Free birth control does not promote risky sexual behavior, report says

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A new study indicates that free birth control distribution does not promote promiscuous sex, reported USA Today.

For the study, a group of 7,751 participants ages 14 to 45 were given free birth control medications or devices. Participants were surveyed on their sexual behavior at the start of the study and again 12 months later.

The results, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, found that participants were less likely to have sex with more than one man after the program began. While the median number of times women had vaginal intercourse increased from four to six, the women who increased their sexual frequency were no more likely to be diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease.

According to project director Gina Secura, a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, the finding should dispel “the idea that the only thing standing between women and promiscuity is a fear of pregnancy.”

"It's not as if getting birth control opened the floodgates,” Secura told USA Today.

The study’s detractors think otherwise.

"Contraception gives women a false sense of safety," Arina Grossu, director of the Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity told USA Today. "Women think they are completely protected, and they are not."

Click for more from USA Today.