Repro Health Hub

The Chicago Tribune reports that 12 states are considering implementing bills that would require doctors to offer women seeking abortions the option of obtaining an ultrasound; some states would even make ultrasounds mandatory. The content of these bills varies from state to state and ranges from giving women the option to have an ultrasound to requiring women to have the ultrasound, hear “medical descriptions” of these ultrasound images, and even listen to the fetus’s heartbeat. (A complete list of each state’s proposed measures can be found here.)

Not only do mandated ultrasounds force women to undergo an unnecessary and costly test, but they are thinly veiled attempts to scare and shame women into carrying unwanted pregnancies to term. Unfortunately, they would not be the first of their kind. An article in USA Today points out that 16 states already have laws related to abortion ultrasounds on the books.

US News & World Report contributing editor Bonnie Erbe sums up the shaming and guilt-inducing intentions behind these proposals well:

No woman seeking an abortion does so unthinkingly. Few, if any, women use abortion as birth control, although the religious right would have us believe otherwise. And women seeking abortions do not need moralistic lectures about the horrors they are about to commit. To require them to have an ultrasound prior to an abortion is the most invasive type of moralistic lecture imaginable.

By Allison Farer

A new report released by the Guttmacher Institute today provides ample evidence that publicly funded family planning services are much-needed and extremely cost-effective.

According to the report, publicly funded family planning services prevent 1.94 million unintended pregnancies each year. Not only are these services improving quality of life, they are also saving taxpayer dollars. For every dollar put into family planning programs, $4.02 is saved in Medicaid funds that would otherwise be spent on pregnancy-related care. Even with these great strides, many women still do not have access to services due to lack of resources. Unintended pregnancies among low-income women have started to rise at the same time that they are decreasing in other groups.

The majority of family planning programs are publicly funded, with over 9 million clients receiving publicly funded contraceptive services in 2006. Increasing Medicaid family planning coverage and updating Title X policies is a necessary step for more women to have access to these services.

The report calls for a national floor of family planning coverage to fill in the gaps in state programs. The effect would be an additional 800,000 prevented unintended pregnancies, overall saving $2.6 billion in Medicaid costs.

Recognizing the savings associated with the program, 21 states have chosen to expand eligibility for family planning for low-income women who otherwise would not qualify for Medicaid. However, in order to do so, states must first go through a time-consuming process to get a federal waiver, and a proposal to eliminate this cumbersome red tape was unfortunately dropped from the economic stimulus package last month after adamant Republican opposition.

While highlighting the effectiveness of the program, the authors point to a number of policy changes that could help further increase its value. In addition to eliminating the waiver requirement, they recommend lifting a ban on family planning coverage for legal immigrants in their first five years in the United States and increasing funding for the Title X program, the main federal family planning program.

A proposal to increase—perhaps even double—Title X funding is already pending in Congress. Hopefully, armed with this evidence from Guttmacher, advocates for women’s health will have no trouble pushing through such a cost-effective proposal. As one of the report’s authors notes, “Family planning should be noncontroversial.”

Download the full report here.

By Monika Grzeniewski and Maya Dusenbery

This week, the North Dakota House voted to give fertilized eggs the same rights as human beings.

The fetal personhood bill declares that “any organism with the genome of homo sapiens” is a person with all the rights guaranteed under the North Dakota Constitution and state laws. The measure is expected to be reviewed by the North Dakota Senate within the next couple weeks. If passed, the law would effectively ban abortion in the state and pose a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

The measure’s sponsor, Rep. Dan Ruby, notes that, unlike previous bills he has introduced, the measure does not automatically and explicitly ban abortion: “This is very simply defining when life begins, and giving that life some protections under our Constitution — the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

On the other hand, Ruby says that posing a challenge to Roe v. Wade is exactly what the language of the bill is intended to do: “This is the exact language that’s required by Roe vs. Wade. It stipulated that before a challenge can be made, we have to identify when life begins, and that’s what this does.”

In fact, the measure is so extreme and broad that opponents warn it could reach well beyond a ban on abortion, limiting access to birth control and emergency contraception as well as affecting in vitro fertilization.

In a press release, Sarah Stoesz, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota (PPMNS), said of the bill: “HB 1572 is dangerous, far reaching and allows the government, not women and families, to make critical decisions about health care.” Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, warns: “While it is a direct challenge to Roe v Wade, we expect that the bill would not only ban abortion but could reach common forms of birth control as well.”

A similar fetal personhood bill in Colorado was voted down 73-27 back in November. After this overwhelming defeat, the bill’s supporters turned their sights nationwide, forming Personhood USA to “assist local pro-life groups in different states to put personhood amendments on their states ballot by using the petition process.”

The group reports that this year fetal personhood bills have also been introduced into the legislatures of Maryland, Montana, South Carolina and Alabama. In addition, Oregon has begun a personhood amendment petition drive and Mississippi’s petition drive is expected to launch within weeks.

