Another Win! Affordable Birth Control Restored

March 11, 2009

Low cost contraceptives that had long been provided by campus and community health centers will be available again, thanks to a provision in the Omnibus Appropriations Act just passed by Congress for fiscal year 2009. Access to reduced-price birth control pills was cut off by a provision in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act that made it difficult for pharmaceutical companies to supply low-cost contraceptives to college health centers and safety net health care providers. Since then, women who rely on these centers for family planning have had to pay up to $50 for a monthly supply of pills -– as much as a tenfold increase in price.

NOW and other advocates for women's reproductive health have urged this correction to the law, but faced conservative opposition to improving contraceptive access. Now with a supportive White House and strengthened pro-women leadership in Congress, we have finally succeeded. A big "Thank You" goes out to the tens of thousands of NOW activists who sent messages to members of Congress, urging their support of affordable birth control.