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.

Unfortunately, opponents of birth control coverage are not looking for a reasonable solution. Senators Marco Rubio and Joe Manchin have introduced a bill to expand religious exemptions for contraceptive coverage. Senator Roy Blunt is offering an amendment to a transportation bill that would allow employers to reject any preventive care coverage on any moral grounds. And, this week, Speaker John Boehner announced his intention to repeal all contraceptive provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

The Catholic Health Association has already accepted President Obama’s compromise. Birth control is not controversial. Birth control is common sense.

If opponents of women’s health and rights choose to reject this common-sense solution in favor of politics and ideology, we will not stand idly by. Young women can count on us to fight alongside them as we work to protect sexual and reproductive health and oppose the war on contraception.

Ensuring access to birth control is a winning issue with voters. It is a winning issue with women. It is a winning issue with young people. It is even a winning issue with Catholics.

Millennials overwhelmingly support access to sexual and reproductive health care, and they are paying close attention. They will remember those who stand up to protect, as well as those who undermine, their health and rights – and so will we.

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Advocates for Youth is a national organization that promotes programs and advocates for policies that protect young people's rights and empower them make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health.