There are 102 countries in the world where you can buy birth control pills without seeing your doctor, but the United States isn’t one of them.

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has endorsed the idea of true access to over-the-counter birth control since 2012 and 76 percent of doctors and 70 percent of other health care providers have said that people should have over-the-counter access.

One common concern is whether people who can get pregnant can assess whether or not birth control pills are dangerous for them. But as ACOG explained in 2012, easily accessible drugs such as aspirin and acetaminophen have their risks, such as gastrointestinal bleeding and serious liver damage. And the rate of birth control’s most notable risk, venous thromboembolism, is “extremely low” for birth control users, said ACOG.

There are several barriers for low-income people and women in rural areas to getting an appointment in a timely fashion, explained Denicia Cadena, policy and cultural strategy director at Young Women United, an organization focusing on organizing and policy efforts in New Mexico. On a press call for the Free The Pill project last week, Cadena explained that a doctor’s appointment can be a real barrier for people who lack access to child care or transportation. And many people have jobs that don’t allow them the flexibility to go to doctor’s appointments as often as they would like.


There are only a few states — Colorado, California, Oregon, and New Mexico — that allow pharmacists to provide pills so that people who can get pregnant don’t need to make two separate trips. The drawback for Californians has been that pharmacists aren’t always interested in getting the training to learn the process for providing the pills, which can be time-consuming, the Los Angeles Times reported. Still, reforms like this are key for people living in rural areas, Cadena explained.