Kelley Brooks Guest columnist

The term "family planning service" includes abortion, but more importantly encompasses a much wider range of healthcare options for women and their families. It includes contraceptive healthcare, including condoms and birth control, gynecological exams, counseling services and more.

The current administration is attempting to severely limit family planning services that are provided to millions of women and families in the United States every day by cutting funding to public healthcare programs as well as the availability of contraceptives provided by your local drugstore.

In addition, extremely conservative judges are being packed into the Supreme Court in order to make it virtually impossible for equity to exist for women within the public healthcare system.

Allison Baron Guest columnist

The government offers Title X funding in order to help provide family planning services as well as breast exams, pap smears, testing for high blood pressure, anemia and diabetes, screening for HIV and STIs (sexually transmitted infections) and counseling services in communities throughout the United States.

Despite this, Title X is extremely underfunded, receiving $278 million for the fiscal year of 2004, with no increase whatsoever for 2005.

Taking inflation into account, this funding is 57 percent less than it was 20 years ago.

This is interesting, considering that for pregnancy and newborn-related costs, federal and state governments save three dollars in Medicare costs for every one dollar spent on family planning services and community education, according to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

In addition to declining funding for Title X, comprehensive sexual education is being strongly challenged by the current administration.

Comprehensive sexual education promotes abstinence as the most certain way to prevent pregnancy and infection, but also provides accurate information about contraceptive use and disease prevention.

Rather than focusing on the negative consequences of sexual relationships, it promotes a healthy expression of personal sexuality.

Abstinence-only sex education, on the other hand, teaches that abstinence is the only acceptable means for adolescents to prevent pregnancy and infection and does not provide contraceptive information. It also teaches that sex outside marriage is always wrong and leads to harmful psychological and physical consequences.

Instead of funding comprehensive sexual education, the White House is proposing to double federal money devoted to abstinence-only education to $273 million for the 2005 fiscal year. Little evidence exists to show that teens who receive abstinence-only programs abstain from intercourse longer than others.

Teens who participate in comprehensive sexual education programs are more likely to use contraception, including condoms and birth control, than those who have had no education about these methods.

U.S. teens are contracting HIV faster that any other demographic in the country. American teen pregnancy rates are higher than in any other developed country in the world.

This is why the availability of emergency contraception (EC) over-the-counter is desperately needed, especially because it must be taken within the first 24 to 72 hours of intercourse for the prevention of unwanted pregnancy.

EC, the "morning-after" pill, helps prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, which has been scientifically proven to be the point of conception.

It is not to be confused with RU-486, deemed the "abortion pill." Rather, it is a safe combination of the hormones found in birth control pills.

The FDA recently turned down a request to make EC available without a prescription because of politically conservative influence. There is no scientific reason to restrict access to this safe, effective backup method of regular birth control. Comprehensive scientific data shows that Plan B meets the FDA's criteria for over-the-counter status.

No matter what your political or religious affiliation, family planning services in general are vital to the basic healthcare of women and their families.

One person's opinion should not dictate or control an entire community's access to safe and affordable basic healthcare.

As you are thinking about this upcoming election, consider how you, as an educated adult, can make the right decision for all people regarding this access to medically accurate healthcare.

Especially consider what you would do without the availability of condoms or birth control, vital tools for protection within healthy sexual relationships.

While this idea may seem far-fetched, the current administration is doing everything they can to slowly chip away at basic reproductive health rights and freedoms. If we don't stop these erosions today with the ability to have our voices heard, what will be the consequences of our sexual freedoms in the future?

Kelley Brooks is an elementary education junior and Allison Baron is a physiological sciences sophomore. They are co-chairs for Students For Choice, a UA club.
All information in this column was compiled by www.plannedparenthood.org and www.choiceusa.org.