Bill > H2371

This bill aims to provide comprehensive reproductive health care to incarcerated individuals in Massachusetts. The key provisions include: 1. Requiring correctional facilities to make contraceptive services, including all FDA-approved reversible birth control methods and emergency contraception, available to incarcerated individuals upon request, admission, and prior to release, without undue barriers or mandatory requirements like pelvic exams. 2. Ensuring incarcerated individuals have access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) services, including counseling, insertion, management, and removal, and the ability to continue pre-incarceration birth control methods. 3. Mandating the provision of contraceptive counseling and family planning services to incarcerated individuals prior to release, and requiring referrals to providers who can manage contraceptive methods upon release. 4. Allowing incarcerated individuals who are pregnant to determine their eligibility for abortion and obtain the procedure if eligible, while prohibiting non-medical staff from making decisions about abortion access. 5. Requiring the Department of Correction to develop standards of care and written policies for contraceptive and abortion services, and to post information about these services in correctional facilities.

Health and Social Services, Justice

https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/H2371