The Prevention First initiative encompasses these commonsense policies:

Insurance coverage for birth control
While most insurers generally cover prescription drugs, not all are required to cover prescription birth control.  Women pay roughly 68 percent more in out-of-pocket medical expenses than men, mostly due to their reproductive-health care needs.  We have made some progress on this issue: today, 26 states require insurance companies to cover birth control.  Despite this advancement, nearly 17 million women – most of whom are young, low-income, or women of color – do not even have private insurance or Medicaid coverage and cannot benefit from these state mandates. 

To continue to ensure that women have insurance coverage for prescription birth control, NARAL Pro-Choice America works to guarantee that all women either have private insurance or Medicaid coverage for contraception.  We also work with activists and elected officials to enact additional laws and policies that guarantee insurance coverage for contraception and expand the number of women who are eligible for Medicaid family-planning services.   

Family-planning services
Almost 17 million women nationwide rely on publicly funded family-planning programs as their primary source of reproductive-health care.  Family-planning services help prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion, so these programs should be made a priority. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America works with activists and elected officials to increase funding for family planning and expand the number of women eligible for Medicaid family-planning services.

Ensuring that pharmacists fill birth-control prescriptions
Reports of pharmacists refusing to fill women's birth-control prescriptions continue to surface across the country.  Making matters worse, some pharmacists go so far as to lecture women, humiliate them in public, or refuse to hand back the prescription once they have refused to fill it.  In 2006, 18 states considered legislation that would allow pharmacists or pharmacies to refuse to fill women's birth-control prescriptions. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America works with activists, elected officials, and pharmacies to guarantee women's access to birth control without delay, harassment, or intimidation. 

Improving access to the "morning-after" pill
Emergency contraception (EC), also known as the morning-after pill, can reduce a woman's chance of becoming pregnant if taken soon after sex.  Time is of the essence if a woman's primary contraceptive method fails or she is the survivor of a sexual assault.  Improved access to the morning-after pill is critical to helping women prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America educates the public about the morning-after pill and works with activists to ensure that sexual-assault survivors have access to EC in hospital emergency rooms. 

Honest, medically accurate sex education
Young people need and deserve honest and medically accurate information about their reproductive health, including abstinence, pregnancy prevention, and sexually transmitted disease (STD) and HIV/AIDS prevention.  Government-sponsored "abstinence-until-marriage" programs have not been proven effective and must be replaced with sex education that promotes both abstinence and birth control.  By censoring information, "abstinence-only" programs put our teens at risk for unintended pregnancy and STDs.  Only when armed with all the facts can teens make responsible decisions.

NARAL Pro-Choice America works with parents, students, teachers, school board members, the HIV/AIDS community, activists, and elected officials to ensure that young people receive honest, medically accurate sex education in our nation's schools. 

Teen-pregnancy prevention
While the overall teen-pregnancy rate has declined gradually over recent years – due to sex education, reduced frequency of sex, more contraceptive use, and other factors – the United States still has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the western industrialized world. 

NARAL Pro-Choice America works with community and faith-based organizations, activists, health-care providers, and elected officials to promote access to family-planning services for teens.  We also work with these groups to promote honest, medically accurate sex education, including information on both abstinence and contraception.  Finally, we advocate for the establishment and funding of teen-pregnancy prevention and sex-education programs.