Young People Outraged by Continued Attacks on Birth Control

Statement from Debra Hauser, Executive Director, Advocates for Youth

Today’s announcement from the White House represents a good-faith attempt to balance the critical need for access to birth control coverage with exemptions for religious employers. We support this decision because it keeps the policy focus where it belongs – on women’s health. We will continue to monitor the implementation of this policy to ensure that it benefits all women in the ways the President has outlined.

Young women have much to lose if contraception becomes a political pawn in an election year. They rely on birth control to prevent unplanned pregnancies and for other health reasons. The recent attempts to politicize preventive health care put young women and their health at risk. Along with young people across the country, Advocates for Youth is outraged that a manufactured controversy has turned birth control into a so-called “election year controversy.” Are we seriously having a national debate about birth control?  In 2012?

Now, we will see whether opponents of birth control, both in and out of Congress, will accept “yes” for an answer, or if they will resist this common-sense accommodation offered by the Administration.

Make a donation of $25 or more to Advocates for Youth this week, and we'll send you our new Great American Condom Campaign t-shirt!

The Great American Condom Campaign (GACC) is a youth-led grassroots movement to make the United States a sexually healthy nation.

Each year, Advocates provides more than one million Trojan brand condoms to students who serve as "SafeSites" on college and university campuses across the country. The students distribute condoms, educate their peers about sexual and reproductive health issues, and organize to improve policies that affect young people's health and well-being.

Last year alone, the GACC reached young people at 1,108 public and private universities, trade schools, military schools, religious institutions, and community colleges — many of which have little to no condom access — in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.