FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 22, 2015
[email protected]
“Access to affordable birth control is a significant way to reduce the need for abortion services, which should be a shared goal on both sides of the aisle. The Affordability is Access Act is a chance for Speaker Boehner and other anti-choice members to stand on common ground with us and give women the family-planning tools they need.
“NARAL is proud to support pro-choice champions like Reps. Duckworth, Murphy, and Crowley who believe that a woman – not her pharmacist, boss, or backwards politician — has the right to decide when, if, and how to have a child.”
The Affordability Is Access bill:
- Guarantees that any daily birth-control pill approved by the FDA for sale without a prescription will be covered by health insurance.
- Builds on the ACA’s no-cost contraceptive-coverage benefit – so women are guaranteed no-cost birth control at least two ways.
- Guarantees that a store clerk cannot refuse to let you purchase the pill, when it is approved for sale without a prescription. (Note: the bill does not require every store to stock the pill – but those that do cannot then refuse to sell it.)
- Reinforces the essential principle that health experts at the FDA – not politicians – are the ones that decide which medications are safe and effective for over-the-counter sale.
The ACA birth-control benefit protects access to birth control without a copay for more than 55 million women. In the first year it was available, American women and families saved $483 million on their birth control pill prescriptions alone thanks to this benefit.
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