Editor’s note: Sacramento Snapshot is a weekly series during the legislative session detailing what Orange County’s representatives in the Assembly and Senate are working on — from committee work to bill passages and more.
Even in California, where voters recently enshrined access to abortion and contraceptives in the state constitution, reproductive health care can be difficult for some to obtain.
But a bill that would expand coverage of long-acting reversible contraceptives for lower-income women got bipartisan support in the Assembly Health Committee last week.
California’s Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment program, otherwise called Family PACT, provides free services like some forms of birth control, HIV testing, cervical cancer screening, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment and more for people with family incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.
Under the bill spearheaded by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine, Family PACT would provide coverage for long-acting reversible contraceptives, like IUDs, during inpatient visits.
The idea is to expand access to these types of contraceptives while women are already receiving pregnancy or abortion health care — especially since as many as 40% of women do not attend postpartum visits, according to research from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and that rate is even higher among those with “limited resources.”
“Even in California, we see women who can’t get the birth control they want when they need it because they lack certain coverage,” Petrie-Norris said.
Petrie-Norris’ bill was included in the reproductive health care package unveiled by the Legislative Women’s Caucus earlier this month.
Her AB 90, supported by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists District IX, is related to contraceptive access, not abortion: IUDs, or intrauterine devices, are reversible options to prevent pregnancy and do not…
Read the full article here
