Possibly, and hopefully:

The Institute of Medicine recommended on Tuesday that health care insurers cover the cost of birth control under the new federal health care law. This was just one of the findings on preventive health care services for women from the Institute, the branch of the National Academies of Science tasked with providing research and information on medical topics. But like pretty much everything dealing with women’s health these days, this has turned into a debate about abortion.

The Department of Health and Human Services will get to make the ultimate decision about whether insurers will be required to provide birth control free of charge, but this is a good indication that it will. The new health care law requires insurers to cover preventative health care, and the administration directed the Institute to determine what that should include.

This isn’t just a matter of saving women some money (though I will personally cheer for that). From a purely practical standpoint, it costs much less money to provide birth control than it does to raise a child. The government should be happy to support this. Not to mention providing birth control also decreases abortions and teen pregnancies. I’m sure the religious right will be the first to promote free birth control, right?


If coming up with funding is an issue, maybe they can use this super cheap and highly effective birth control method:

As someone with two 4 year old nephews, I can attest to its effectiveness.