Granting human rights to fertilized eggs has incredibly dangerous consequences and raises some pretty tough questions. Let’s hope the North Dakota Senate rejects the amendment and that the “Personhood” movement loses steam fast.

By Maya Dusenbery 

The Director of the National Institute’s Low Income Access Program, Myra Batchelder has an article on RH Reality Check about the possible cost barriers to over-the-counter contraception.

A number of pilot projects in England have begun offering hormonal birth control pills over-the-counter at pharmacies. Although the benefits of being able to obtain birth control pills without having to see a doctor or get a prescription are clear, Batchelder warns that before we move to an over-the-counter model, we must ensure that costs remain affordable for all women:

We must ensure that public and private health insurance programs will provide coverage for over-the-counter oral contraceptives so that all women will be able to obtain the product - not just those who can afford to pay a high price.

Batchelder points to the lessons learned when emergency contraception (EC) became available over-the-counter. Most state Medicaid programs still require women to obtain a prescription in order for EC to be covered. As a result, the cost of over-the-counter EC remains prohibitively high for many low income women.

In the end, we must be aware of the cost and insurance barriers across the entire spectrum of reproductive health care, Batchelder says:

Ensuring access to reproductive health care, including contraception and abortion, is about more than just the legal ability to obtain these services. As advocates we need to work to ensure that all women have access to needed contraception and abortion services, regardless of their socioeconomic status or the health care program in which they participate. We will not have true reproductive rights until all women have the ability to access quality reproductive health care.

The long-term goal is to establish a universal health care system that will provide everyone with access to all needed medical services, including abortion and over-the-counter contraception. The important steps along the way include providing Medicaid and other public and private insurance coverage for over-the-counter EC and other forms of birth control without a prescription, as well as for abortion.

Together, we can work to achieve this. As advocates we must always recognize the cost and insurance pieces of any reproductive health care service and work to ensure that all women have access; cost must never be a barrier to accessing these services.

By Maya Dusenbery

Amie Newman, a Managing Editor at “RH Reality Check” posted today about her experience moderating a session at the recent Netroots Nation Convention called Breaking the Frame: Revitalizing and Redefining Reproductive Rights Media Coverage.

The goal of the session was to “deconstruct[] the extremist, anti-choice messaging and agenda and, with the help of the expert panelists, figure out what our messaging could and should look like when we all work together — professional advocates, bloggers and the mainstream media.”For all of us who didn’t make it down to Austin, Amie was kind enough to share a clip from the session. Check it:

By Tara Sweeney

In many prisons and jails throughout the country pregnant women are routinely shackled during labor and delivery. Surprisingly, California, Illinois, and Vermont are the only states to have passed anti-shackling legislation.

Prison and jail protocols require ankle shackles and, until recently, stomach restraints. Access to Reproductive Health Care in New York State Jails, a New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) report released last March, argues that shackling violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Shackling seems especially ridiculous when we consider that the majority of women are in custody for non-violent crimes.

A few months ago the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) finally decided to prohibit “face-down four-point restraints and restraint belts that directly constrict the area of the pregnancy.” Further amendments to the shackling policy are in the works. Policies in state jails vary extremely. According to the NYCLU report, only three New York jails have written procedures concerning the shackling of pregnant women; of those three, only two forbid it.

The Second Chance Act of 2007 (HR 1593) was recently passed into law and requires the Attorney General to submit a detailed report to Congress on correctional facility policies regarding the restraint of pregnant women. Facilities must also report on “the reasons for the use of the physical restraints, the length of time that the physical restraints were used, and the security concerns that justified the use of the physical restraints.” The bill should become effective by next spring.

In the past thirty years, the number of incarcerated women has increased by 800%–and women of color are the fastest growing prison population in the US. Groups like the Rebecca Project and the Prison Doula Project are fighting to ensure that pregnant women are never shackled and even to provide for a positive labor experience. We need to respond responsibly with additional anti-shackling legislation and appropriate health care for the safety of these women and their newborn babies.

By Samantha Hurley

Today’s a day for thinking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But it’s not all fireworks and tri-color bunting. In 1852, Frederick Douglas said of the Fourth of July, “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.” Douglas was thinking about the unfinished business of the promise of America.

For all our progress, 156 years later, freedoms like personal autonomy and equal citizenship are still in doubt. In her dissenting opinion in Gonzalez v. Carhart (2007), Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg condemned the Supreme Court’s curtailment of the right to late-term abortion, even if a woman’s life were in danger. Justice Ginsburg wrote that nothing less than a “woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature” were in question.

Not to spoil the picnic, but perhaps a new tradition should be to take a few minutes out of the day and listen to Justice Ginsburg’s dissent, delivered from the bench just 15 months ago. Just click here and fast-forward to about seven and a half minutes into the audio. Hear the caution in Justice Ginsburg’s delivery, the trepidation in her voice, and then reconsider the fragility of the freedoms we’re all celebrating today.

