Future of IUD program in hands of state lawmakers
The Pueblo City-County Health Department credits a statewide program that provides intrauterine devices with reducing the number of teen pregnancies, but the future of the program rests in the hands of state lawmakers.
Lawmakers are considering a bill (HB1194) that would allocate $5 million from the state general fund to continue the program. It began in 2009 when the state received a multi-year grant to provide long-acting contraception at little to no cost to counties. But the private grant ends on June 30, 2015.
Jo Miller, associate director for community health services at the health department, said the program has helped the county, which once had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state.
“We had been number one for quite some time,” Miller said.
Since the county began providing IUDs to low-income women in 2009, the county has reported a 40 percent drop in teen pregnancies.
“[Teens] know they have a safe place that they can come and they can get care and they can get birth control and not be worried about it, not be scared,” Miller said.
Miller said many teens and young adult prefer IUDs because they last longer than other birth control, in some cases as long as ten years. The county administers, on average, six IUDs a week.
“You don’t have to change your birth control method and you don’t have to worry about taking a pill every morning,” she said.
The Colorado House Public Health Care and Human Services committee backed the bill on Tuesday in a 8 to 5 vote. It has to go through another committee before it heads to the state House.
Tamra Axworthy, executive director of A Caring Pregnancy, a ministry-based nonprofit in Pueblo, hopes the bill gets killed.
“It’s another case of the government in the bedroom,” Axworthy said. “Some people would say that it’s just going to give them license to participate in risky behaviors whereas they may not have been quite as free in those behaviors before they had contraception.”
The bill has bipartisan support. It’s being sponsored by Rep. Don Coram, (R- Montrose), and Rep. KC Becker, (D-Boulder).
