Contraception

Birth Control: A Game Changer for Women

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:39pm

We've said it before and we'll say it again: the Obama administration's contraceptive coverage rule is a breakthrough for women's health, ensuring that millions of women will have access to affordable, effective contraception. But anti-family planning forces are waging an all-out campaign to prevent women from getting affordable access to this basic health care. They're claiming that your boss should be able to control your health care decisions.

'Bama Hits Below the Belt: Another Effort to Restrict Women's Health

By Becca Cadoff, Reproductive Freedom Project at 12:11pm

In the latest affront to women's health, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed into law a bill that could force health centers in the state to close their doors if they provide abortion care. We may not all see eye-to-eye about abortion, but most people agree that we all need access to health care without politicians getting in the way.

Isn't it time we are allowed to make our own decisions about our health care?

This bill is just another example of political attacks on women's health, following on the heels of North Dakota, Arkansas, and other state efforts to block access to abortion care. The trend of attacking women is snowballing out of control, and we need to stop it.

Another One Bites the Dust: Second Challenge to Birth Control Rule Rejected in One Week

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 6:01pm

Courts are making fast work this week of the lawsuits challenging the Obama administration’s rule requiring insurance plans to cover contraception and stop discriminating against women.

Just one day after a federal court in Nebraska threw out a lawsuit brought by seven anti-Affordable Care Act attorneys general, a federal court in D.C. did the same in a case filed by a religiously affiliated college.  On Wednesday, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit filed by Belmont Abbey College (the first of the two dozen challenges to the birth control rule). 

On the Anniversary of Griswold, the Facts about Contraception

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:31am

On this day in 1965, the Supreme Court first protected the right to contraception. A 7-2 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut was joined by justices appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike. It opened the door to a world in which people are free to form intimate relationships, lead healthy sexual lives, pursue educational and employment opportunities, and decide whether and when to become parents. 

And yet now, 47 years later, contraception has become a hot button issue. Much of the recent discussion has consisted of rhetoric such as then-Presidential contender Rick Santorum’s statement that birth control is “not OK, because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be”, or the Alliance Defense Fund’s assertion that providing insurance coverage for contraception “propel[s] [us] down an anti-pregnancy path”. On this anniversary, let’s celebrate with the facts:

Twelve More Lawsuits, Still No Case

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:55pm
Every few weeks, opponents of birth control manage to garner some media attention by objecting – again – to the federal contraceptive coverage rule, which ensures that millions of women will have affordable insurance coverage for contraception without extra out-of-pocket costs. But time after time, it’s just more of the same. 

ACLU on Today: Birth Control Rule Does Not Put Religious Liberty at Risk

By Alicia Gay, ACLU at 12:09pm

Laura Murphy of our Washington Legislative Office appeared to discuss the Obama administration’s plan to retain a proposed rule that ensures new insurance plans cover contraception.

Keep Your Beliefs Out of My Birth Control

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:56pm

It's a big week for birth control. This Monday marked World Contraception Day — a day that raises awareness about contraception access around the globe. Today is the deadline for weighing in with the Department of Health and Human Services on important new guidelines that ensure coverage of contraception in health plans without extra out-of-pocket costs — along with a narrow exception that allows certain religious institutions like churches, synagogues, and mosques, to exclude birth control from their health plans.

More Challenges to the Contraception Rule, More Misguided Arguments

By Brigitte Amiri, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 9:45am

There are now close to 40 challenges to the federal birth control rule, which ensures that employees have insurance coverage for contraception.  Why so many lawsuits, you ask?  The answer is not entirely clear, but one thing is certain: each case repeats the same misguided argument that an employer’s religious beliefs can be used as a license to discriminate against its female employees.  As we have explained in greater detail their legal claims are unsupported by a long history of cases.  We’ve filed friend-of-the-court briefs in several contraception suits discussing those cases, all of which rejected other attempts to use religious beliefs as a basis for discrimination.  In the last week alone, we’ve filed three briefs: one in a case in Michigan with the ACLU of Michigan, and two others with the ACLU of Illinois.

Change Is A-Coming (Or, as They Say in Oklahoma, "If I Wanted Government in My Womb, I'd F*ck a Senator.")

By Jennifer Dalven, Reproductive Freedom Project at 1:32pm

I am so excited I am beside myself. I'm a long-time reproductive health advocate looking at politicians around the country lining up to make it harder for a woman to get birth control, to defund Planned Parenthood, and to set up demeaning and obstructive roadblocks for women seeking abortions. And yet I am positively giddy. Why?

I am giddy because I can see that change is a coming. Those who would turn back the clock to the days of the aspirin-between-the-knees method of birth control have gone too far. And women across the country have had enough.

Contraception Mandate Doesn't Break New Ground

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:55pm

In the past several weeks, as a nation, we’ve been hit by an endless barrage of commentary on the new rule requiring insurance companies to cover contraception with no co-pay. Who would have thought that in 2012, contraception — something 98 percent of women use at some point in their lives — could set off such a firestorm?

Last week, the Obama administration offered a solution that we hope calms the embers.

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