Wed Sep 28, 2022 – 7:40 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Tuesday requiring health plans to cover the cost of vasectomies beginning in 2024.
Dubbed the “Contraceptive Equity Act,” SB523 requires health plans to cover the reversible sterilization procedure for men without charging co-pays. The new law expands upon the federal Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most health plans cover the cost of women’s birth control.
The new law also requires coverage of over-the-counter birth control “without cost sharing or medical management restrictions.”
“SB 523 will help ensure equitable access to contraception, as well as solidify California’s rightful place as a national leader in reproductive freedom,” said the bill’s author, Democrat Sen. Connie Leyva of Chino, in a statement. “It is critical that Californians be able to decide — for themselves — if and when they have children.”
Newsom signed the new law as part of a slew of measures to ensure and expand abortion access in California, including laws that protect people from criminal and civil liability for abortion, including regarding out-of-state requests for prosecution.
The bill package amounts to what is considered “some of the strongest abortion
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