<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  France does more than a few things right. Bread, for instance. Classy chignons. The recommended one-glass-of-red-per-day quota. Slacks rather than skinny jeans. But the utmost case for French sophistication was made this morning, when it was announced that the French government would be paying the entire costs of all abortions and contraceptive methods for their native women. Based on a 2012 law that was only put into action now, additionally, girls aged between 15 and 18 will be offered access to free and anonymous birth control. And according to ThinkProgress, the previous national coverage of these procedures and drugs in France was nothing to sneeze at either: &amp;quot;French women over 18 could only receive up to 80 percent of the cost of the procedure, which can run up to 450 euros.&amp;quot; Compare this with the recent landmark decision stateside to distribute the morning-after pill over the counter, which immediately garnered criticism from conservative America, and it&amp;#039;s hard not to cringe a little.  Rather unsurprisingly, according to Advocates For Youth, the teen pregnancy rate in America\u2014while it&amp;#039;s been in slight decline\u2014is three times higher than that of France. It&amp;#039;s like teaching abstinence to teens: It doesn&amp;#039;t mean they&amp;#039;re not gonna do it, it just means they&amp;#039;re gonna do it uneducated. Which is the f*cking worst. Follow Anna on Twitter: @annabreslaw Photo via iStockPhoto "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a12350/france-abortion-contraceptive-coverage/>