Testimony in support of TN House Bill 0533, an act relative to reproductive health care
Testimony from:
Courtney Joslin, Resident Fellow and Senior Manager, R Street Institute
Testimony in support of House Bill 0533, an act relative to reproductive health care
March 11, 2025
House Population Health Subcommittee
Chair Carringer and members of the committee,
My name is Courtney Joslin, and I am a resident fellow at the R Street Institute. R Street is a nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy research organization whose mission is to conduct policy research that promotes free markets and limited, effective government. I lead the Project for Women and Families, and this project studies state and federal contraception policy. I was also born and raised in House District 17. I encourage passage of House Bill 0533.
HB 0533 makes clear to Tennesseans that simply using contraception, as well as undergoing fertility treatment, is protected in state law. This bill is simple and straightforward. Yet, I can assure you, it is crucial. The Pew Research Center finds that 42 percent of Americans have used, or know someone who has used, fertility treatment to have a family. What’s more, over a third of women in Tennessee use some form of highly effective contraception after having a baby.[1] When including all forms of contraception, 80 percent of Tennessee women use it postpartum.[2] Access to contraception is vital to planning for a pregnancy.
However, when Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, news outlets in this state covered the confusion of Tennesseans over reproductive access laws. For example, WPLN ran a story titled, “Navigating birth control in Tennessee’s post-Roe world,” in which doctors were quoted saying they had been “inundated with questions and concern” over birth control accessibility.[3] In December 2022, The Pulse reported on a survey showing that 3 out of 5 young adults believed birth control would be harder to access after the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.[4]
This concern is national. As a result, Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, South Carolina, Arizona, Oklahoma and others have all enacted contraceptive carve outs that clarify there is no restriction on the sale and use of contraceptives. Tennessee has yet to do so.
To be clear, HB 0533 does not alter any of the state’s abortion laws. But because unintended pregnancies account for 95 percent of abortions, securing birth control access is critical for preventing them.[5]
I will also offer some data on contraceptive use. 77 percent of married women use some form of contraception.[6] Further, the moral acceptability of birth control use is consistently high in the United States. In Gallup’s annual survey of Americans’ values and beliefs, using contraception continues to top the list of morally acceptable issues to Americans, at roughly 90 percent acceptance. In fact, on the moral acceptability scale, birth control use far outranks drinking alcohol, wearing fur, gambling, and getting a divorce.[7] Even when controlling for political ideology, this holds true. 88 percent of conservatives believe birth control use is morally acceptable.[8]
HB 0533 is a simple bill, and it goes a long way toward ensuring Tennessee women know they can plan for healthy pregnancies and families. I urge the committee to pass HB 0533.
Respectfully,
Courtney Joslin
Resident Fellow and Senior Manager
The Project for Women and Families
R Street Institute
cmjoslin@rstreet.org
[1] Tennessee Department of Health, “Annual Summary Report 2020,” https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/health/documents/PRAMS-Summary-Report-2020.pdf.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Cynthia Abrams, “Navigating birth control in Tennessee’s post-Roe world,” WPLN, August 31, 2022, https://wpln.org/post/navigating-birth-control-in-tennessees-post-roe-world/.
[4] Danielle Smith, “Survey: Tennessee Young Adults Concerned About Birth-Control Access,” The Pulse, December 9, 2022, https://www.chattanoogapulse.com/local-news/health-news/survey-tennessee-young-adults-concerned-about-birth-control-/.
[5] Isabel V. Sawhill and Kai Smith, “Abortion in the US: What you need to know,” The Brookings Institution, May 2024, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/abortion-in-the-us-what-you-need-to-know.
[6] “Contraceptive Use in the United States,” Guttmacher Institute, April 2020, https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/fb_contr_use_0.pdf.
[7] Megan Brennan, “Americans Say Birth Control, Divorce Most Morally Acceptable,” Gallup, June 9, 2022, https://news.gallup.com/poll/393515/americans-say-birth-control-divorce-morally-acceptable.aspx.
[8] Ibid.