Or that its results can be applied to society as a whole. It wasn’t clear from the article how the women were selected but if they volunteered for the study in order to get access to free birth control then all the study shows is that birth control works, we already knew that. If you look at a sample of women who made an effort to get birth control it is hardly surprising that their rate of unintended pregnancies will be lower than the national average. If the they were offered at half price I would expect a low rate as well even though cost would still be a factor. It also doesn’t make sense to apply that model to society as a whole and use it to prop up the misguided idea that insurance companies should be forced to give birth control at no cost even if they can charge high prices for life saving drugs. The people in the sample were mostly uninsured and almost by definition a poor model to apply women who do have insurance. For the majority of people who have insurance birth control is not so costly the price is a factor in use. An implant may cost several hundred dollars but factored of its life it probably cost less than the average family spends on coffee. If you get knocked up because you are to cheep to pay for birth control you can afford then stupid is really your biggest porblem.

The only thing the study really shows us is the benefit of offering free or low cost birth control to the poor and I favor that. I expect the results to drop once you get outside the group who were looking for free birth control but it still has value. Trying to use this study to support the president’s policy is unjustified and an example of bad science being used to support bad politics.