Two Sides of the Same Coin or a Toss of the Coin? Family Planning Services and Family Cap Implementation


 

Publication Date: February 1999

Publisher: Center for Law and Social Policy

Author(s): Jodie Levin-Epstein

Research Area: Population and demographics; Social conditions

Type: Report

Coverage: Georgia

Abstract:

The family cap is intended to discourage childbearing among welfare recipients by limiting a family's cash grant. In order for the cap to achieve its intended effect, women receiving welfare need to abstain from sexual activity, contracept, or abort. If contraception is an integral part of helping women avoid the family cap, how can this best be accomplished? Should the two sides of the family cap coin — contraception and limited cash aid — be made explicit? Or, should the connection between family planning and family cap be as chancy as a toss of the coin? The experience of one state, Georgia, is detailed for readers in states with a family cap policy.