Missourians can now get free emergency contraception delivered to their front doors

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) - Missourians can get emergency contraception shipped right to their front door for free.

A new portal launched on Thursday through the Missouri Family Health Council, which is a non-profit focusing on expanding reproductive and sexual healthcare across the Show-Me state.

Director of program initiatives Ashley Kuykendall says the newest initiative launched is called Free EC.

“We’re hoping this project can help to meet some of those needs and really remove some of the geographic and cost barriers that people face,” Kuykendall says.

Free EC offers contraceptive care kits to those in Missouri at no cost, with two doses of emergency contraception inside.

“In some areas of the state it’s really hard to access,” Kuykendall says. “Whether because of transportation as a challenge or the stores in their communities don’t keep it in stock over the counter. We know that health centers often have long wait times because there are a lot of people who need care and a lot of shortages in healthcare provision right now.”

You can request these contraceptive care kits by filling out a form online.

The kits will then be mailed to you in discreet packaging and your information will be removed from their system.

Another option is to go in person to one of the more than 40 community distribution centers throughout the state.

Missouri resident Colette Smith first told News 4 she wouldn’t be open to emergency contraception being offered to people by mail.

“I don’t agree with it,” Smith says.

However, Smith said she wasn’t sure on all the facts around Plan B.

That’s why the Missouri Family Health Council is also working to combat the myths around the pill.

“Emergency contraception is a form of birth control,” Kuykendall says. “It’s not a form of abortion and it can’t harm an existing pregnancy in any way. Because of that misinformation, I think when the abortion ban was enacted in the state of Missouri a lot of people conflated abortion and emergency contraception.”

“I thought that,” Smith says. “That’s why I said no in the beginning.”

More than 5,500 kits will be distributed.

Kuykendall says the goal is to continue and expand the program in the future.

You can find the form for it to be delivered in the mail here.

Click here to view a list of community distribution partners to pick up Free EC near you.