The Oregon House passed a bill on a 50-10 vote allowing women to get oral contraceptives from a pharmacist without a doctor’s prescription, a policy that chief supporter Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend, said would be the first in the nation.
“It will be one of the most significant improvements in women’s health in our generation,” Buehler said on the House floor Tuesday.
Oral contraceptives and hormonal patches will be available behind the counter at a pharmacy, and women would only have to pass a screening tool beforehand.
Buehler shepherded the late-session bill through the House Rules Committee after the House Health Committee deadline passed without a finished bill. He won key support from House Majority Leader Val Hoyle, D-Eugene, who chairs the Rules Committee.
“We all share the goal of reducing unplanned pregnancies,” Hoyle told her colleagues on the House floor. Hoyle said she’s discussed the bill with Senate members, helping to assure its passage before the Legislature adjourns.
If the bill clears the more capricious Senate, HB 2879 will be a significant coup for Buehler as he works to brandish his moderate credentials, perhaps with an eye on statewide office. The Bend physician lost a run for Secretary of State to now-Gov. Kate Brown in 2012 before his election to the Bend House seat in 2014.
Birth control access has been a hot-button issue nationally, with some Republicans opposing President Obama’s efforts to require health insurers to cover contraceptives as preventive medicine without imposing cost sharing, often on religious grounds. Buehler sets himself apart from those Republicans with this effort, mimicking a position taken by Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, who knocked former Sen. Mark Udall out of office in 2014.
Gardner supported offering birth control over-the-counter. Oregon’s policy is different from Gardner’s in two ways -- the pill will be available behind the counter, similar to Sudafed, and women must be screened by a pharmacist. Secondly, health insurers will pay for these contraceptives.
The Senate passed the other ground-breaking bill creating greater access to birth control -- House Bill 3343, on Tuesday, requiring insurers to dispense a 12-month supply of birth control to women who have an established prescription.
“This is going to prevent unplanned pregnancies to allow women to have the education they need to be successful and have children when they want to,” said Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Portland.
That bill faced a rocky hearing in the Senate Health Committee, but an outcry from women’s health advocates and rank-and-file Democrats pressured Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson, D-Gresham, to move the bill forward without amendments from the health insurance industry which tried to water it down.
Monnes Anderson also spoke in support of HB 3343, noting that beyond the enormous preventive reproductive health benefit of birth control, oral contraceptives are often prescribed for medical concerns. “Use of the pill can reduce the likelihood of ovarian cancer by 50 percent.” said Monnes Anderson, a retired nurse.
HB 3343 now heads to Gov. Brown.
Opposition to HB 2879 was led by Rep. Gail Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, who was supported by eight Republicans from across the ideological spectrum, along with one Democrat, Rep. Betty Komp of Woodburn.
Whitsett warned about complications from blood clots when women have bad reactions to birth control pills. “For women to take these pills without a physical exam seems unwise at best.”
Buehler said women at risk of blood clots will be screened by the pharmacists’ questionnaire. He said although the risk of medical complications like blood clots from birth controls was real, the chances are much lower than the risk for unplanned pregnancies that comes about from restricted access.
HB 2879 does have some sideboards -- girls under 18 will need a doctor’s prescription before getting birth control pills the first time, and adult women who get their pills from a pharmacist will have to check in with a physician or nurse practitioner within three years after they start taking the pills.
