SimpleHealth Supports ‘Let's Talk’ Month with #KissMyAccess Campaign

When we launched our online birth control prescription and home delivery service a year ago, we knew that there were many women in the U.S. who needed a more affordable and more convenient option for acquiring birth control. What we didn’t know was just how significantly so many women have struggled to access birth control in the first place. Why didn’t we know? Because, traditionally, our society has never talked about it. Sure, the statistics tell us 19 million women live in contraception deserts and 45% of pregnancies are unplanned. Access to reproductive healthcare is abysmal—we all know that.

But what the statistics don’t tell us about is the real humans behind those numbers. The woman who wasn’t allowed to get birth control as a teen because her parents prohibited it. The woman who was told by her conservative doctor that, since she was unmarried, she shouldn’t be sexually active in the first place. The woman who couldn't afford to pay an office visit co-pay multiple times a year—as required by her doctor—to keep her birth control prescription valid.

October is “Let’s Talk” month, a period traditionally dedicated to encouraging teenagers and their champions to talk openly about sex. To further encourage public conversation around reproductive health and, specifically, birth control access, SimpleHealth is partnering with Power to Decide, a non-profit aiming to prevent unplanned pregnancy especially amongst young adults, to take “Let’s Talk” month a step further.

In order to impact meaningful change around birth control awareness and access, it is essential to educate society around the challenges women regularly face. So for this “Let’s Talk” month, SimpleHealth is encouraging women of all ages to share their stories around how they’ve struggled to access birth control. For every story tagged on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #KissMyAccess, SimpleHealth will donate one month of birth control to an uninsured woman.

Of the 61 million reproductive age women in the U.S., 70% (about 43 million) are at risk of unintended pregnancy. The truth is, there is no shortage of factors that prevent equal access to reproductive health. Earlier this year, seven states passed bans prohibiting abortions beyond eight weeks or earlier, even though many women don’t even know they’re pregnant until after six weeks. There has also been a long tradition of inadequate, antiquated and/or restricted sexual health education in schools across the country. And to top it off, shame, fear and embarrassment prevent women, especially young women, from asking questions and getting the information they need to make informed decisions.

In igniting this conversation, we hope to make strides in eliminating the taboo women face in speaking about birth control access—giving the problem a real voice. Because we’ll never make real progress if this problem continues to be left out of the women’s health narrative.

If you’ve ever struggled to get birth control—because it cost too much, you lost your insurance, if a doctor interfered or you couldn’t take time off of work for an appointment—speak up. Share your story this month on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #KissMyAccess. By talking about your own experience, you’re helping uninsured women get access to birth control and inspiring women everywhere to own the conversation around their own reproductive health.

*From October 7 - 31st, SimpleHealth will donate one month of birth control to an uninsured woman for every Instagram or Twitter post tagged with the hashtag #KissMyAccess, up to 4,000 months.