Access to Contraception and Family Planning
The Clergy Advocacy Board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) strongly supports the availability of affordable birth control and government funding for family planning programs.
As clergy of diverse faith traditions, we celebrate the human capacity for sexual intimacy and the ability to bear and raise children. We value procreation and also the value of contraception that enables responsible intimacy to strengthen a relationship apart from bearing children.
The decision to have a child is one of the most important decisions women and couples make. Women, regardless of their socioeconomic status, should have access to affordable and comprehensive reproductive health care including the full range of contraception methods. Women and families struggling to make ends meet are just as capable of making moral decisions about having children as are affluent women.
As clergy, we believe that each person is endowed with the God-given gift of free will. Birth control enables people to plan the timing and size of their families. Giving people access to birth control and sex education is the best way to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortion rates in America.
We are all created in God’s image, and all of us share as responsible agents in being good stewards of our bodies. Women should be able to treat their bodies with reverence and respect in order to plan pregnancies, prevent sexually transmitted infections, and help prevent breast and cervical cancer.
As clergy who have counseled women facing unintended pregnancies, we know that birth control is an important part of health care. We urge our elected officials to endorse reproductive health care by supporting programs that expand birth control access to low-income women and men, ensure that insurance plans cover the full range of FDA-approved birth control methods, help universities and nonprofit health care providers offer low-cost contraceptives, and guarantee that pharmacies dispense contraception. Birth control is basic, preventive health care. All women and couples should have access to affordable family planning.
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The Planned Parenthood® Federation of America Clergy Advisory Board (CAB), launched in 1994, leads a national effort to increase public awareness of the theological and moral basis for advocating reproductive health and justice. CAB members are dedicated pro-choice clergy from different denominations and communities throughout the U.S. who work with Planned Parenthood at the national and state levels to further the goal of full reproductive freedom for all women and men.
April 2014