Senator Murray Pushes to Ensure Everyone Can Access Over-the-Counter Birth Control as FDA Considers First-Ever Application

Senator Murray: “Birth control allows women to plan a family on their own terms. With Republicans stripping women of their fundamental reproductive rights, I’m fighting hard to ensure everyone can get the birth control they want—without extra hoops or extra costs.”

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following statement on news that the first application for an over-the-counter birth control pill has been submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for review today.

“Birth control allows women to plan a family on their own terms. With Republicans stripping women of their fundamental reproductive rights, I’m fighting hard to ensure everyone can get the birth control they want—without extra hoops or extra costs. It’s amazing to see today’s announcement of the first-ever FDA application for an over-the-counter birth control pill—because it means it may soon be easier than ever for women to get birth control without needing a prescription. That’s huge.

“But it’s not enough for an over-the-counter birth control pill to be available to women—it has to be affordable, too, and that’s why we need to pass my Affordability is Access Act. Once the FDA determines an over-the-counter option to be safe and effective for use without a prescription, it should be approved without delay and must be fully covered by insurance just like other FDA-approved birth control—and that’s exactly what my bill will do.”

The Affordability is Access Act ensures that people across the country can access and afford over-the-counter birth control options and plan their own reproductive lives, on their own terms. The bill would:

• Ensure coverage of comprehensive preventive health services and expand coverage to include full access to oral contraception for routine, daily over-the-counter use for all. All private health insurance plans are now required to cover all U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved methods of contraception. The Act would ensure coverage of all oral contraception that the FDA has approved or regulated for routine, daily use without a prescription.

• Maintain the FDA’s sole authority to determine the safety and efficacy of drugs and make them available over-the-counter without a prescription. It is imperative that the entities that research and develop oral contraceptives, and whose medical and scientific experts have developed clinical and other evidence that birth control pills are safe and effective when sold without a prescription, apply to the FDA for review and approval for sale without a prescription. Upon the receipt of such an application, the FDA must determine whether the contraceptive product meets the rigorous safety, efficacy, and quality standards for over-the-counter use, as established by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. If the product meets these standards, the FDA should approve the application without delay.

• Ensure retailers provide oral contraception without a prescription. The Act states that any retailer that stocks oral contraception that the FDA has approved or regulated for routine, daily use without a prescription may not interfere with a consumer’s access to or purchase of such contraception.

Senator Murray, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA-07), Chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus’ Abortion Rights and Access Taskforce, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14), Congressman Ami Bera, M.D. (D-CA-07), Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) reintroduced the Affordability is Access Act (AAA) last month.  

Read full text of the Affordability is Access Act here.

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