Imagine that women regularly using contraceptives suddenly had to pay a lot more to prevent pregnancy. What would happen?
Well, in early October the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era initiative that mandated coverage on contraception under health plans offered by most employers. The new rule, which is effective immediately, allows more employers to decline to cover contraception based on religious or moral reasons. This is unsettling considering more than 55 million women depend on this policy to obtain birth control.
Shannon, a student at the University of Connecticut relies on an IUD (Intrauterine Device) as a form of birth control. “I do consider it a necessity for women, but not just for its non-contraceptive purposes. It’s use as a contraceptive shouldn’t be something that women have to hide to justify having it. People have sex. People want to have safe sex. Birth control is an excellent way to prevent pregnancy and have safe sex.”
In 2012, the United Nations declared access to contraception as a “basic human right.” Although, the Trump administration stated that Obamacare’s birth control mandate encouraged “risky sexual behavior in young women.”
“For many men who support Trumps decision, their opposition comes from their own religious beliefs, and to be frank, religious beliefs have no place in our government. Their lack of empathy proves itself day in and day out; they can’t understand where woman are coming from so they choose to remain ignorant rather than listening to the millions of voices who are begging them to listen,” says Healy. 71% of our elected officials are men and they certainly should not be the ones defining what a woman does with her body.
What about the 14% of pill users, approximately 1.5 million women, who rely on them exclusively for non-contraceptive purposes? These pill users include an estimated 762,000 women who’ve never had sex. Ninety-five percent of them cited reasons other than birth control for their main use of the pill. Many women take the pill to reduce cramps associated with periods, acne, regulating the flow, which for some women can prevent menstrual-related migraine headaches. Other uses include controlling endometriosis, a condition in which uterine tissue grows outside the uterus, and reducing bleeding due to uterine fibroid tumors.
Contraception should not be something that women have to justify to obtain. We should be encouraging women to want to have safe sex. Birth control is an excellent way to prevent pregnancy and have safe sex. So it’s non-contraceptive benefits AND it’s contraceptive benefits are both necessities to women.
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