PRCH supports the recent recommendation of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to include contraception in the preventive health benefits for women under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). As physicians, we know that access to contraception is essential to the health and well-being of our patients.
There are those who assert that unintended pregnancy is not a health condition and therefore prevention of unintended pregnancy is not preventive health care. From my personal practice I can say that I cannot disagree more.
I firmly believe the requirements under the Affordable Care Act, and the slate of regulations being created to implement it, infringe on no one’s conscience, demand no one change her or his religious beliefs, discriminate against no man or woman, put no additional economic burden on the poor, interfere with no one’s medical decisions, compromise no one’s health — that is, if you consider the law without refusal clauses.
