A purely economic argument for distributing Norplant systems to teenagers
makes the policy very compelling. I will presume that the government can
purchase a large quantity of Norplant systems, implement them, and maintain
them for five years for about $700 per unit. If we sent a buyer to Sweden
and purchased them from Leiras instead of Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, the
cost would go down to about $200 per unit. There are ten million sexually
active teenagers in the United States. Presuming that each successive
year, five million different teenagers become sexually active, the total
of sexually active teens over five years would be 30 million. If we supplied
every one with Norplant, the cost would be $21 billion in the poor scenario
and $6 billion in the relatively good scenario.
Each year, babies born to teenage mothers will cost the government six
billion dollars in social services over the next twenty years. That the
cost is spread out over the years actually makes the situation worse,
considering the figure does not account for inflation. Meanwhile, the
taxpayers’ cost caused by teenage pregnancies over five years will
well exceed $30 billion. This is still $9 billion more than in a very
poor Norplant scenario. Furthermore, the difference between the costs
will grow further apart with time. The difference in cost is even more
alarming when you remember that both female and male teenagers are sexually
active. The number of sexually active females should be much lower than
accounted for. To keep the scenario very poor, however, this high number
could assume that many non-active females will also opt to get a Norplant
system.
A common concern about a Norplant subsidy program, or just the drug itself,
is that it will encourage teenagers to avoid using condoms and visit attending
health clinics less regularly. Presently no information confirms this
hypothesis. However, evidence suggests that condom use does not significantly
differ from teenage Norplant users and their oral contraceptive using
peers. Norplant use does not seem to affect the teenage attendance of
health clinics either. Neither the number of follow-up clinic visits,
the rate of duration of the follow-up, nor the rate of return significantly
varied between observed Norplant using teenagers and their oral contraceptive
using counterparts. This evidence suggests that the increase in the use
of Norplant in teenagers would not likely affect their condom use or their
regular attendance of clinics.
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