Senator Reid has introduced the Prevention First Act. This bill is to expand access to preventive health care services that help reduce unintended pregnancy, reduce the number of abortions, and improve access to women's health care.
Co-sponsors include Senators Murray, Schumer, Corzine, Lautenberg, Clinton, Kerry, Feinstein, Cantwell, Harkin, Mikulski, Inouye, Levin, Kennedy, Leahy, Wyden, and Stabenow.
This bill is outstanding!
Top reasons why this bill is of critical importance:
The United States still has one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancies among industrialized nations.
Each year, 3,000,000 pregnancies, nearly half of all pregnancies, in the United States are unintended, and nearly half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion.
Almost 900,000 teenagers become pregnant each year, and three million teenagers contract a sexually-transmitted disease each year.
In 2002, 34,000,000 women--half of all women of reproductive age (ages 15-44)--were in need of contraceptive services and supplies to help prevent unintended pregnancy, and half of those were in need of public support for such care.
The United States also has the highest rate of infection with sexually transmitted diseases of any industrialized country. In 2003 there were approximately 19,000,000 new cases of sexually transmitted diseases. According to the CDC (November 2004), these sexually transmitted diseases impose a tremendous economic burden with direct medical costs as high as $15,500,000,000 per year.
Increasing access to family planning services will improve women's health and reduce the rates of unintended pregnancy, abortion, and infection with sexually transmitted diseases. Contraceptive use saves public health dollars. Every dollar spent on providing family planning services saves an estimated $3 in expenditures for pregnancy-related and newborn care for Medicaid alone.
The percentage of sexually active women ages 15 through 44 who were not using contraception increased from 5.4 percent to 7.4 percent in 2002, an increase of 37 percent, according to the CDC. This represents an apparent increase of 1,430,000 women and could raise the rate of unintended pregnancy.
Many poor and low-income women cannot afford to purchase contraceptive services and supplies on their own. 12,100,000 or 20 percent of all women ages 15 through 24 were uninsured in 2002, and that proportion has increased by 10 percent since 1999.
The Prevention First Act will:
Increase Access to Family Planning Services.
This bill increases funding for the national family planning program (Title X) and will allow states to expand Medicaid family planning services to women with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
End Insurance Discrimination Against Women.
The legislation ensures equity and fairness in contraception coverage by ensuring that private health plans offer the same level of coverage for contraception as they do for other prescription drugs and services.
Provide Compassionate Assistance for Rape Victims.
Women who suffer sexual assault should not have to face the additional trauma of an unwanted pregnancy. Our bill ensures that women who survive sexual assault receive factually accurate information about emergency contraception (EC) and access to EC upon request.
Improve Awareness about Emergency Contraception.
Approved by the FDA as a safe and effective means of contraception, EC could substantially reduce the staggering number of unintended pregnancies. Our bill provides $10 million to implement important public education initiatives about EC and its benefits and uses to women and medical providers.
Reduce Teen Pregnancy.
The bill would provide $20 million in annual funding for competitive grants to public and private entities to establish or expand teen pregnancy prevention programs.
Truth in Contraception.
Government-funded abstinence-only programs are precluded from discussing contraception except to talk about failure rates. A recently study found these programs distort public health data and misrepresent the effectiveness of contraception. Our bill ensures that information provided about the use of contraception as part of any federally funded program is medically accurate and includes information about the health benefits and failure rates of contraception.
We hear a lot of discussion about reducing the number of abortions. Republicans should support this bill. This is a chance to cut down on abortions by supporting and funding prevention.