Top 10 Reasons Insurance Companies Should Be Scrambling To Keep Abortion Legal

It's ironic—even tragic—how controversial legal abortion and contraception are in any discussion of health care, given that legal abortion:

1. Reduces the infant mortality rate in the U.S. and abroad.

2. Decreases the incidence of child abuse.

3. Is 14 times safer than carrying a pregnancy to term.

4. Is the safest procedure performed in the U.S. (when performed in the first 12 weeks, as most are.)

5. Reduces the maternal mortality rate. (Pregnancy is the 7th leading cause of death in young women.)

6. Can be soul and sanity-saving to women after rape.

7. Is a number one way to enable families to stay out of poverty.

8. Improves the educational achievement of girls & raises family income).

9. Is one of the few procedures that hasn't risen in cost in the last 20 years

10. Legal abortion created the concept of same-day surgery, informed consent, and patient counseling. What have Crisis Pregnancy Centers and clinic protesters done for us lately?

—Compiled by Carol Roye (a Professor of Nursing, a pediatric nurse practitioner who takes care of teen girls in NYC, and the mother of 6)