The Trump administration is making it harder for women to get access to birth control, under the guise of “religious morals.”

The Departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury and Labor will allow employers, colleges, and universities to deny contraception coverage if they have a “religious or moral objection.”

The departments have made it harder for women who are denied birth control coverage to get no-cost contraception directly from insurance companies, under a process established by the previous administration, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

I just can’t stress enough how birth control allows women to decide their own future. Some women do not think they are financially ready for a child or they simply don’t want one. That’s a decision that every woman should be able to have and make.

Denying a woman her birth control is denying her choices she can make.

And “religious morals” doesn’t always equate to the best sex education for the young.

Growing up in a religious household, birth control and condoms were out of the question.

My family believed in marriage first, and having sexual relations outside of marriage was constituted as sinful. My cousins and I were always taught that abstinence was the safest form of birth control, and I wasn’t given any actual education about birth control until about middle school.

Before I get into how my 16-year-old cousin ended up impregnating his 15-year-old girlfriend, let me just say that abstinence is not how we should educate the young.

Don’t do what my eldest aunt would say to all of us, “You’re going to burn in hell if you have sex!” Don’t scare your children about the topic, we should be educating them on the proper usage of condoms and forms of birth control. My cousin, who is a sophomore in high school, is clear proof that abstinence is not enough.

Despite my mother being the most progressive of all her sisters and brothers, when I brought up the topic of birth control pills to her, she immediately attacked the idea and accused me of wanting to have sex outside of marriage.

When I told her I couldn’t handle the horrible cramps that happen every month and birth control wasn’t just about preventing sex, she began to understand what birth control truly meant.

I don’t personally blame her for attacking my decision to get birth control pills because I understand she grew up in a time and place where religion had a strong hold on birth control ideas.

But because she was taught that abstinence was the way, she then tried to implement those ideas onto her children.

Sex education was seen, for the longest time, as an incentive to go have sex instead of a preventive, at least within the religious morals of my family.

The new rule implemented also makes it seem like birth control is not a necessity in a woman’s life, further establishing the idea that sex education is not important and that it encourages sex.

Birth control is vital, and it is an important health service that should not be denied, no matter the moral standpoints of companies deciding for women.