Current Political Issue

Title: Birth Control Apps Find A Big Market in 'Contraception Deserts'

By: Lesley McClurg and Ashley Lopez for NPR

     The NPR article is about an online birth control app called, NURX, that allows women to order their birth control, without consulting with their doctors. Rachel Raph is a customer of the company and explained to us how the process works. The first step would be to answer a questionnaire. According to a nurse practitioner of NURX, the patient would discuss their medical history online to the practitioner. After discussing and answering the questions, a clinician would look at the results, and "makes a suggestion about what type of hormonal contraception might be best for that individual." Then the pill would be delivered to them free of charge if they have an health insurance or would have to pay fifteen dollars for the month supply. Many people who live in small towns are very much grateful for NURX or birth control apps in general. Claire Hammon, for example, lives in Llano, Texas, with the population of 3,000 there is no nearby women health clinic. This makes Hammon's daily life hard because she needs to take birth control pills for her endometriosis. Endometriosis is a disorder where the tissue that lines the uterus, instead grows outside. With this disease, it makes her everyday life painful without taking birth control. With no clinics around, Hammon would have to visit her doctor and pay one-hundred and forty dollars just for her month supply of pills. Though, when she had discovered NURX, it helped her save a lot of money. NURX, helped many women across the nation, though in 2013, Texas, passed an abortion bill that made many clinics that offered abortions to close down. With these clinics closed down, many low-paid women could not get their birth control or receive any medical service, since the clinics were shut down. But it got even worse in Texas when lawmakers cut off funding for the state's family program. This allowed the access to receiving birth control more difficult. With NURX though, it helped many women get a better healthcare. Though Stacey Pogue had argued that even though NURX can help you access the contraception that you need, though these online apps are not that reasonable. Pogue reason for this is because women are needed to visit clinics, an app cannot provide the patient with medical needs, such as, screenings while a clinic can. There are many controversies whether online birth control apps are worth it.

     NURX, in my opinion, sounds like a great company. Even though I do not have much knowledge about birth control or birth control apps, the company seems to help those with critical needs. I am in favor in of this company because it allows women who have a low-income to have a access to birth control, without charge or with a low minimum to pay. Such as Claire Hammon's story, the company truly did help when she was greatly in need of her pills. I chose this article because I wanted to learn more about how online birth control apps worked. If I were to research more about NURX and birth control apps in general, I would like to know why some state's ban women from getting their prescription from the app? Researching this issue was educational and very interesting to me.