LANSING – In an effort to reduce unintended pregnancies and promote policies that support a family's ability to make informed and responsible health care decisions, Michigan legislators introduced a 15-bill "Prevention First" package today.
"It's widely estimated that half of all pregnancies are unintended, and one in four teen girls has a sexually
transmitted disease. The only effective way to change those grim statistics is with prevention," said State
Representative Rebekah Warren (D-Ann Arbor).
"Ultimately, the goal of the legislation is to help ensure that every child born in Michigan is a wanted child and every
woman and man has the resources and tools to make responsible, informed choices about their health and family."
The package, introduced today in both the House and the Senate, addresses numerous family planning issues, which
include:
- Giving women affordable access to birth control
- Promoting honest, medically accurate, abstinence-plus sex education
- Guaranteeing that women who survive rape or sexual assault are offered information about, and access to, emergency contraception
- Requiring insurance coverage for birth control
- Expanding family-planning services
- Requiring that pharmacists fill birth-control prescriptions
- Supporting teen-pregnancy prevention efforts
"This package is not about playing politics as usual. It's about preventing unintended pregnancies, something that all
of us can agree on," said Senator Gilda Jacobs (D-Huntington Woods). "It is about young women in
Michigan whose safety, emotional well-being and even their lives, depends on our swift action. I call upon my colleagues
on both sides of the aisle to work together for the sake of these women."
Studies show that the vast majority of Americans support such prevention policies. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 86 percent of Americans support access to birth control, and public funding for low income women's birth control and preventative health screening. Such initiatives are not uncommon across the nation. In 2008 alone, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin enacted similar "Prevention First" measures.
In addition, these bills not only address basic health care issues, but they can potentially save the state millions of
dollars at a time when the state's economy is fragile. For every dollar spent on family planning services, four dollars
are saved on social services in the first year alone.