In 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that an employer need not provide insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives, which are only used by women, in order to comply with Title VII's guarantee of sex equality. This ruling directly contravenes a ruling by the EEOC. A significant loss for women, this case showcases the need for federal regulation of contraceptive coverage.

ACCESS TO CONTRACEPTION AS A WOMEN'S ISSUE

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, most women did not have insurance coverage for birth control. Indeed, studies estimated that two-thirds of large group insurance plans did not provide any coverage for oral contraceptives, the most commonly used reversible method of birth control, and nearly half did not cover any prescription contraceptive drug or device. Many plans do (and did), however, cover surgical sterilization for both men and women.

The class of prescription drugs and devices currently available to prevent pregnancy – birth control pills, Depo Provera, and intrauterine devices, to name the most common ones – are exclusively used by women. Women are, therefore, the ones hurt by the lack of insurance coverage for contraception, poor women most of all. And, obviously, the lack of access to contraception may result in unwanted pregnancy, a consequence that imposes disproportionate and unique burdens on women. It is for these reasons that access to contraception has figured prominently on the agenda for women's rights advocacy during the past decade. Fortunately, that effort has brought about many successes.

THE EEOC'S VIEW ON CONTRACEPTIVE COVERAGE EXCLUSION: IT IS PREGNANCY DISCRIMINATION, PLAIN AND SIMPLE

Insurance coverage for contraceptives has remained an important issue on the feminist agenda. The EEOC's decision came after eighteen months of pressure from advocates for women's and workers’ rights. In June 1999, a conglomerate of public interest organizations representing those and other interests requested that the EEOC issue a policy guidance taking a position on insurance coverage for contraception. Specifically, the advocates asked that the EEOC declare that an employer's failure to provide insurance coverage for birth control is pregnancy discrimination – and so it did, though through an opinion in an individual case rather than a policy guidance.