Tell Your Senators to Support the Access to Birth Control Act

Tell your Senators to cosponsor and support the Access to Birth Control Act!

Contraception is safe; access to it should be protected as both a fundamental right in the United States and a critical component of an individual’s agency with regard to their sexual and reproductive health. Unfortunately, patients seeking contraceptive medication over-the-counter in 24 states and the District of Columbia have had their access to contraception obstructed by pharmacists who have taken it upon themselves to refuse to provide these medications based on their own personal feelings.

The Access to Birth Control Act (S. 4223) would require pharmacies, as part of their normal practice, to provide customers with FDA-approved contraceptive medication in a manner that is informative and efficient. The Act prohibits the pharmacy’s employees from intimidating, threatening, and harassing a customer for their request to obtain contraception, and prohibits employees from interfering with, misrepresenting, and breaching confidentiality as it relates to a customer’s access to the medication. Read the bill here.

Urge your Senators to cosponsor and support the Access to Birth Control Act.

The rise of Christian nationalism in public policy has empowered entitled individuals to make “holier-than-thou” judgements regarding other people’s personal family-planning decisions. Knowing that an extremist Supreme Court acts favorably toward discrimination cloaked as religious doctrine, dogmatists have become emboldened to make more and more extreme medical decisions for others and even obstruct access to needed contraception. When advocates said that the Christian nationalist fixation on abortion rights would not end with abortion, they were absolutely right.

The bill’s introduction is timely, given “Free the Pill Day” is May 9th, commemorating the day that the first birth control pill was approved by the US FDA back in 1960. This Free the Pill Day will be the first one with the first-ever over-the-counter birth control pill, Opill, on shelves nationwide! Over-the-counter birth control pills have been available in more than a hundred countries – with Opill hitting shelves, the United States finally joins them. Take some time to learn about the Free the Pill movement here. You may also send a letter to President Biden’s administration to demand over-the-counter birth control be covered by insurance with no prescription required.

Medical professionals who refuse to dispense medication such as contraception are acting counter to public health. Individuals have a right to obtain needed medication from a pharmaceutical establishment without interference of others’ personal or religious beliefs. Help break through the barriers: take just a moment now to tell your Senators to cosponsor and support the Access to Birth Control Act.