limitations preventing many people from accessing procedures in clinics, including IUD and implants as well as abortions, the COVID-19 pandemic also altered the methods of which patients and providers could interact - services often being restricted to virtual visits and appointments, affecting the availability and accessibility of prescription-based forms of birth control, such as the pill. In addition, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, fertility rates and birth rates, as well as demand for contraceptives changed compared with amounts pre-pandemic, with more individuals seeking methods of contraception during and immediately after the pandemic, corresponding with lower birth rates. This is a part of an overall trend found in the case of other past pandemics as well, such as SARS, Zika, and the Spanish Flu. Government and policy Domestic Funding Title X Medicaid Take Charge Contraceptive mandates Goals Healthy People program "responsible sexual behavior" indicator International United States Agency for International Development Legislation 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act In two major legal cases that were planned in 2014, the attorneys made an issue of whether a for-profit corporation can be required to provide coverage for contraceptive services to its employees. As of 1 January 2016, women in Oregon will be eligible to purchase a one-year supply of oral contraceptive; this is the first such legislation in the United States and has attracted the attention of California, Washington state and New York. Possible new rule under Trump administration In 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services changed the previous federal requirement for employers to cover birth control in the health insurance plans for their employees. Under this new rule, hundreds of thousands of women would lose their ability to have their birth control costs covered for them. The new rule would let insurers and employers refuse to provide birth control if doing so went against their "religious beliefs" or "moral convictions". However, later in 2017 federal judge Wendy Beetlestone issued an injunction temporarily stopping the enforcement of this new rule. Push for possible over the counter policies Some doctors and researchers, including the American Medical Association (AMA), would like the availability of the birth control pills to be extended to over the counter instead of prescription only status. They state that providing over the counter contraceptives could increase overall contraceptive accessibility for young women of color with low incomes, as they tend to have higher rates of unintended pregnancy. However,