US Congress Senate Bill 333 (Prior Session Legislation)

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Spectrum: Strong Partisan Bill (Democrat 12-1)
Status: Introduced on February 14 2013 - 25% progression, died in committee
Action: 2013-02-14 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Pending: Senate Health, Education, Labor, And Pensions Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]

Access to Birth Control Act - Amends the Public Health Service Act to require pharmacies to comply with certain rules related to contraceptives, including: (1) providing a customer a contraceptive without delay if it is in stock; (2) immediately informing a customer if the contraceptive is not in stock and either transferring the prescription to a pharmacy that has the contraceptive in stock or expediting the ordering of the contraceptive and notifying the customer when it arrives, based on customer preference, except for pharmacies that do not ordinarily stock contraceptives in the normal course of business; and (3) ensuring that pharmacy employees do not take certain actions relating to a request for contraception, including intimidating, threatening, or harassing customers, interfering with or obstructing the delivery of services, intentionally misrepresenting or deceiving customers about the availability of contraception or its mechanism of action, breaching or threatening to breach medical confidentiality, or refusing to return a valid, lawful prescription. Provides that a pharmacy is not prohibited from refusing to provide a contraceptive to a customer if: (1) it is unlawful to dispense the contraceptive to the customer without a valid, lawful prescription and no such prescription is presented; (2) the customer is unable to pay for the contraceptive; or (3) the employee of the pharmacy refuses to provide the contraceptive on the basis of a professional clinical judgment. Provides that this Act does not preempt state law or any professional obligation of a state board that provides greater protections for customers. Sets forth civil penalties and establishes a a private cause of action for violations of this Act.

Access to Birth Control Act

Sen. Frank Lautenberg [D-NJ]	Sen. Max Baucus [D-MT]	Sen. Richard Blumenthal [D-CT]	Sen. Barbara Boxer [D-CA]
Sen. Sherrod Brown [D-OH]	Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]	Sen. Al Franken [D-MN]	Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY]
Sen. Robert Menendez [D-NJ]	Sen. Bernard Sanders [I-VT]	Sen. Jon Tester [D-MT]	Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI]
Sen. Ron Wyden [D-OR]

Date	Chamber	Action
2013-02-14	Senate	Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

HB728 (Same As) 2013-02-15 - Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.
SB2625 (Related) 2014-07-17 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Type	Source
Summary	https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/333/all-info
Text	https://www.congress.gov/113/bills/s333/BILLS-113s333is.pdf