the experience is a vivid reminder of an abiding condition in Latin America.Josefina staggered into the emergency room of Mexico City's women's hospital late one December night. "She was screaming: 'I'm dying. I had an abortion. Help me,' " Dr. Castro recalled. She was soaked with blood.In examining the woman, the doctor found a thin plastic rod, shaped almost like a knitting needle.

Bay bridge driver impaired, imprudent In the article "No criminal charges in fatal Bay Bridge accident" (Dec. 19), Queen Anne's County State's Attorney Frank M. Kratovil Jr. is quoted as saying that Candy Lynn Baldwin's actions in causing the accident in August do not fall within the "gross negligence" requirement for manslaughter. Ms. Baldwin was sleep-deprived and had been drinking prior to the accident that took John Robert Short's life. Obviously her judgment and driving skills were impaired.

Red Line plan just isn't rapid enough A rapid east-west mass transit route is definitely something this city needs ("Getting on board," Dec. 10). But "rapid" is the key word, and the 4C alternative the city seems almost certain to pursue would be anything but rapid. Under the 4C plan, it would take 41 minutes to get from Bayview to the Social Security administration headquarters in Woodlawn. According to the Maryland Transit Administration's timetables and my own commuting experiences, the No. 40 "Quickbus" now runs that route in 45 to 50 minutes.

Emergency contraception, or the "morning-after pill," is playing a growing role in reducing abortions in the United States and may account for almost half of the recent decline in abortions, according to a new study by a leading reproductive health research center. The study, by researchers at the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York, involved surveying a nationwide representative sample of more than 10,000 abortion patients in 1994 and 2000. During that period, the number of abortions fell from 1.4 million in 1994 to 1.3 million in 2000, while the use of emergency contraception increased slightly.

WASHINGTON -- Positive peer pressure from close friends is helping teens avoid risky sexual behavior, according to reports issued today on Capitol Hill.Rates of pregnancy, birth and abortion continue to drop among teens, according to a 50-state report released by the Alan Guttmacher Institute of New York.The institute reported these national trends for 1996 among women ages 15 to 19:* Pregnancy rates fell 4 percent from 1995, to 97 per 1,000 women.* Birth rates also fell 4 percent, to 54 per 1,000.

While contraceptives might seem readily available almost anywhere today, many health insurance plans actually do not include coverage of birth control, or neglect to give information about the coverage they provide.A new study says managed care organizations frequently offer no such coverage out of a misplaced concern about costs."It's undeniable that for an insurer to pay for pregnancy is many, many, many times more expensive than paying for contraception," said Rachel Gold, a researcher with the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a family planning research and advocacy organization that sponsored the study.

With the Republican Party poised to reaffirm its position that abortion should be banned, an abortion-rights institute is to release a study today revealing that thousands of women who have had the procedure are affiliated with religions that crusade against abortion.The study of nearly 10,000 women nationwide who had abortions in 1994 and early 1995 found that despite the Roman Catholic Church's strong opposition to abortion, 31.3 percent of the abortion patients surveyed were Catholic. And 18.1 percent of the 10,000 patients identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians.

When Houston officials launched a frantic search for a child named Cindy Garcia, believed to be 10 years old and eight months pregnant, the nation was horrified. More so when the girl's mother said she had been running away from home since the age of 8 to have sex with her 22-year-old boyfriend.When the child and her boyfriend were found and the facts were clarified -- she is 14, not 10, and they had been living as husband and wife in a modest Houston bungalow decorated and stocked with baby things -- this horrific tale appeared to lose some of its edge.

The number of abortions performed in the United States fell in 1992 to the lowest level since 1979, a decline that suggests a greater acceptance of unwed motherhood as well as a drop in availability of abortion in some parts of the country, a new study says.A survey by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York found that 1,529,000 abortions were performed in 1992. In 1979, there were 1,498,000 abortions. But that number rose, and throughout the 1980s it remained near 1.6 million, the researchers said.

A new national study on male sexual behavior, the most thorough examination of American men's sexual practices published since the Kinsey report more than four decades ago, shows that about 2 percent of the men surveyed had engaged in homosexual sex and 1 percent considered themselves exclusively homosexual.The figures on homosexuality in the study released yesterday by the Alan Guttmacher Institute are significantly lower than the 10 percent figure that has been part of the country's conventional ,, wisdom since it was published in the Kinsey report.

Washington. -- If you wonder why President Clinton is risking another emotional war in Congress by trying to lift the 16-year ban on federal funding of abortions for poor women, let me say that the president knows some things that you need to know.The first is that the amendment banning the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortions for needy women has cost this nation a fortune in tax dollars, human anguish and social damage.Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., author of the amendment banning abortion funding for impoverished women, has charged that Mr. Clinton wants to ''coerce tax dollars'' from millions of Americans ''whose consciences forbid them from becoming accessories in perhaps a million more abortions per year.