Around New England

Free (Or Nearly Free) Contraception For Everybody, Maura Healey Says

December 5, 2023

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey joined five other Democratic governors in calling for the federal government to require that all forms of contraception be provided free of charge or close to that through all private health insurance plans subject to Obamacare, Medicaid, and Medicare.

“Contraception is essential preventive healthcare,” states the letter, referring to pills and other methods of attempting to prevent a woman from getting pregnant through sexual intercourse.

The letter, dated Monday, December 4 and addressed to the Biden administration’s secretary of health and human services, Xavier Becerra, anticipates the availability of daily contraception pills over the counter without a prescription, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved July 13, 2013.

The letter cites a 2020 study that the letter says found that a large number of women “are likely to use” an over-the-counter contraceptive if it requires “no or low out-of-pocket costs.”

The other signers of the letter are Gavin Newsom, governor of California; Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania; JB Pritzker, governor of Illinois; Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina; and Michelle Lujan Grisham, governor of New Mexico.

Supporters of contraception say it helps women control their lives by removing the connection between sexual intercourse and pregnancy unless women want to get pregnant.

Opponents of contraception say that by removing the connection between sex and pregnancy it leads sexual partners to use each other, making them unhappy and driving them apart, and that contraception tends to cheapen sex.

Opponents also note that some forms of contraception sometimes result in abortions by ending the life of a fertilized egg.

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