Insurance coverage for birth control
While most insurers generally cover prescription drugs, not all are required to cover prescription birth control.  Women pay roughly 68 percent more in out-of-pocket medical expenses than men, mostly due to their reproductive health care needs.  We have made some progress on this issue: today, 24 states have laws that require insurance companies to cover birth control.  Despite this advancement, nearly 17 million women – most of whom are young, low-income or women of color – do not even have private insurance or Medicaid coverage and cannot benefit from these state mandates. 

To continue to ensure that women have insurance coverage for prescription birth control, NARAL Pro-Choice America will work to guarantee that all women either have private insurance or Medicaid coverage for contraception.  We will also work with activists and elected officials to enact additional laws and policies that guarantee insurance coverage for contraception and expand the number of women are eligible for Medicaid and family-planning services.   

Family-planning services
Almost 17 million women nationwide rely on publicly funded family-planning programs as their primary source of reproductive health care.  Family-planning services help prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion, so these programs should be made a priority. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America works with activists and elected officials to increase funding for family planning and expand the number of women eligible for Medicaid and family-planning services.

Stopping pharmacists from refusing to fill birth control prescriptions
Reports of pharmacists refusing to fill women's safe, legally prescribed birth control prescriptions continue to surface across the country.  Making matters worse, some pharmacists go so far as to lecture women, humiliate them in public, or refuse to hand back the prescription once they have refused to fill it.  In 2005, 15 states considered legislation that would allow pharmacists or pharmacies to refuse to fill women's birth control prescriptions. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America works with activists, elected officials, and pharmacies to guarantee women's access to prescription contraceptives without delay, inconvenience, or intimidation. 

Improving access to the "morning-after" pill
Emergency contraception (EC), also known as the morning-after pill, is up to 89 percent effective in reducing a woman's chance of becoming pregnant if taken soon after sex.  Time is of the essence if a woman's primary contraceptive method fails or she is the survivor of a sexual assault.  Improved access to the morning-after pill is critical to helping women prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America is committed to educating the public about the morning-after pill and ensuring that sexual assault survivors have access to EC in hospital emergency rooms. 

Honest, comprehensive sex education
Young people need and deserve complete, medically accurate, and age-appropriate information about their reproductive health, including abstinence, pregnancy prevention, and sexually transmitted disease (STD) and HIV/AIDS prevention.  Government-sponsored "abstinence-until-marriage" programs are consistently proven ineffective and must be replaced with more comprehensive sex education that promotes both abstinence and birth control.  By censoring information, "abstinence-only" programs put our teens at risk for unintended pregnancy and contracting STDs.  Only when armed with all the facts can teens make responsible decisions.

NARAL Pro-Choice America will continue to work with parents, students, teachers, school board members, the HIV/AIDS community, activists, and elected officials to advance measures that ensure young people receive honest, comprehensive sex education in our nation's schools. 

Teen pregnancy prevention
While the overall teen pregnancy rate has declined gradually over recent years – due to sex education, less sex, more contraceptive use, and other factors – the United States still has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the western industrialized world. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America is committed to working with community and faith-based organizations, activists, health-care providers, and elected officials to promote access to family-planning services for teens.  We will also work with these groups to promote age-appropriate, skills-based comprehensive sex education, including information on both abstinence and contraception.  Finally, we will continue to advocate for the establishment and funding of teen pregnancy prevention and sex education programs.