File this with the other studies that confirm what most people would have predicted.

Freebirth controlled to greatly lower rates of abortions and births to teenagers, a large study concludes, offering strong evidence for how a bitterly contested Obama administration policy could benefit womens health. The two-year project tracked more than 9,000 women in St. Louis, many of them poor or uninsured, who were given their choice of a range of free contraceptives.

If there's anything surprising about the finding, it is perhaps the magnitude. The study group's abortion rate was less than half that of the control group[women in the St. Louis Metro area] and a third of the national rate.UPDATE: Here's a link to the actual study. I also updated the language in the post because the original wording inaccurately referred to a "control group." The study did not use one.

Eduardo M. Peñalver is the Allan R. Tessler Dean of the Cornell Law School. The views expressed in the piece are his own, and should not be attributed to Cornell University or Cornell Law School.

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