Letter of the Week: Sensible sex education works

As election year approaches, there will be much rhetoric about abortion but little substance.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are 2 million unintended pregnancies each year in the United States, of which 40 percent result in abortions.

We could greatly reduce this number if we did the following:

▪ Increase the number of clinics offering women’s health care, sex education and birth control.

▪ Develop comprehensive sex education in our schools, with no opt-outs.

▪ Devote ourselves as an industrialized Western nation to creating a national child care program.

▪ Encourage employers to offer up to 90 days of paid pregnancy leave, like other developed nations.

The most frequent reasons given for having an abortion are a lack of resources because of poverty, fear of the loss of a job and/or ongoing education and fear of losing a companion.

The above actions will not solve all the problems, but they would be substantive steps in addressing a divisive issue.

Richard Gier has lived in the Kansas City area most of his life. He is a retired health care executive. He is married and has three adult children and one grandchild. He has lived in Lenexa about 10 years.

This story was originally published October 11, 2015 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Letter of the Week: Sensible sex education works."