What is ICAN!?

Did you know that about half a million people in Illinois don’t have coverage for birth control? Or that only 1 in 5 women accessing care at community health centers across the state are counseled on their birth control options? What about the fact that almost 80, 000 women live in counties without a single health center that provides the full range of FDA-approved birth control methods? The truth is that even though modern birth control has existed for decades//even though birth control is basic healthcare//universal access is far from reality. Multiple, overlapping systems of oppression based on race, gender, sexual orientation, income and ability have locked the most vulnerable people in our state out of healthcare access, and denied them their most basic of rights–the ability to decide, for themselves, what they want to do with their own bodies and their own reproductive lives.

ICAN!’s strategy is informed by reproductive justice theory. As such, our goal is not to direct individuals towards particular contraceptive methods but rather to create the conditions for individuals to make informed decisions about their reproductive and sexual health using a patient-centered contraceptive counseling model.​

ICAN! stands in solidarity with communities of color whose right to parent in safe and healthy environments is routinely violated by racist and xenophobic violence. Our efforts to advance contraceptive equity are one piece of the greater struggle against all forms of racial and economic oppression that adversely affect individuals’ reproductive lives.