New Yorkers Send Message to Obama Administration: All Women Deserve Affordable Birth Control, Regardless of Where They Work
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 1, 2011 Contact: Tara Sweeney, 917-488-0094 New Yorkers Send Message to Obama Administration: All Women Deserve Affordable Birth Control, Regardless of Where They Work NEW YORK—NARAL Pro-Choice New York, along with a coalition of other women’s health and reproductive justice organizations, held a demonstration in downtown Manhattan today calling on the Obama Administration to resist pressure to allow some employers to block insurance plans from covering birth control. “Birth control is the very definition of preventive care, and full insurance coverage for birth control was one of the promises of health care reform,” said Andrea Miller, President of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. “Today’s rally showed that women will not stand for losing coverage for birth control just because their employers oppose it.” The action lined the sidewalk facing the Federal Building, which houses the regional office of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and passersby were encouraged to call the White House on the spot. The action coalesced in a matter of days, with excitement generated through social media sites Facebook and Twitter. This summer, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopted the recommendation of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that family-planning services be recognized as preventive-health care for women, and should be covered by insurance plans without copays or deductibles. Following that decision, anti-contraception groups such as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, led by New York City’s own Archbishop Timothy Dolan, have demanded that contraceptive coverage be eliminated, or that religious hospitals, universities, and social-services organization be exempted from the requirement, despite the fact that they employ people from a wide range of faiths and serve the broad public. “Affordable birth control is central to women's ability to prevent unintended pregnancies, plan their families and protect their health. With 266,000 unintended pregnancies each year in New York, and birth control co-pays running as high as $600 annually, we cannot afford for President Obama to cave under pressure from ultraconservative forces. This is not a theoretical debate, but for thousands of women means the difference between being able to afford birth control or go without it” said Miller. NARAL Pro-Choice New York is part of a nationwide effort that has mobilized thousands of Americans in support of insurance coverage of birth control without a copay or deductible. ###
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