Everyone Loves Birth Control

How much do we love birth control? With all credit (or apologies) to the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Power to Decide is here to help you count the ways. Everyone Loves Birth Control (updated in April 2020) is a handy resource that puts at your fingertips the latest public opinion research showing that birth control is widely supported and used. It also compiles key research behind the many benefits of birth control and what it makes possible - for women, families, and society.

Here are a few nuggets:

• Birth control is popular -- 85% of all adults (including 7 in 10 Republicans and 9 in 10 Democrats) agree that birth control is a basic part of women’s health care, and 87% of adults agree that everyone deserves access to the full range of birth control methods, no matter who they are, where they live, or what their economic status is. 
• Birth control is not controversial -- it consistently tops the list of issues that Gallup tests for moral acceptability. 
• Birth control improves maternal and infant health -- women who have an unplanned pregnancy are twice as likely to lack prenatal care as those with a planned pregnancy.
• Birth control improves educational attainment – 84% of adults agree that having the power to decide if, when, and under what circumstances to get pregnant contributes to educational and economic opportunity for teens and women.
• Birth control makes good business sense – 65% of Black female and 64% of Latina small business owners say access to birth control and the freedom to decide if and when to have children has impacted their business bottom line. 
• Birth control saves tax dollars – contraception is cited as a key factor in recent declines in teen pregnancy, and recent analysis finds that the 64% decline in the teen birth rate between 1991 and 2015 has resulted in $4.4 billion in public savings each year.

Despite its clear support and benefits, information about and access to birth control remain uneven and tenuous. We invite you to check out Everyone Loves Birth Control to count even more ways that birth control is popular and beneficial, and to use this information to make sure everyone has the power to decide if, when, and under what circumstances to get pregnant.