Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel

Raising kids is expensive – at least, that’s what my parents tell me, and my husband’s parents, and my friends who have kids. I do want children of my own someday, but first I want to make sure my husband and I are financially stable and as prepared as we can be for a slew of new expenses (not to mention new stresses!). In the meantime, I’m relying on prescription birth control, which is no small expense itself – but I’m lucky to have a good job with health insurance coverage that picks up most of the cost. And when the time comes, I know I’ll have access to quality care to make sure I’m healthy before, during, and after a baby.

For many low-income women, however, these choices are much harder. Even women who have health insurance may face high deductibles and co-payments for doctor’s visits and prescriptions. Co-payments for contraception typically cost $15 to $50 a month, and alternatives to the pill, such as the IUD, can cost hundreds of dollars and often aren’t covered by insurance at all. For a young woman trying to cover groceries and rent on the $1,200 or so she earns each month from her minimum wage job, paying for birth control may seem impossible. A study commissioned by Planned Parenthood last year found that 34 percent of women voters have struggled with the cost of prescription birth control at some point in their lives – and among young adult women, who are most at risk for unplanned pregnancy, more than half (55 percent) have experienced a time when they could not afford to use birth control consistently.