A panel of medical experts recommended that all insurance plans be legally required to provide birth control for free, marking a huge advancement for women’s rights. The Obama Administration commissioned the non-partisan Institute of Medicine (IOM) to recommend what preventative health services should be fully covered by health insurance.

Along with birth control, the IOM reports suggested that HPV testing, contraceptive and lactation counseling, HIV screening and breast-feeding equipment be paid for by insurers.

Women’s rights groups were excited by the report. “As someone who has worked on women’s rights for nearly 30 years, I can say that today’s news marks one of the biggest advances for women’s health in a generation,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“Currently, nearly one in three women finds it difficult to pay for birth control, and that’s why the United States has a far higher unintended-pregnancy rate than other industrialized countries. Making family-planning services available at no cost will help millions of women prevent unintended pregnancy and thereby reduce the need for abortion.”

Keenan added she was “confident that the Obama administration will adopt the IOM’s science-based recommendation and thus make affordability of contraception a reality for all women.”

The report by the IOM stated that nearly half of pregnancies in 2001 were unintended. The report noted that women who have unintended pregnancies are more likely to receive delayed or no prenatal care, smoke, drink alcohol, experience depression and live with domestic violence during a pregnancy. A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and advocacy group, estimates that unintended pregnancies cost $11.1 billion dollars each year.

Anti-abortion rights and anti-contraception groups are calling for the Obama Administration to reject the IOM’s recommendations because they believe that some emergency contraceptives function as “abortion pills.”

“This is a question of whether the government should mandate every health plan to cover these drugs free of cost,” said Jeanne Monahan, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity. “Whatever one’s position is on the issues of contraceptives, abortifacients and such, it does not matter whether proponents of such drugs do not care about the effect on human embryos.

The point is that many Americans do care, and many religious health plans would care, and that they should not be forced to violate their conscience.

This morality crap has gone too far. Really, birth control is bad now too??? I think every insurance plan already pays for a portion of birth control so I don’t really get the debate.

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About the author

Erin Chavez
Erin Whitney-Chavez has been writing professionally since 2009. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from St. Bonaventure University and received a Master of Arts in mental-health counseling from Argosy University. Erin Whitney-Chavez is a licensed mental health counselor and has worked in the mental-health field for more than 10 years.

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1 Comment for Birth Control May Soon Be Free Under Your Insurance Plan

Gretchen Kalhust

I believe that another major argument among conservative groups against the Obama administration's implementation of the IOM's suggestions is that if insurers are forced to give their members free birth control, free breast pumps, free HPV and HIV screenings then Americans can expect higher insurance premiums. The argument is that insurance companies cannot be expected to pay health care providers for services and medications and then not pass rate increases off to customers. Insurance rates, which conservatives and liberals alike will agree are already high, will, presumably, continue to increase. Couple this fiscal conservatism with your arguments above and you begin to see a clearer picture of why the right is fighting the measures.

Also, I have two small critiques to offer of your story (I'm a journalism student and can't help myself, sorry!) 1 – You were very objective and did a fine job explaining both sides of your argument up until the very end when you inserted your personal opinion. You seem to have lost your objectivity there at the end but otherwise this is a pretty good piece. 2 – When you published the story, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had announced that these new guidelines will in fact become law effective August 1, 2012. Your story needed to be updated before posting.

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