Happy Fourth of July.

By Tara Sweeney

A poll of 1,200 women in March showed that about half of those who back Senator John McCain said they didn’t know enough about where he stands on abortion to determine whether he agrees with their own opinions on choice. That means they might not know that he wants to overturn Roe, that he opposes birth control, or that he has voted against women’s choice 123 out of 128 times in the Senate. If McCain is able to smuggle these anti-choice policies into the White House, consequences for women could include less control over their reproductive health, fewer choices in handling an unintended pregnancy, and even the criminalization of abortion.

A new video released by Brave New Films, in coordination with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, depicts a dystopian vision where clinics deny women the full range of services and even information about unintended pregnancies. In this video, a woman goes into a clinic asking for information about her options in dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, and is handed a blank sheet of paper, since under a McCain presidency, women would have no options. Videos like this may just be satire, good for mocking McCain and his anti-choice policies, but they eerily reflect the actual decisions that he and other pro-life policymakers have made about the fate of reproductive rights in America.

As NIRHealth has been stressing through the How Much Time campaign, one of the scariest possible consequences of electing a anti-choice candidate is that overturning Roe would lead to the criminalization of abortion. That means that women would be forced to choose between seeking an illegal, dangerous abortion and carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. Doctors would have to choose between providing safe, quality abortion care and risking criminal prosecution, or turning women away when they need their doctors most. We know the results of such policies all too well—we’ve been down that road before, and we can’t go back.

And it’s not just John McCain that we have to fear. Many state legislatures are considering—or have already passed—laws that make abortion a crime. In 2007 alone, 14 states considered legislation that would make all abortions illegal, except in cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s life is at risk. For example, a key committee in the Colorado legislature came within one vote of passing legislation to make all abortions illegal. Three states—Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Dakota—have actually enacted complete bans on abortion that will likely take effect the day Roe is overturned by a conservative Supreme Court.

These nightmare scenarios are enough to urge anyone who cares about the fate of choice in America to do whatever possible to prevent the ascendancy of ill-advised and inhumane crusades against to the right to choose.

By Tara Sweeney

This Saturday, June 7th, marks the 43rd anniversary of the Griswold v. Connecticut decision in the Supreme Court, which established constitutional privacy protection for married couples’ use of contraception in 1965. Unmarried women obtained the right to use birth control a little later in 1972.

Sadly, despite the Supreme Court’s decisions, women across America are still fighting for their right to contraceptive access. From the financial barriers millions of women face in accessing contraception to pharmacists’ refusals to fill birth control prescriptions, women are left to defend their right to contraception. However, those aren’t the only barriers. Many in the anti-choice community are working not only to abolish the legal right to abortion but also to end women’s right to access birth control!

This Saturday, the American Life League is staging “Protest the Pill Day: The Pill Kills Babies” demonstrations across the country to protest the anniversary and women’s access to contraception. Their accusations about the dangers of the birth control pill are medically inaccurate and show the dangerous extent to which our opponents will go to control women’s bodies and their reproductive health. Show your support for women’s access to birth control by counter-demonstrating this Saturday!

The protest is only the beginning. Even more terrifying is the current campaign by anti-choice and conservative organizations to reinstate the “Domestic Gag Rule.” In May, over eighty conservative organizations, led by the Family Research Council, sent a letter to President Bush asking him to reinstate the “Domestic Gag Rule,” which would effectively strip family planning clinics’ eligibility for Title X funds if they refer patients for abortions or share facilities with abortion providers.

Title X is an essential source of funding for family planning clinics and, in fact, is the only federal program dedicated solely to funding family planning and related reproductive health care services. This restriction could severely harm the health of millions of women across the country and prevent them from obtaining needed contraception! Please take a moment to send an email to Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, showing your support for Title X!

By Myra Batchelder 

Over here at the Repro Health Hub we can’t seem to stress enough how powerful and imperative accurate and accessible information about sex and reproductive health is. So this week, we’d like to shine the spotlight on a fantastic organization that has been committed to that cause for 20 years now, The Reproductive Health Technologies Project!

Just check out their awesome mission statement:  

The mission of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project (RHTP) is to  advance the ability of every woman to achieve full reproductive freedom with  access to the safest, most effective, and preferred methods for controlling her  fertility and protecting her health.

Based out of Washington D.C., the organization started in 1988 as a group dedicated to public education about RU 486, the “abortion pill”. Since then it has grown to also take on policy development and advocacy of preexisting and developing reproductive health technologies. They have also made great contributions in scientific research on reproductive health, from abortion to contraception and STIs, with many of these studies are available online. The Project’s work is extremely valuable, and that’s why they are the Repro Health Hub’s Hero of the Week!

Be sure to visit their website to see if RHTP will be participating in an event near you!