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As of April 8th, women in California can officially get birth control from a pharmacist, without seeing a doctor first.
According to the LA Times, the law was initially passed in 2013, but it wasn’t actually put into motion until Friday.
The groundbreaking new law means women no longer have to waste their time making an appointment with their physician just to ask for a birth control prescription.
While each pharmacy is expected to have its own protocol, in most situations, any woman who wants birth control will just have to fill out a simple questionnaire first.
After a quick discussion with the pharmacist, women can choose whether they want to start with the pill, the patch, or the ring.
Although some pharmacists may charge a small fee for a consultation, the cost of the birth control itself will be determined by your health insurance plan.
This newly enacted law will be especially helpful for teenagers, as there is no age minimum for buying birth control from a pharmacy.
Legislators hope that making birth control easier to obtain will dramatically lower the rates of unplanned pregnancies in California.
Because Oregon and Washington already have similar laws in place, the entire West Coast now allows women to get birth control more easily than ever before.
