Tired of all those election maps? Here’s a new map to look at:
This one shows grades given to the 50 states for their progressiveness (or regressiveness) on reproductive health and rights. A report card put out by the Population Institute ranks states on availability of birth control, rates of unintended and teen pregnancy, access to emergency contraception and abortion, and sex-ed policy.
The worst state in the union? That would be Mississippi, which scores an F-. Eight other states failed too: Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Tennessee.
On the bright side: Go left coast! Washington state wins top honors with the only A+ in the union, while California and Oregon get straight-up A’s. (Not that the West Coast states are perfect. Looks like there’s some grading on a curve here.)
The report outlines the ongoing “political assault” on reproductive rights:
While Congress has rejected efforts by social conservatives to defund Title X, [the federal program that provides low-income and uninsured individuals in the U.S. with access to birth control and other preventive healthcare services,] several states have slashed their funding for family planning clinics, and, rejecting the overwhelming weight of research findings, many states are promoting abstinence education in lieu of proven comprehensive sex education curricula. Many states are adopting abortion curbs and other restrictions that are forcing the closure of family planning clinics. Several states are debating “personhood’ amendments to their constitutions that would potentially criminalize all abortions and restrict access to several forms of hormonal birth control.
That unimpressive record earns the country as a whole a C-.
