Access to Birth Control Act
Latest action · Feb 14, 2013 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Progress
Where this bill reached, and when. A stage with no date was not reached; one that failed a vote and later carried shows the date it carried.
- IntroducedFeb 14, 2013
- Passed SenateNot reached
- Passed HouseNot reached
- To the PresidentNot reached
- Became lawNot reached
Summary
Access to Birth Control Act - Amends the Public Health Service Act to require pharmacies to comply with certain rules related to contraceptives, including: (1) providing a customer a contraceptive without delay if it is in stock; (2) immediately informing a customer if the contraceptive is not in stock and either transferring the prescription to a pharmacy that has the contraceptive in stock or expediting the ordering of the contraceptive and notifying the customer when it arrives, based on customer preference, except for pharmacies that do not ordinarily stock contraceptives in the normal course of business; and (3) ensuring that pharmacy employees do not take certain actions relating to a request for contraception, including intimidating, threatening, or harassing customers, interfering with or obstructing the delivery of services, intentionally misrepresenting or deceiving customers about the availability of contraception or its mechanism of action, breaching or threatening to breach medical confidentiality, or refusing to return a valid, lawful prescription.
Provides that a pharmacy is not prohibited from refusing to provide a contraceptive to a customer if: (1) it is unlawful to dispense the contraceptive to the customer without a valid, lawful prescription and no such prescription is presented; (2) the customer is unable to pay for the contraceptive; or (3) the employee of the pharmacy refuses to provide the contraceptive on the basis of a professional clinical judgment.
Provides that this Act does not preempt state law or any professional obligation of a state board that provides greater protections for customers.
Sets forth civil penalties and establishes a a private cause of action for violations of this Act.
Cosponsors 12
Members who signed on, in the order they did. Signatures ran from Feb 14, 2013 to Mar 22, 2013, with 9 there on the day it was introduced.
| Seat | Cosponsor | Signed on | |
|---|---|---|---|
| D-MN | Al Franken | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| D-CA | Barbara Boxer | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| I-VT | Bernard Sanders | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| D-NY | Kirsten E. Gillibrand | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| D-CT | Richard Blumenthal | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| D-NJ | Robert Menendez | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| D-OR | Ron Wyden | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| D-RI | Sheldon Whitehouse | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| D-OH | Sherrod Brown | Original | Feb 14, 2013 |
| D-MT | Jon Tester | Mar 5, 2013 | |
| D-CA | Dianne Feinstein | Mar 22, 2013 | |
| D-MT | Max Baucus | Mar 22, 2013 |
Actions 2
Everything that happened, newest first.
- Feb 14, 2013Introduced in Senate
- Feb 14, 2013Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Related bills 2
Companion bills and other measures the record links to this one.
| Bill | Title | Relationship | Latest action |
|---|---|---|---|
| HR 728 | Access to Birth Control Act | Identical bill | Feb 15, 2013 |
| S 2625 | Access to Birth Control Act | Related bill | Jul 17, 2014 |
Subjects
Assigned by the Library of Congress. Policy area: Health.
Text 1
Each version as it was printed, newest first.
- Feb 14, 2013Introduced in Senate
Everything here is as published by Congress: the summary is the Congressional Research Service's, the action wording is the clerks', and the subjects are the Library of Congress's. How far it got is read from the actions themselves, taking the most recent one of each kind, so a bill that failed a vote and later passed is shown as having passed. Records come from this bill on Congress.gov and govinfo.gov.