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A majority of women in the United States have not received a prescription for birth control or other family planning services in recent years, new Report Although abortion restrictions are growing, it is indicated.
Family planning — including birth control, emergency contraception, sterilization and counseling for these services — is an important part of health care, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
These visits are sometimes the only contact women have with the health care system, and inadequate access can lead to poor health outcomes. Some studies as well He points out Family planning services help prevent more than 1.5 million unintended pregnancies in the United States each year.
But in the year Between 2022 and 2023, one-third of women of reproductive age — 35.7% — had access to family planning services in the past 12 months, according to a CDC report released Wednesday.
It was around this time, in June 2022, that the US Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturned federal abortion rights.
Alabama is more than one A dozen states They have banned all abortions since the Dobbs decision. The new state law meant West Alabama Women's Center — now known as WAWC Healthcare — would have to be revitalized, and executive director Robin Marty knew her center would need to shift its focus to family planning services if it had to stop providing abortions.
“When we do abortions, we've learned that many of the patients who are coming to us are pregnant because they can't get any birth control,” Marty said.
“When you are a person who supports bodily autonomy, you believe that a person should be able to decide when and if they want to have children at any point in their reproductive life.”
Wausee is one of 76 independent abortion clinics forced to close or end abortion care by 2022, starting with the Dobbs decision, according to a new release. Report From Abortion Care Network. Currently, 14 states do not have abortion clinics.
Most of the patients WAWC serves are uninsured, and access to contraception, like abortion, was difficult for them, Marty said.
And the new CDC report shows widespread inequity among women accessing family planning services, particularly by race and income.
According to survey data from 2022 and 2023, 40% of white women received any family planning services in the year prior to the survey. Women reported getting some form of birth control in the past year, 21% of black women and 20% of Hispanic women.
Women's access to family planning services increased with household income and higher education levels, the report found.
Changes in survey methods make it difficult to compare how likely women are to use family planning services now compared to previous years, the CDC said. But another recent one Research Women in states with the most restrictive abortion laws are also less likely to have access to prescription birth control, and there are some signs that emergency contraceptive use and sterilization rates may be increasing compared to pre-Dobbs years.
Overall, a prescription for birth control or another form of birth control was the most commonly available family planning service, with 24 percent of women ages 15 to 49 reporting receiving it, according to the new CDC report. About 4% received emergency contraception, 3% received sterilization counseling, and 1.6% of women reported having surgery in the past 12 months.
Efforts to expand access to family planning services continue.
Opil, the First, daily oral contraceptives without a doctor's prescription Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, it will be available in the US this spring.
Drugmaker Perrigo doesn't report Opal earnings separately, but consumer sales continue to increase each week, Executive Vice President Triona Schmelter told in an email.
The growth in awareness and demand “underscores the importance of access to safe and effective daily birth control,” said Schmelter, Perrigo's president of consumer self-care Americas, who manages the company's over-the-counter products.
And in October, the Biden administration a New law It requires a private insurance plan without a prescription at no cost.
But there are also threats.
The topic is X Federal program To help fund family planning and other preventive health care services. In the year Rules passed by the Trump administration in 2019 — aimed at separating abortion and family planning services — reduced the number of clinics eligible to participate and the number of people the program reached.
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The latest Analysis According to KFF, the program still hasn't recovered since the Biden administration reversed Trump-era rules — at least 1.1 million people served under Title X in 2023 before the rules took effect — and the program is vulnerable to further scrutiny. In Trump's second term.
“We know we're still going to be under surveillance in many ways, just as we were when we were an abortion clinic,” Marty said.
But she is proud of the way her clinic has managed to build trust in the community: from just a couple of dozen couples to serving more than a thousand people every month since its transformation two years ago. And fundraising donations and grants mean the clinic can budget and plan at least twice as many months as it's used to.
“We try to continue to help people make the healthiest decisions they can and support them through their reproductive life in any way we can,” says Marty.