Planned Parenthood® Action Center

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  Affordable birth control means better health.

  • By making prescription birth control available with no co-pays, we can reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and improve women’s health.

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  Most Americans support insurance coverage for prescription birth control.

  • Almost three-fourths of voters believe that health insurance should cover the full cost of prescription birth control.
  • This is true across different demographics and constituencies. Full coverage of prescription birth control is supported by the majority of Republican women voters and Catholic women voters.
  • The vast majority of women aged 18–34 believe that prescription birth control should be fully covered.

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  This will be an effective way to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, a serious problem in the U.S.

  • Half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended.
    • The majority of pregnancies among African-American and Latina women are unintended.
  • The rate of unintended pregnancy in the U.S. is one of the highest among the world’s most developed countries. This is unacceptable, and we need a solution.
  • Making prescription birth control available with no co-pays is one of the best ways we can reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.
  • On average, a woman spends 30 years of her life trying to avoid pregnancy. That means 30 years of paying for birth control.

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  Right now, the cost of prescription birth control is a hindrance or a burden for many women.

  • Women typically pay between $15 and $50 a month in co-pays for birth control pills — $180 to $600 a year.
    • Other methods of birth control, such as IUDs, can cost hundreds of dollars in co-pays and other out-of-pocket expenses.
  • More than one-third of all women voters have struggled to pay for prescription birth control at some point in their lives, and have as a result used birth control inconsistently.
    • More than half of women aged 18–34 say that the cost of prescription birth control has made it hard for them to use birth control consistently.
    • Nearly 60 percent of young adult Latina women have struggled to pay for prescription birth control and have as a result used birth control inconsistently.
  • Every woman should be able to use the birth control method that works best for her, without having to worry about cost.
  • Birth Control Matters is our effort to enable women to choose the method that works best for them and to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies by making prescription birth control available with no co-pays to women.