However weird it may seem, a large number of American women cannot afford themselves an effective birth control tools. While well-off women can rely on every type of birth control they prefer, the middle-to-low class usually bumps into high prices and inability to get their essential right for family planning. In the recent years, more than 20 million of sexually active women had an income below 250 percent federal poverty level and could not access publicly funded birth control programs. The same refers to women younger than 20 who are the prior ones to need an adequate contraception.
De facto, all American women willing to use contraception have an unrestricted access to all the variety, including pills and IUD. The other thing is not all of them can purchase it without a damage to their budget. Certainly, women with a health insurance are more likely to use contraceptives regularly. The Affordable Care Act requires private insurance companies to include coverage of the prevention of undesirable pregnancy into their plans. The same principle can be applied to situations when women need an abortion. According to the legislation, federal Medicaid funds cannot be used for abortions except for cases of rape or evident risk to the mother’s health. Again, low-income women cannot get an abortion unless they pay for it themselves.
Apparently, abortion and birth control remain to be a taboo for conservative politicians and religious officials. These issues pull so little attention of politicians that they pretend contraception does not belong to things an average American woman needs every day.