Repro Health Hub

Abortion is still legal in the U.S., but every year thousands of women are denied this right because they don’t have the money to pay for abortion care.  

Women face this difficult situation because in 1976 Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which excludes abortion from government-funded health care programs. Every year since, this harmful amendment has been reauthorized under appropriations bills for the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Women enrolled in Medicaid and similar programs receive coverage for all medically necessary health care services, including prenatal care, labor, and delivery. However, as a result of the Hyde Amendment, a woman enrolled in Medicaid is denied coverage for an abortion, unless she is the victim of rape, incest, or her life is in danger.  

As a result, many low-income women are forced to use money they need for food, rent, and other necessities, to cover the cost of an abortion. Many women cannot raise enough money and must continue the pregnancy and stay trapped in poverty. 

How much “choice” do these women actually have if they aren’t able to access abortion? We urge you to take action to repeal the Hyde Amendment! Below are several steps to take action in your state. 

1.) We urge you to join the Hyde – 30 Years is Enough! Campaign, led by the National Network of Abortion Funds, demanding an end to this injustice!  Sign the petition calling on Congress to repeal the Hyde Amendment and restore coverage of abortion for low-income women.  The goal of the Campaign is to collect 20,000 signatures to deliver to Congress by January 22, 2008. With your help we can meet this goal!  

2.) Email, write or call your Congressional members directly asking them to repeal the dangerous Hyde amendment! Find your members online at http://www.congress.org.  

3.) States have the ability to use state-only dollars to cover additional abortion services. Currently, only seventeen states provide this coverage (Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia). If your state is not listed, contact your state legislators and ask them to provide this much needed coverage! 

For more information about low-income women and access to reproductive health care, check out the National Institute’s Low-Income Access Program.

- Myra Batchelder

As the health care debate rages on, it’s important to understand the present conditions of the health care system. The National Women’s Law Center has recently published an eye-opening report on the current health care needs of women in all of the fifty states. The report is a basic state-by-state report card that grades states on their ability (or inability) to reach the Human Services’ Healthy People 2010 health objectives set by the U.S. Department of Health. 

Unfortunately the nation is so far behind in the Healthy People objectives and other related goals, that it received an overall grade of unsatisfactory. So why is our nation wearing the dunce cap? Check it out on the National Women’s Law Center’s website.      

- Marika Hinds

With the presidential campaign heat in full effect, a lot of policy terms are being thrown around, leaving the rest of us non-elephant, non-donkey folk lost.  So what is all this talk about health care reform?  What are its actual implications? 

These are valid questions that should be examined in depth, especially since the various candidates are bringing different ideas to the table, with some inclusive of women’s rights and others not so much.  Most importantly, since the health care system is currently at such a poor state, we can expect some type of reform to actually arrive so we should understand the changes we will face. 

There are a few resources out there that can be helpful in getting a grasp on the basic health care reform concepts.  For example, Kaiser just released a great tool for evaluating the presidential candidates’ platforms side-by-side, healthcare being the foremost aspect mentioned.  Within the language of the website, you will see new terms like “employer-based coverage,” which essentially means that employers will be responsible for covering their employees and/or paying into a pool which will provide coverage for the uninsured.  Individual mandates for health insurance, which a few of the candidates are supporting, mean that every American would be responsible in obtaining some type of coverage—a current example of this coverage model is seen in Massachusetts.  Another method in which some candidates are promising increased access to health care is through a single-payer system, which is equivalent to an expanded version of Medicare.   

There are still many other undefined terms, some of which can be clarified through Cover the Uninsured’s website.  And what about the role of women’s rights in health care?  Stay tuned for a blog post on the amazing work that New York City’s MergerWatch is doing to raise women’s voices in health care reform.

- Pooja Awatramani

Indeed. 

The Latino Reproductive Rights Project, a joint collaboration of the Hispanic Federation and the National Institute for Reproductive Health, is hosting a community forum next week with Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo to discuss a range of critical reproductive health issues that affect Latino communities. Arroyo and attendees will talk about issues such as Latina adolescent pregnancy, access to emergency contraception, HIV/AIDS/STIs, and discuss what exactly we can do to address these issues in Latino communities.

It promises to be a great discussion; last week’s forum in Harlem was quite a hit with almost 200 attendees! You can download details here.

With EC costing forty bucks a pop, it’s nearly impossible for many women to afford emergency contraception. Even women that have health care through Medicaid are not able to access EC over-the-counter in most states because Medicaid still requires them to have a prescription. So what to do? Check out LIAP’s new memo for advocates, entitled Expanding Medicaid Coverage for EC on the State Level.  

Welcome to the official launch of Repro Health Hub. So what exactly does Repro Health Hub seek to achieve, do you ask? 

Reveal the missing links. (No pun intended.) 

You may be all too aware of the fact that while the mainstream media gives much attention to “abortion” as an issue, but very little is being highlighted about the actual work that reproductive health organizations are doing. 

 So we are going to do exactly that. We want to make sure that all work on the local and state levels are being recognized, and Repro Health Hub will make sure that happens. Enjoy!