You won't see conservative politicians and judges pick up a sledgehammer and openly smash women's rights to pieces. Instead, they are using scalpels to cut access to reproductive rights away, one slice at a time. The laws they create and uphold make it increasingly difficult for women to get birth control and pregnancy-related care.

But it's not just our lawmakers who are putting hurdles between women and their rights to birth control. A growing number of pharmacists all over the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception, based on personal ideologies and without regard for a woman's legal right to receive medication in a timely manner. Many pharmacists wrongly believe that EC is an abortion pill. However, EC consists of two birth control pills that simply prevent pregnancy.

I am grateful that we have legislators like Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Chris Shays (R-Conn.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) who introduced the Access to Birth Control Act. The ABC act protects women's access to birth control at pharmacies and guarantees they will receive prescriptions and over-the-counter products in-store, without discrimination or delay.

With a federal deficit that is careening out of control, now is also the time for our government to spend money wisely. We know that every dollar spent on family planning saves $4 in social services from an unintended pregnancy in the first year alone.

Although it makes economic sense to open access to birth control, Congress is making it more expensive for service providers like Planned Parenthood to buy birth control because of a technical flaw in the Deficit Reduction Act. If these organizations can't buy birth control at reduced prices, they can't provide it to patients at affordable prices.

We know that the only way to prevent unintended pregnancies is with access to affordable contraception and accurate, comprehensive sexual education. So why has the current administration wasted six years and millions of dollars promoting abstinence-only education, even though a well-documented, federally funded study proves that it is a colossal failure?

Now Congress is actually considering spending another $163 million on these dangerous education programs. Thankfully, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) is championing the fight to fund comprehensive sexual education.

The result of these barriers to birth control and the inaccurate education programs is not surprising. The Guttmacher Institute reported that rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion are on the rise among low-income women. And approximately 750,000 U.S. teens become pregnant and four million get a sexually transmitted infection each year.

We need to tear down the roadblocks that limit access to contraception, and we can only do so by mandating that Congress take action on this issue. On behalf of the 2.5 million women who rely on Planned Parenthood for birth control each year, we are asking our lawmakers to do something about the growing maze of restrictions that women face just to get their birth control.

We are urging Congress to do the following, in keeping with our Prevention First campaign:

- Increase funding for Title X, America's Family Planning Program

- Expand low-income women's access to birth control through Medicaid

- Create equity in prescription birth control coverage

- Address the laundry list of barriers to birth control in this country

We are asking for reproductive justice for women. We are asking for affordable birth control for those who seek it. We are asking to provide real education to teens and young adults who want to know the whole truth about family planning, not just a skewed slice of it.

Lori Lamerand is the president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Mid-Michigan Alliance.