Do you think birth control should be easily, freely and readily available to adolescents? Well, you should. You may worry that making it so readily available will lead to increased pregnancies and disease rates. Not only are these fears unnecessary, but there are great benefits to making contraception available. One of the biggest fears related to easy access to contraception for adolescent girls is that they will automatically think, "Now that I have access to things that can prevent pregnancy, I can have as much sex as I want." I want to, and I don't have to be afraid of getting pregnant now, so I'm going to have lots of sex. This is an understandable assumption, but it is false. A study was carried out including schools in New York and Chicago. The two school systems are very similar. At the start of this study, “[the two] school systems [were] a large, unified urban system that, [were] ethnically diverse,…[had] a high dropout rate, provided HIV services/ AIDS. AIDS education... [and did] not make condoms available to students” (Guttmacher, S.). The New York school system then fought a long and tedious battle to decide whether or not to make contraception available to adolescents through their school system, but ultimately decided to make contraception readily available to their students. A study was carried out before and after this decision. Before contraception was made available to New York students, "the proportions of students... who were sexually active were the same in New York and Chicago" and after contraception was made available, “New York students,... [still] reported equal rates of sexual activity but higher rates of condom use [than in Chicago]” (Guttmacher, S.). Not only did sexual activity NOT increase, but...... middle of document ...... Quoted "Birth Control Pills - Types, Effectiveness and Side Effects of Birth Control Pills". WebMD. WebMD, January 26. Web. November 10, 2013. Feldmann, Linda. “US teen births fall to historic low: That helped.” Christian Science Monitor. September 06, 2013: researcher on np SIRS questions. Internet. November 7, 2013. “IUD”. IUD. Adolescent health. Internet. November 7, 2013. Guttmacher, S., L. Lieberman, D. Ward, N. Freudenberg, A. Radosh and D. Des Jarlais. “Condom Availability in New York City Public High Schools: Relationships to Condom Use and Sexual Behavior.” American Journal of Public Health 87.9 (1997): 1427-433. Print. “The Truth About Abstinence-Only Programs.” The truth about abstinence-only programs. Youth Defenders, 2008. Web. November 13, 2013. “Why do all medications have side effects? RSS Physics Forums. Internet. November 11. 2013.