R Street Institute

R Sheets Competition Policy

Pharmacy Access To Contraception in South Carolina

by Courtney Joslin AND Marc Hyden
April 2, 2019
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Key Points

Many women have limited access to contraception.
Half of all pregnancies in South Carolina are unintended.
Taxpayers spent over $400 million to cover the healthcare costs associated with South Carolina’s unintended pregnancies in 2010.
Adopting a pharmacy access model would safely provide women increased access to family planning options.

 In South Carolina, half of all pregnancies are unintended. The state also has a low ratio of active doctors to total state population, ranking 36th in the country. Furthermore, women’s healthcare specialists are scarce in South Carolina; almost 30 percent of counties do not have a single OB-GYN. 

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