Is Your State One of 19 With Failing Reproductive Rights Grades?

If you think that the United States is doing fairly well in reproductive rights, you’re thinking wrong. A recent report card by non-profit gender equality organization The Population Institute suggests that most of the nation isn’t doing so hot.

The group criticizes states based on a handful of criteria: the effectiveness of their efforts, ability to prevent unwanted sexual contact (through mandatory and accurate sex education and access to emergency contraception), affordability (which seems to rely on federal plans for insurance), and access to women’s health clinics, such as Planned Parenthood. Of all 50 states and Washington D.C., 19 failed, and only four received A to A+ grades. The 19 that failed primarily consist of Midwestern and Southern states, while the four that did extraordinarily well – California, New Jersey, Washington, and Oregon – are almost exclusively on the West Coast.

As a whole, the country got a D+—noted for conversational hostility about reproductive rights and health and Congressional efforts to defund teen pregnancy prevention efforts. How’s your state doing?

Cover image courtesy of Shutterstock.

By Gwendolyn Wu on January 15, 2016
Gwen, a San Fernando Valley native, will be a second year in the fall at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she plans to double major in history and sociology. When not reporting on student government, being a student activist, or advising incoming first-years, she enjoys food, watching Community and Mad Men, and traveling. Someday, she hopes to cover a political or education beat for the Los Angeles Times.