Margaret Sanger was an American birth control activist and the founder of the American Birth Control League (which eventually became Planned Parenthood). She was instrumental in opening the way to access birth control.

In 1960 the FDA approved the first form of hormonal birth control, the combined oral contraceptive pill.

Recently, due to a legislative error in the U.S. Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (implemented in January 2007) college health centers and many safety net health care providers have been cut out of the drug pricing discount program, which formerly allowed contraceptives to be sold to students and women of low income in the United States at low cost. As a result, 3 million college students and hundreds of thousands of low-income women have lost access to affordable birth control.^{[citation needed]} The Prevention Through Affordable Access Act (SR 2347 / HR 4054) has been introduced^[when?] into Congress to correct the error, however as of August 2008 had not been seen on the floor.