COLUMBIA — New Morning, a Columbia nonprofit dedicated to public education about and access to family planning services, and MUSC Health are joining forces to provide contraceptive care statewide.
No Drama, New Morning’s contraceptive access program, has been providing in-person consultation services since 2017. The program is expanding to offer patients 24/7 virtual appointments with MUSC Health providers to allow women around-the-clock resources for safe and affordable birth control.
New Morning president and CEO Bonnie Kapp said the constant availability of MUSC Health’s service was a key factor in choosing to partner with them.
“It was important to try to figure out a new partnership where we could offer a 24/7 service so that people who had jobs and couldn’t deal with this until late at night or on weekends (could receive care),” she said.
Though the health system of Medical University of South Carolina declined to make additional comment, MUSC Center for Telehealth administrator Emily Warr said the health system is proud to be part of the partnership with New Morning.
“This collaboration reflects our shared commitment to improving access and making high quality healthcare more easily available,” she said in a statement.
The partnership aims to help South Carolina women obtain safe and affordable birth control. Patients’ first appointment with a MUSC Health provider through No Drama is free, and the first three months of their chosen contraception method comes at little to no cost to them, depending on income and insurance status.
Kapp said part of No Drama’s work involves subsidizing contraceptives so low-income and uninsured women can access them.
“Last year, our subsidies were $3.4 million,” Kapp said. “That’s what we had to raise and what we spent to do that. We gave it to clinics to make sure that they could offer all methods of FDA-approved contraceptives to low-income and uninsured women.”
The collaboration comes as existing reproductive care access is in jeopardy across South Carolina. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against allowing South Carolina Planned Parenthood clinics to accept patients insured under Medicaid. The ruling took effect on Sept. 29.
Even without the restrictions, South Carolina women still have limited options for reproductive healthcare. In 15 of South Carolina’s 46 counties, patients have to cross county lines to see an OB/GYN. Kapp hopes the partnership will help to remedy that lack of access in rural areas.
“There are lots of clinics, practices that have gone out of business or relocated in the last few years,” she said. “So we think that this is really an answer to try to make sure that health services are attainable easily for women that are in rural areas away from clinics.”
Proposed abortion restrictions in the state legislature could also jeopardize contraceptive access.
Senate Bill 323, also known as the Unborn Child Protection Act, would ban abortion without exceptions for rape, incest or fetal anomaly. It also prohibits the prescription, manufacture and possession of abortion medications, and makes helping someone obtain an abortion a felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. The Senate Medical Affairs Committee held public hearings about the bill on Oct. 1 — hundreds rallied outside and inside the Statehouse to oppose the bill.
What stands out the most for Kapp, though, is the bill’s new definition of what contraception is. While it doesn’t explicitly restrict contraceptives, it defines them as “any drug, device, or chemical that prevents conception,” removing protections for contraceptives that prevent ovulation and implantation, like IUDs. Reproductive rights advocates worry the bill could open the door for future restrictions on contraceptive access.