A House committee gave its approval Tuesday to a bill to put state money behind a contraception program that supporters say has been a major contributor to reducing teen pregnancies in Colorado.

The bill would provide $5 million next year to continue to provide free or low-cost intrauterine contraceptive devices, called IUDs, to women ages 15 to 19 years at clinics across the state.

The bill passed the committee on a bipartisan 8-5 vote and now goes to the Appropriations Committee for a second hearing.

The rationale is that providing contraceptives to low-income teens saves public assistance money later on by avoiding unwanted pregnancies.​ The state health department estimates a $5.85 savings for every dollar in the program.

The health department reported that before the program started, only 1 in every 170 low-income women in Colorado had access to a contraceptive device. By 2011, the program had helped cut that number to 1 in 15.

“By providing access to contraceptive devices we are giving Colorado women and families the most effective means to make decisions about when to start a family,” said Rep. KC Becker, D-Boulder, who is sponsoring the bill with Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose.

The state health department has run the program since 2009 with primarily $23.6 million donated by the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation for the Colorado Family Planning Initiative, but that money is running out.

Gov. John Hickenlooper has credited the IUD program with reducing the state’s teen birth rate, which fell 40 percent from 2009 to 2013.

The program has provided more than 30,000 contraceptives and caused a 34 percent drop in teen abortions, Dr. Larry Wolk, the state’s chief medical officer and the director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, told the committee.

The bill faces a struggle in the Republican-led Senate, since some conservatives equate IUDs with abortions.

Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, is one of the leading opponents to the measure because he sees it as relative to abortion.

Bob Beauprez, the Republican nominee in last year’s governor’s race, made the same argument during a debate with Hickenlooper and drew a rebuke from medical professionals.

Wold previously has rebuked the abortion link, saying an IUDs are a pre-fertilization barrier that prevents pregnancy. Coram, an abortion opponent, said preventing unwanted pregnancies equates to preventing abortions.

Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joeybunch