June 7, 2012
Birth Control and Women’s Health – 47 Years of Legal Access to Contraception
June 7, 2012 marks the 47th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by married couples in all 50 states and ushering in a generation of healthy, empowered women and families. Ninety-nine percent of sexually active women have used birth control at some point in their lives.
“The more women have access to affordable birth control and plan their families, the healthier our families will be,” said Kathy Kneer, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.“That’s why we’re sponsoring AB 2348 this year to increase access to birth control for California women.”
You can help increase access to birth control by emailing your State Senator and urging them to support AB 2348. Planned Parenthood is proud to sponsor AB 2348 because we know increased access to birth control will help prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named birth control as one of the top ten public health achievements of the past century. Before the Supreme Court’s decision, women and their newborns often suffered extremely poor, even fatal, health outcomes as a result of an unintended pregnancy. Prior to Griswold, 32 women died for every 100,000 live births in this country. Today, the rate is less than half that. Infant mortality has fallen even faster — from 25 deaths to fewer than seven per 1,000 live births — as more children are born to parents who plan their pregnancies.
