INSTITUTE INDEX: The South's unintended pregnancy problem drains public funds

Portion of U.S. births resulting from unintended pregnancies that were paid for by public insurance programs* in 2008: 2/3

Portion of U.S. births resulting from intended pregnancies that were paid for by public insurance programs: 1/3

Cost of births from unintended pregnancies to the states and federal government, including prenatal care, labor and delivery: $12.5 billion

Cost of those births to state governments alone: $5.2 billion

To the federal government: $7.3 billion

Number of U.S. jurisdictions in which at least 70 percent of births resulting from unintended pregnancies were paid for by public programs: 15

Number of those jurisdictions that are in the South, as classified by the U.S. Census Bureau: 12

Rank of Mississippi among the states with the highest proportion of births resulting from unintended pregnancies that were paid for by public programs: 1

Percent of Mississippi births resulting from unintended pregnancies that were paid for by public programs: 83

Percent in Louisiana, the state that ranked second: 80

Percent in Georgia, Kentucky, the Carolinas, and Arkansas, respectively: 77, 76, 75, 73

Number of states in which public costs related to births from unintended pregnancies exceeded half a billion dollars in 2008: 7

Amount spent that year in Texas, which along with California spent the most: $1.3 billion

Gross savings that resulted from public investment in family planning services in 2010: $12.7 billion

For every dollar invested in helping low-income women avoid births they don't want, Medicaid cost savings for pregnancy-related and infant care: $5.68

Percent of funding for Title X, the federal program that supports family planning services, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to eliminate in 2011 and 2012: 100

Amount that funding for Title X has decreased over the last two years: $20 million

Number of states where lawmakers have attacked family planning funding since 2010: 11

Of those states, number in the South: 3

Of those three Southern states, percent where over two-thirds of births resulting from unintended pregnancies were paid for by public programs: 100

* These include Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Indian Health Service.

(Click on figure to go to source. Many of the numbers in this index are from "Public Costs from Unintended Pregnancies and the Role of Public Insurance Programs in Paying for Pregnancy and Infant Care: Estimates for 2008," a recent report from the Guttmacher Institute.)