Here we go again. Fresh off the heels of trying to come for reproductive freedom via Graham Cassidy, the Trump administration's attacks on your sexual health are back. And this time, they’re coming after birth control.
On Friday, the Trump administration released two new rules that undermine the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) guarantee that your health insurance will cover your birth control. The ACA’s birth control benefit requires that most insurance plans must cover birth control without any out of pocket costs. This rule allows virtually any employer to deny contraceptive coverage to their employees, or any university to deny students such coverage based on religious or moral objection.
We don’t need to tell you that birth control is awesome. But, here are the top ways the Trump administration’s attack on birth control will hurt young people:
1. ACA’s birth control provision helps young people afford birth control
A 2010 Hart Research poll, conducted before the Affordable Care Act’s birth control provision went into effect, found that one in three women voters had struggled to afford prescription birth control, including 57% of young women aged 18 to 34.
2. Easy access to birth control helps lower unintended teen pregnancy rates
We are at a historic low in unintended pregnancy, and in pregnancy among teens, because of expanded access to birth control.
3. Birth control helps women — particularly women of color — live healthier lives
You probably already know that women use birth control for a variety of reasons. In fact, 58% of all women who use the pill rely on it, at least in part, for something other than preventing pregnancy, including endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome,fibroids, and menstrual regulation. Blocking access to birth control disproportionately affects women of color. Black women are more than three times as likely as white women to have uterine fibroids and non-white Hispanic women experience more severe polycystic ovarian syndrome symptoms than women of other ethnic groups, so these women would be hit the hardest by attacks on access to birth control.
4. Birth control helps young people be in control of their futures
You know what helps students who are already in college to stay in college? Being able to choose when to have a child. According to the Guttmacher Institute, being able to get the pill before age 21 is one of the most influential factors enabling women already in college to stay in college.
Angry yet? You should be! Here’s how you can fight back.
Make your voice heard and tell the Trump administration that you won’t go back when it comes to birth control. Send a message to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price condemning this attack on essential health care.
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