FSPH
Begin main content

Dean Emeritus Linda Rosenstock talks to PBS about the contraception mandate

|March 21, 2014|

http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365204957

Dr. Linda Rosenstock explains the benefits of requiring employers to cover contraception in their healthcare plans for employees.

The Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments next week in the deeply divisive “Hobby Lobby case.” The religious owners of the craft chain, and other plaintiffs, say the Affordable Care Act, violates their religious freedom by requiring them to buy certain kinds of contraception insurance for their employees. What limits should there be, if any, on persons, including owners of corporations, claiming a religious exemption from Federal law?

O’BRIEN: The issue has generated more than 80 “friend of the court” briefs offering advice from hundreds of different organizations. Nearly all the religious groups opposed the contraception mandate. And overall, those in support of Hobby Lobby outnumber those in favor of the mandate by roughly a 4-to-1 margin.

The contraception mandate was drawn up by the Department of Health and Human Services and follows a report from the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit division of the National Academy of Sciences The Institute concluded that contraceptives help reduce unwanted pregnancies, which reduces the number of abortions, but that many women do not have the resources to buy the contraceptives they need, or those that will be most effective. Dr. Linda Rosenstock, dean emeritus of the UCLA School of Public Health, chaired the committee of 17 health care professionals that drafted the Institute of Medicine report:

LINDA ROSENSTOCK, MD (Institute of Medicine): We know that unintended pregnancies are quite prevalent in the United States; there are several million a year. And we know that 40 percent of those end up in abortion. There’s also evidence that the more you provide family planning, the less unintended pregnancies there are, and the less abortions there are. But a clear benefit of providing this kind of access is actually—among all the other health benefits—to reduce something that I think we would all agree is a good outcome, which is to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortion.

Watch the full video here