Please, AOC, don’t fall into Ted Cruz’s birth control trap

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the lefty lion of the House freshman class, has a new frenemy — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Making birth control available over-the-counter is a mainstream idea with broad support among health providers. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that over-the-counter access to birth control pills “will help more women get the contraceptives they need, which have long been proven safe enough to use without a prescription — especially emergency contraception.”

Missouri Advances Bill Allowing Employers to Fire Women for Using Birth Control

On Tuesday, the Missouri House of Representatives voted in favor of Senate Bill 5, which would modify statewide provisions relating to abortion. Changes would affect local abortion policies, tissue reports, employee disclosure policies and abortion facility inspections.

Pitched as an expansion of religious freedom for employers and landlords, the bill would overturn a St. Louis city ordinance that prevented discrimination against women who have had abortions. The new law would allow employers to fire female employees for having had abortions or using birth control. It would extend the privilege of discrimination to landlords, who could evict women for getting an abortion, getting pregnant out of wedlock or using birth control.

Republicans Are Coming for Your Free Birth Control

The process of repealing Obamacare began yesterday in the Senate, and Republicans rejected the amendment that requires insurance companies to cover the full cost of contraceptives in the process.

In 2012, a women's preventative health care provision within the Affordable Care Act went into effect making birth control free for women with insurance. When it was first rolled out, an estimated 26.9 million women benefited. If the mandate is struck down, it will leave 55 million women without no-copay birth control.

Father Who Sued To Keep His Adult Daughters From Getting Birth Control Wins Key Court Fight

Missouri state Rep. Paul Joseph Wieland (R) does not want his daughters’ health plan to cover birth control — even though two of those daughters are adults. So he and his wife sued the Obama administration. Though this lawsuit was rejected on jurisdictional grounds by a federal trial court, a panel of three appellate judges reinstated the suit on Monday. Should the Wielands ultimately prevail in their effort to deny birth control coverage to their daughters, the decision could have implications far beyond the Wieland family, potentially forcing insurance companies to maintain elaborate records to track many of their customers’ views on religion and sexual morality.

Women Are Spending $1.4 Billion Less On Birth Control Due To Obamacare: Report

Spending on birth control has significantly decreased since the Affordable Care Act's mandate for insurance companies to cover contraception went into effect in August of 2012, according to a new report.

An analysis published Tuesday in Health Affairs shows that women have saved $1.4 billion on birth control pills, while out-of-pocket spending on intrauterine devices has fallen 68 percent. Annual out-of-pocket savings were $248 for IUDs and $255 annually for oral contraceptives.

Canada's foreign aid commitment to contraception low despite great need

There are many things Margaret Simon lacks in her job as a health professional. First, there's no running water at the hospital where she works in Tanzania. She could also use a proper light in the exam room, so minor procedures could be done there rather than having to squeeze into the operating theatre between surgeries.

But she also needs a more reliable supply of contraceptives. Specifically, Depo Provera, which she says her patients prefer because they can take it even if their husbands don't approve of birth control.

How Five Decades Of Legal Birth Control Have Changed Americans’ Lives

In 1961, Estelle Griswold opened a Planned Parenthood clinic in Connecticut with the explicit intention of getting arrested. Griswold was handing out prescriptions for birth control in the hopes of challenging a state law dating back to 1879 that criminalized the use of contraception.

It worked: Griswold was convicted for disseminating information about birth control to married couples. She appealed her case all the way up to the Supreme Court — which ultimately decided, exactly five decades ago, that state-level bans on birth control violate married couple’s right to privacy. (The Court has since expanded the right to use contraception to unmarried couples, too.)

Birth Control That Works Too Well

What if there were something that simultaneously cut the unintended-pregnancy rate and the abortion rate, while saving a bundle of taxpayer money? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Turns out there is. In 2009, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation donated over $23 million to the Colorado Family Planning Initiative, a five-year experimental program that offered low-income teenage girls and young women in the state long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs)—IUDs or hormonal implants—at no cost. These devices, which require no further action once inserted and remain effective for years, are by far the best method of birth control available, with less than a 1 percent failure rate. (The real-use failure rate for the Pill is 10 times higher.) One reason more women don’t use LARCs is cost: While they save the patient money over time, the up-front price can be as high as $1,200. (Even when insurance covers them, many teens fear the claim forms sent to their parents would reveal they are sexually active.) Another reason is that women simply don’t know about LARCs and assume the cheaper pills available at clinics are their only option.

Quoting Hobby Lobby, Federal Appeals Court Hands Down Big Victory For Birth Control

A federal appeals court in Washington, DC handed down a decision on Friday that could neutralize some of the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby if it is upheld on appeal. Hobby Lobby held that employers with religious objections to birth control have broad immunity from federal rules requiring them to include birth control in their employer-provided health plan. Judge Nina Pillard’s decision in Priests For Life v. Department of Health and Human Services, however, indicates that there are limits to an employer’s ability to deny birth control coverage to their employees.

Women Don't Have More Sexual Partners When They Use Birth Control -- But Why Do We Care?

Women use birth control. Almost all of them. Abortion rates decrease when more women take birth control. Sex is better and more fun when women are on the pill. Oral contraceptives make life better for many women in ways that have nothing to do with preventing pregnancy.

Now that most women can reasonably expect to have sex without giving birth nine months later, they must be having tons of sex, right? Too much sex. Just an uninterrupted, condomless flow of high-risk sex.

