Our Policy Positions

Birth Control and Other Preventive Care

Planned Parenthood believes that all people deserve access to preventive health care, including lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and contraception. In fact, more than 90 percent of the care Planned Parenthood health centers offer nationwide is preventive, helping women and families make responsible decisions about their sexual and reproductive health, their lives, and their futures. 

As the nation’s leading reproductive health care provider, educator, and advocate, Planned Parenthood is dedicated to ensuring access to quality, affordable, and culturally competent health care and information in order to build strong, healthy families and communities.

Birth Control Matters is an effort to make no-cost prescription birth control available without co-pays, enable women to choose the method that works best for them, and reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.

The Title X Family Planning Program

The Title X (ten) Family Planning Program is at the heart of our nation’s efforts to provide health care to low-income women and reduce unintended pregnancies. Title X serves more than five million low-income individuals at more than 4,500 health centers every year. 

In every state, women and men rely on Title X for basic preventive health care, including contraception, Pap tests, and STD treatment. In fact, 6 in 10 women who access care from a family planning health center consider it to be their primary source of health care.

Title X services prevent nearly one million unintended pregnancies each year, almost half of which would otherwise end in abortion.

Yet in spite of the program’s critical role and proven effectiveness, Title X continues to be woefully underfunded. 

Learn more about our work on affordable birth control and prevention: