birth control protection

In 1965, the United States Supreme Court issued Griswold v. Connecticut which ruled that, for the first time, married couples have a constitutional right to use contraception. Later in 1972, Supreme Court granted unmarried couples the constitutional right to use birth control in the case Eisenstadt v. Baird. Due to these two landmark United States Supreme Court cases, birth control has become a routine part of the daily lives of millions of Americans for several decades. Still, the United States has one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancy in the industrialized world. Half of the six million pregnancies that occur among American women each year are unintended.[1]

• The best way to prevent unintended pregnancies is to ensure that women and families have access to contraceptive services.
• Contraception is basic health care used by most women and couples at some point in their lifetime.

• In Virginia, 10% (152,480 of the 1,590,210) of women of childbearing age become pregnant each year.[2]
• Virginia has the 32nd highest teenage pregnancy rate of any state.[3]
• In Virginia, 846,100 women are in need of contraceptive services and supplies. Of these, 371,640 women need publicly supported contraceptive services because they have incomes below 250% of the federal poverty level (251,710) or are sexually active teenagers (119,930).[4]

• The Birth Control Protection Act (BCPA) has been introduced for 5 consecutive years to protect contraception from restrictive laws like state-scripted counseling and mandatory delays. The legislation has been defeated each time.

[1] Guttmacher Institute. 2006 Contraception Counts: Virginia.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.