Birth Control Letter In Ottawa Clinic Denies Patients Any Contraceptives

When Kate entered an Ottawa-area walk-in clinic for birth control, all she got was a doctor’s note explaining “no.”

In a post on XOJane, Kate wrote that the note was set on top of a pile of others just like it, each outlining that any requests for birth control, vasectomies, abortions, the morning after pill, or any other form of artificial contraception would be denied due to the doctor’s “professional ethical concerns and religious values.”

House Republicans Kick Off 2014 With Renewed Focus On Abortion, Birth Control

As the Senate takes up a measure to extend unemployment insurance, Republicans in the House of Representatives are looking to make 2014 another banner year for anti-abortion laws.

A panel of 12 men on the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a bill Thursday that would deny tax subsidies to women and small businesses who purchase health insurance plans that include abortion coverage. The bill only makes an exception for rape and incest victims and women who would die without abortion care, which opponents say could prompt the IRS to audit any woman who claims one of these exceptions.

China Plans To Loosen One-Child Policy, Abolish Much-Criticized Labor Camp System: Report

BEIJING (AP) — China's leaders announced on Friday the first significant easing of the country's one-child policy in nearly 30 years and moved to abolish an often-abused labor camp system, while vowing some of the most ambitious economic reforms in recent Chinese history.

The long-debated changes to the family planning rules and labor camp system address deeply unpopular programs at a time when the Communist Party feels increasingly alienated from the public.

The extent of the changes surprised some analysts. They were contained in a policy document issued after a four-day meeting of party leaders in Beijing one year after Xi Jinping took the country's helm.

Why the Right Wing Is Targeting Birth Control Again

What does birth control have to do with the congressional budget? Not much – unless you're a House Republican. In their latest effort to thwart Obamacare during the recent budget negotiations, several right-wing legislators attempted to tack a so-called "conscience clause" onto the law. The idea, which dates back several years, is to give employers who cite religious objections a way to block their employees from getting contraception covered by their health insurance.

Paying for “Citizen Koch”

It appears that “Citizen Koch,” an embattled documentary about the influence of money on politics, which suffered a near-death experience after the public-television system withdrew its support, may survive after all.

As I reported recently in The New Yorker, public-television officials abruptly withdrew financial support for the film amid growing worries that the project would displease David Koch, a billionaire industrialist and longtime public-television funder, whose political activism the film cast in harsh light. Now, however, as the Times reported Tuesday, the documentary’s creators, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, have managed to raise enough money independently to finish the film—more, in fact, than the original hundred and fifty thousand dollars that they had expected from public television.

Birth control trends in Canada not tracked

Canada has fallen behind other countries in collecting statistics on the use of different contraceptives, and this has important public policy implications, according to some experts.

The situation is "in sharp contrast" to the U.S., Australia and many European countries, which collect national data on birth control, UBC professor and family physician Wendy Norman told CBC News.

Yaz, Yasmin birth control pills suspected in 23 deaths

At least 23 Canadian women who were taking two of the most commonly prescribed birth control pills in the world have died, CBC News has learned.

According to documents obtained from Health Canada, doctors and pharmacists say Yaz and Yasmin are suspected in the deaths of the women, who mostly died suddenly from blood clots.

Cost Of Birth Control Higher In Some Low-Income Neighborhoods Than In Wealthy Ones

Prescription contraceptives cost more in some low-income neighborhoods than in wealthier ones, according to a small study that analyzed prescription price data from Florida.

Though the findings are preliminary, the University of Tennessee physicians who led the study said it may have implications for low-income women hoping to prevent pregnancy.

"We saw several contraceptive options that are more expensive in lower income areas, and that expense may limit access," researcher Dr. Nikki Zite, an OBGYN at The University of Tennessee Medical Center, told The Huffington Post. The findings were released Monday at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' annual clinical meeting in New Orleans.

Holding Birth Control Hostage

Recently, my doctor gave me an ultimatum: Come in for a pelvic exam, or I won't refill your birth control pills. The problem arose after I tried to get my prescription refilled before going on vacation in March, only to be told that the doctor's office wouldn't sign off on the refill because it had been a year and one month since I'd had an annual exam and a Pap smear. A nurse grudgingly gave me a monthlong reprieve if I promised to come in for an exam when I returned from my trip.

I really, really didn't want to go in for an exam. I've had two kids, a false positive Pap test and all the ensuing misery that comes with it, and spent enough time in the stirrups to last a lifetime. All I really wanted were my pills; I was pretty sure the exam could wait another year or more.

The science was on my side.

Just a few weeks earlier, the US Preventative Services Task Force, an independent group of national experts that makes evidence-based health care recommendations, released new guidelines declaring definitively that women over 30 don't need a Pap smear more than once every three years unless they have a couple of risk factors, which I don't have. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said that birth control pills can safely be prescribed without a full-on exam.

Ron Johnson Offers Women Contraception Advice: Google ‘What If I Can't Afford Birth Control?'

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) weighed into the controversy surrounding President Barack Obama's birth control mandate this weekend, dismissing the concerns of women who cannot afford contraception.

"My wife actually went online here in Wisconsin and typed in, 'what if I can’t afford birth control,'" the freshman Tea Party senator told ThinkProgress. "Came up, bam. If you can’t afford it, you can get birth control in this country.”

(Video above via ThinkProgress)

Johnson has been a vocal opponent of Obama's birth control mandate, which requires nearly all employers to provide insurance which covers the cost of contraception to employees.

ThinkProgress asked Johnson to clarify his comments regarding birth control. “You can get it," Johnson insisted. "Go online, type it in. It’s easy to get.”