Free : Should Birth Control Be Free?

For over 50 years birth control has been available to women but only through prescription. There are many women that don’t have health insurance, aren’t able to go to a clinic, or are too young and don’t have parental permission, hindering those who want to receive a prescription for birth control. Most people can easily access male/female condoms at nearly any local store. You can even purchase a “morning after” pill, known as Plan B, without a prescription. So why not sell oral contraceptives to women over the counter? Selling birth control over the counter can better help provide many health benefits for women, decrease teen pregnancy and abortion rates, and even save taxpayers money.

Oral contraceptives have provided the world with great outcomes. Planned parenthood stated that birth control has “advanced women’s educational opportunities, led to more college-educated women pursuing advanced professional degrees, enhanced children’s well being in the long run, saved women money, reduced teen pregnancy, and reduced unwanted pregnancy” (“Birth Control” 1-3). The argument that birth control has done great things for society is obvious.

Women have been using birth control methods for over thousands of years. Today, we have various effective birth control methods available to woman. Such as the pill, patch, shot, or IUD. Birth control is a safe way to prevent pregnancy. You can purchase birth control at your doctor’s office, planned parenthood, a clinic, or a public health care provider. They will first discuss your medical history with you, then check your blood pressure and finally you will discuss which birth control method is right for you, and they will send you on your way with your prescription. Birth control can be purchased at your local drugstore and costs up to 50 dollars. In a lot of cases though, young girls and even older women cannot afford or access these types of birth control. There are concerns about being unemployed which results in no income coming in for birth control, lack of health insurance the woman may have and whether or not the woman can afford having a child, even more during an economic crisis. By having women’s birth control free it will not only decrease the chances of abortion, help women financially , help with women’s menstrual cycle, and also by lowering the teen pregnancy rate, and having them have the power to decide when they want to have children. Many people can argue that the government shouldn’t have to provide another free service and that the cost

There was laws made up to ban birth control because the government did not want women to be able to not to become a mother. Then this woman, Margaret Sanger, who wanted to share about birth control that was part of the new feminism. Shen decided to advertise birth control because women have rights to be able to become a mother or not to become a mother. There are a lot of jobs for a mother to do like taking care of the baby, working, cooking and other house chores. The only freedom of women has choices and decisions to have in their like earning a decision or having a baby. This document is expressing how women who become mothers sacrifice a lot to be able to have a family. (Foner,

Birth control has been the topic of discussion lately. Individuals have been debating if birth control should be able to be received over the counter. That is up to the Food and Drug Administration because they are the ones who have to approve or disapprove. Drug companies and law makers should work together to change the rules and allow woman and teenage girls to have more easily acces to acquire birth control.

plays an important role in providing woman with an affordable birth control.(overview pg.2) We depend on our insurance to pay for our health necessities. As a result unplanned pregnancy cost the american public roughly $9 billion each year.(pg.9 should teens have access to BC) Although many forms of birth control are available, such as condoms which are easily to attain. Statistics show that many teens who are sexually active do not use contraceptives of any kind.(pg.9 should teens have access to BC) Among these are the incidence of miscarriages, and abortions.(pg.8 should teens have access to BC) Preventing pregnancy is affordable, but is also a

A total of 730,322 abortions were reported from the Centers for Disease Control in 2011. This could easily be resolved with proper usage of birth control. But the fact of the matter is that only 62% of women are actually using proper birth control, now this may seem like a lot of women, but there is 158.6 million women in the United States alone so 58.5 million are currently not on any birth control which is a huge amount of women. Birth control needs to be free and accessible, because the benefits of having women on birth control easily outweigh any of the cons that may come. My goal for this paper is to talk about the pros of having free and accessible birth control, which would be lower abortion rate, lower teenage pregnancy rate, and the many health benefits. I will also touch on the opposing side of this argument, which will be that, it will be too expensive, that abstinence is key, and that if birth control became free and accessible women would no longer go the doctor.

Birth control has been a controversial topic since the 1960’s, when the pill arose on the scene and gained popularity. Men and women of certain religious faiths have sought to prevent other women from using birth control. However, most women want to be able to choose when the time is right for them to have a child. This is why birth control is essential, because it allows women and couples in general the freedom to choose and plan their families. In many cases the need to control women by controlling their access to birth control goes all the way to the federal government. The federal government determines what types of birth control are allowed on the market and who has access to them. Some Presidential administrations look more kindly

In the United States 50% of pregnancies are unplanned. Is birth control not easy enough to get? Since 1960 the birth control pill has been approved for contraceptive use. However, women haven't been able to get a hold of the contraceptive without a doctor's prescription. The law has been the same since the pill came out, shouldn't their be a change? The distribution of birth control pills behind the counter would be beneficial to many women's lives. The pill being more easy to get would make busy women's lives easier, as they wouldn't have to go to the doctor to get the prescription. This form of contraceptive is also safe with little to no side effects with more benefits. The biggest thing that the pill would change is prevention of unplanned pregnancy, but money is holding all of this back.

More than half of all women of reproductive age in the United States use some form of contraceptive (Daniels, Daugherty, and Jones, 2014). Of those, most are on the oral-contraceptive pill. Even with new regulations in place to supposedly increase access to preventive services, there is still an issue of women who are sexually active, do not wish to become pregnant within the next year, and who are not using a form of contraception. Clinician and facility based barriers are the largest deterrent for these women. By removing the barriers to contraceptive counseling and services, women will have greater access to their health.

Not to mention, the cost of birth control when not covered by insurance is extremely costly. Birth control should be free for women because most women cannot afford yearly birth control or their insurance will not cover it completely. Since there have been so many studies confirming how beneficial birth control is for a woman’s health, they should not have to pay such costly prices in order to prevent life changing illnesses.

One of the many purposes of birth control is to avoid unwanted pregnancies. In this day and age the decision to take birth control should be a mere right and not a debate, but society has still not fully accepted the use of birth control even though “ninety-eight percent of women use birth control at some point in their lives” (Milligan, 2014, p. 3). Birth control has unfortunately earned a negative stigma because it allows women to have sex without getting pregnant and that is frowned upon throughout parts of society. Some members of society have even compared the use of birth control to abortion. Women who choose to take birth control should not be judged and the use of birth control amongst women should no longer be considered disgraceful. The reliable access to birth control should be made available to all women no matter their race, age, and class.

While some speakers on the issue argue their side with the perspective of the students and teens in mind others focus on the parents and how their perspectives relate to the issue. Helium.com presently has a poll and debate occurring that allows the public to review multiple arguments from both sides of the debate, and then vote “Yes” or “No” on the issue of teens receiving birth control at school. Jeannie Kerns, a mother of seven children, says that it’s in the best interest of the teen, and their parents, to allow them to have the option to decide for themselves if they require “the pill”. She supports her argument by informing the reader, no matter how strongly parents push for their children to abstain from sex they’ll most likely engage in it anyway. She closes her argument by asking why parents wouldn’t

Those who disagree think providing birth control promotes promiscuity and premarital sexual activity. In the article “At Issue: Birth Control Availability,” the author argues that access to birth control and other contraceptives for

Birth control. Most of the women in America have tried some type of birth control during their lifetime. Currently, we are having debates to see if birth control should be free or at a lower cost to citizens. Why do we need birth control if we already have condoms? Do we really have affordable birth control? Can we get it easily? Does it do more than just prevent pregnancies? If birth control really helping women and the economy? In this research paper, I will be going over these questions. Birth control is a benefit to modern society and we have benefited from it greatly.