The following Letter to the Editor from our vice-chair, Aileen Wagner, was published in the Delaware Gazette on July 16, 2020.
I took birth control for endometriosis and to allow my husband and me to wait until we were financially stable before having children. While I am no longer able to take birth control, it would be such a relief to not pay a copay because of the Affordable Care Act, instead, I had to pay for my prescriptions monthly during the years I had little disposable income.
Because of the Affordable Care Act, this is not a struggle young women face today, until last week’s Supreme Court decision. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration on its attacks on essential services provided by the Affordable Care Act. This decision allows virtually any employer or university to back out of the ACA-guaranteed coverage of birth control
without copays. This isn’t just wrong, it’s discriminatory. Everybody deserves birth control coverage — it shouldn’t be up
to the personal beliefs of an employer or institution. This is part of a broader agenda from the Trump administration, they don’t care how it will hurt people like me and families like mine, since affordable access to birth control is the key to economic security and health.
Gov. Mike DeWine has been on the frontlines of this attack on reproductive health care. When he was attorney general, he sued to undermine the ACA’s contraception coverage provision. DeWine sided with Hobby Lobby, a company that dictates which forms of contraception their workers are allowed to use and have covered by their insurance instead of workers. As governor, Mike DeWine has signed anti-abortion legislation and a budget that gives taxpayer money to fake health clinics that lie to women and shame them. Delaware County and Ohio Democrats have stood with those who use birth control and will fight for equality in health care. And we will continue to do so.