With the notable exception of the drought, it’s easy to envy Californians. Their weather is warm, their politics are liberal and their wine cups runneth over. And now they’re just rubbing their superiority in our faces: later this year, California will become the first state that allows women to purchase hormonal birth control without a prescription, instead buying it directly from a pharmacist.

But why is California the only state to have taken such a step? Every state should offer over-the-counter hormonal birth control to those who need or want it. It’s safe, effective and women are smart enough to weigh potential risks. Besides, pharmacy shelves are stocked with things far more dangerous to women than pregnancy prevention – like Aspirin, or Us magazine.

And California’s decision, trailblazing though it is, still doesn’t go far enough to make birth control easily accessible. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists endorses over-the-counter access to oral contraceptives – meaning they recommend stocking them drugstore shelves, not just making them available through pharmacists. And according to Dr. Nancy Stanwood, associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Yale School of Medicine and board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health, medical evidence has long supported such a move.

“When it comes down to it, you’re making birth control more convenient so women can get it in a timely manner to avoid unintended pregnancies,” she tells me. “People used to think that in order to get the pill, you needed a pelvic exam and a pap test,” but really, Stanwood says, contraceptive care was folded into preventative care as a way to ensure that women showed up for their annual exam.

In fact, women can self-screen for possible health risks before taking hormonal birth control. For example, if women have had blood clots in their lungs before, or a history of heart attack, hormonal birth control may not be right for them. But the vast majority of women seeking birth control, says Stanwood, are young women who don’t have such complications.

A far bigger issue than unlikely side effects is preventing unwanted pregnancies.

“It’s just a matter of taking away the traditional barriers – maybe a woman can’t get to a doctor’s appointment, but she can get to a Walgreen’s,” says Stanwood.

But despite the overwhelming evidence that California’s move to make birth control easier to get is the right one – and maybe even doesn’t go far enough – we’re sure to be inundated with conservative ideology for why increased access to contraceptives is wrong.

When emergency contraception was up for over-the-counter status, for example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) let politics trump science, and it took years before Plan B was approved in 2013. Americans were warned by conservatives that greater access to the drug would mean increased promiscuity – and the FDA took them seriously, citing a fear of “teen sex cults” as a reason to hold up approval.

The truth is that putting birth control in women’s hands is terrifying to those who want women forever asking permission for the most basic of reproductive rights – be it from a politician, a husband or a pharmacist. And while California’s step to make birth control more available to women by not requiring a doctor’s appointment is a good one, we need more. Extremist pharmacists still refuse to sell women contraception, some going as far as to lie about the drug’s availability.

It’s time to get rid of the middle man and trust women with their own health. So let’s put birth control on drugstore shelves, where it belongs.