CPAL's Trust Her team gives contraception access to more women

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The women behind the Trust Her initiative — invisible even to those whose lives they have changed — are modeling an audacious new approach to contraception in Dallas County.

They work to ensure that every woman has same-day access to all methods of contraception, regardless of her ability to pay, and provide all with the same level of care and compassion, regardless of their circumstances.

It’s a reproductive-justice strategy that puts women in the driver’s seat of their own lives and bends the curve on devastating realities that define too many North Texas families — child poverty and teenagers’ repeat pregnancies...

Trust Her is the reproductive and maternal health piece of the Child Poverty Action Lab, whose goal is to cut the Dallas County child poverty in half over the next 20 years. The data behind this work is shocking:

— 1.8 million Texas women of childbearing age cannot afford their preferred method of birth control. For example, without good insurance, an IUD can cost $1,300.

— A woman often waits seven months or more to obtain her method of choice. Appointments may not be available for many weeks and more waits can follow, depending on a clinic’s contraception inventory.

— Among low-income patients, 50% will not return for a second visit due to the compounded burden of additional time off from work, transportation costs and childcare.

The result is unplanned pregnancies and poor birth spacing that risks bad health outcomes for both moms and babies.

Contraception access also is closely tied to economic mobility. Only about 40% of teen mothers graduate high school and less than 2% complete college before age 30. Yet when barriers to access are removed, earning power and educational attainment grow at an astonishing rate.