Republican governors in states across the country have been touting their states’ economic growth, pointing to falling unemployment rates and continued signs of economic recovery. Gov. Terry Branstad (R-IA) has expressed frustration that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is using his state as an example of the nation’s economic woes. However, since positive economic messages directly contradict Romney’s central campaign push — convincing voters that Obama has made the economy worse — the Romney campaign would prefer to downplay any signs of recovery. In fact, the Romney campaign has directly asked Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) to “tone down” his positive statements about Florida’s improving economy because they inconveniently clash with Romney’s national narrative. Two campaign officials confirmed that Scott has been asked to instead say that his state’s economy would improve under a Republican presidency, Bloomberg News reports:

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/06/20/502947/abortion-rate-drops/

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jun 20, 2012

Between 1990 and 2008, pregnancy and abortion rates for women in their twenties dropped dramatically, a new study revealed today. Pregnancy rates fell by 18 percent, while abortion rates dropped by a third.

One of the biggest influencing factors in this decrease is the growing accessibility, use, and options for birth control. Contraceptive use is the best way to prevent abortions in the U.S. Over time, young women have gotten greater access to a larger number of pregnancy prevention methods. The study explains two main causes in the drop:

The introduction of new contraceptive methods and discontinuation of existing ones [and]changes in the use of existing methods: the proportion of women using any method, the methods used, and how consistently and effectively they are used.

Indeed, only 70 percent of women (PDF) who started having sex between 1990 and 1994 used protection, whereas 84 percent did between 2005 and 2008:

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