Now Is the Time to Protect and Expand Birth Control Access

Now Is the Time to Protect and Expand Birth Control Access




House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Capitol Hill on July 20, 2022, and other members of the Democratic caucus, discuss the Right to Contraception Act, a law that would codify the right to access and use FDA-approved contraceptives. It passed in the House and awaits a Senate vote. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

We are at a unique moment for contraceptive access in the United States. On the one hand, the Food and Drug Administration is considering the first-ever application for an over-the-counter oral contraceptive pill—an outcome of more than two decades of science and advocacy. Approval of this application, without an age restriction, would help expand access for people in every part of the country, particularly for those who already face barriers obtaining clinical care, such as adolescents, young adults, and people of color. At the same time, contraceptive access is under attack at state and federal levels. This threat is evident in strategic efforts to falsely conflate birth control with abortion, as well as Justice Clarence Thomas’ explicit questioning of long-standing legal precedent for contraceptive rights in his concurring opinion to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June, which rolled back federal protections for abortion rights.

It is no surprise young adults are concerned about their ability to access birth control and other basic reproductive healthcare in the future. This sentiment was clearly expressed in a new survey commissioned by Power to Decide as part of an award-winning annual campaign, #ThxBirthControl, which celebrates the key role contraception plays in helping people live their lives on their own terms. The survey found while nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of people between the ages of 18 and 29 think it is easy to access birth control in the U.S. currently, half (50 percent) think it will be very (17 percent) or somewhat hard (33 percent) to do so in the future.

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Pervasive misconceptions conflating contraception with abortion may be partly driving concern about access to contraception in the context of increasing abortion bans. The survey found that 69 percent of respondents incorrectly think emergency contraception pills “can end a pregnancy in its early stages.”

Concern about future access to emergency contraception may have contributed to the 60 percent increase in views for the emergency contraceptive pages on Power to Decide’s online birth control support network during the three-month period after the draft Supreme Court decision was leaked. Concerns about access are understandable, given state legislators have strategically perpetuated misinformation as part of efforts targeting access to contraception.

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https://msmagazine.com/2022/11/15/birth-control-access-contraception/