Reproductive Health

The perfect mother is a ubiquitous, if impossible, part of American life. We see her in spandex at the gym, working out—self-care!—a week after delivering twins. She’s at center-stage when internet experts opine about how mothers can prevent teenagers’ opioid addictions. In the shadow of this unattainable, idealized vision of a mother as a virtual guarantor of their children’s health and happiness, actual mothers berate themselves for falling short of perfection, feeling ashamed and inadequate. In the American legal system, the pervasive stereotype of the perfect mother can lead to serious consequences, dramatically distorting the judgments of police, prosecutors, judges, and jurors.

Title X of the Public Health Service Act is the only federal program devoted exclusively to family planning and reproductive health care. Title X is symbolic of the mid-20th century’s widespread and bipartisan support for policies aimed at increasing access to affordable contraception. More recently, the once-separate politics of abortion and contraception have converged. Just as we see a growing number of “abortion-free zones,” we are witnessing the growth of contraception deserts, or geographic areas with inequitable access to affordable family planning due to states’ broad discretion in Title X implementation. New and proposed reforms to Title X at the state and federal levels may expand contraception deserts. This inequality isn’t trivial. Two-thirds of reproductive age women in the U.S. use contraception, and more than 20 million women require the assistance of public programs to afford that contraception.