Increasing Contraceptive Access on the Gulf Coast of Texas

“I didn’t know you guys had birth control here!” 

Our family planning clinic had been in operation for about 6 months by the time one of the patients excitedly said this. She asked if she could get her IUD removed, we said yes, and scheduled her for an appointment. 

When I started the contraception clinic, one of the major questions that was asked by providers and clinic leadership was, “Will we have enough patients?” I was reassured by my mentors that yes, there was a need. I knew how difficult it was for me to get contraception, so a clinic like this would have benefited me greatly years ago. But I still had my doubts. I worried the clinic wouldn’t last. 

Our clinic is located in Galveston, Texas. Although we are only an hour drive from the nearest major city, Houston, Texas is massive and there many small towns, so our clinic serves patients from a number of surrounding small towns in the county who do not have the time or access options often available to those living in big cities, so closer proximity is vital in bridging the gap to contraception access.

One hurdle faced by both those seeking to give and receive contraception access is the increase of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) since the fall of Roe v. Wade. These places often manipulate information on their websites to masquerade as legitimate clinics, even though they are not, and many times do not even have health care professionals on site. Although they are mostly known to be anti-abortion, a lot are also anti-contraception and post misleading facts about birth control. They often lure patients by making it seem like they provide birth control, when they don’t. In too many places towns have a CPC but not a legitimate clinic where people can get sexual and reproductive health care. 

Galveston has a CPC, for example, that is prominent and frequently comes up in the Google search for birth control in the area. So it was important for our clinic – which is a part of St. Vincent’s Hope clinics – to promote that we are a legitimate clinic that provides medically accurate and holistic contraceptive care. 

My doubts were quickly put to rest. We had allotted 3-4 slots for the clinic, which we hold once a month. We soon found several patients asking to be scheduled for the contraception clinic after learning about it, and now find ourselves seeing 4-5 patients on average, sometimes even more. There is a huge need in our area, not only among young women, but also older women as well. We have found there is a huge demand for long acting reversible contraception (LARCs) such as Nexplanon (the implant) and IUDs. We’re booked every month and frequently find ourselves overbooking the clinic to accommodate as many people as possible. 

We have women coming in for various reasons, such as getting birth control, getting their methods removed so they can start or expand their family, etc. Regardless of their reasons, our goal is to provide women more options regarding their reproductive health and help them achieve their health and personal goals. 

We still have a long road to go in terms of extending birth control access to everyone in the US. The recent removal of government-run women’s health websites highlights why it is important now more than ever that people have access to accurate knowledge related to contraception and are aware of all their method options so that they can make an informed decision about their health.

Inchara Raj is a medical student at UTMB/John Sealy School of Medicine. She enjoys working with underserved populations in medicine and addressing healthcare gaps in medicine. She was a 2023-2024 Albert Schweitzer Fellow and has worked in Washington DC to help promote health care equality and reproductive rights across the country.