THE POLITICS OF REPRODUCTIVE BENEFITS - US INSURANCE-COVERAGE OF CONTRACEPTIVE AND INFERTILITY TREATMENTS

Recent changes in access to contraceptive and infertility treatments i n the state of Illinois, and across the United States mon generally, h ave heightened class cleavages in access to reproductive health can be nefits in the United States. Using data gleaned from government testim onies, public documents, and telephone interviews, the authors found t hat poor women have broad access to contraceptive coverage but very li ttle access to infertility treatments, while working- and middle-class women have increasingly broad coverage of infertility treatments but spare coverage of contraceptives. These findings suggest that while th e extreme measures of the eugenics movement an less frequently in evid ence, class differences in access to reproductive services lead to an equally dualistic, albeit unstated, fertility policy in the United Sta tes: encouraging births among working- and middle-class families and d iscouraging births among the poor, particularly those on Medicaid.