A statistic being frequently touted by President Barack Obama that 99 percent of women have used birth control is false, according to
CNSNews.com.
The assertion, used to support the mandate that all healthcare plans provide free contraception, “appears to stem from a careless or misleading restatement of a sentence” in a 2011 report that recommended the contraception requirement, says CNSNews.com.
The report, by the Institute of Medicine which is funded by the Health and Human Services Department, actually says 99 percent of U.S. women between ages 15 and 44 who had sex ─ not all women ─ had used at least one form of contraception.
That 2011 study, based on interviews with 7,356 women ages 15 to 44, also noted that almost 14 percent — around 8.6 million — never had heterosexual intercourse.
Additionally, CNSNews.com says, the data gathered in 2010 by the National Center for Health Statistics found that 38.2 percent of American women were not currently using contraception — including almost 72 percent of those ages 15 to 19, and 45.3 percent of those ages 20 to 24.
“Nearly 99 percent of all women have relied on contraception at some point in their lives — 99 percent,” Obama gave as the explanation for the regulation. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, twice made the same claim on national television.
The contraception mandate has angered Catholic Church and other religious leaders because it requires faith-based hospitals, schools, and other institutions to violate their beliefs.
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