Repro Health Hub

We’ve written before about the legislation making its way through the Baltimore City Council that would require crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to post disclaimers saying they don’t provide birth control or abortion referrals. On Monday, the bill finally passed. Once the mayor signs the measure, it will be the first law of its kind in the U.S.

NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland, which applauded the bill’s passage, helped expose how CPCs mislead and manipulate vulnerable women in their 2008 report, Maryland Crisis Pregnancy Center Investigations: The Truth Revealed. Salon’s Broadsheet reports:

Last year, the NARAL Pro-Choice Fund sent staff members into 11 Maryland centers in particular to pose as potential patients and reported that “every CPC visited provided misleading or, in some cases completely false, information” about abortion and birth control.” For good measure, the clinics also threw in “emotionally manipulative counseling” (for example, one worker told an investigator, “You need to come meet your baby before deciding what to do”). Worse yet, many clinics “purposefully schedule sonogram appointments two-three weeks after the initial appointment to ensure that there will be a heartbeat and that the pregnancy is larger than a grain of rice.”

Similar legislation is now being considered in Montgomery County, Maryland. Let’s hope the rest of the nation takes a hint from Maryland and starts demanding some truth in advertising from CPCs across the country.

By Maya Dusenbery

Late last night the Senate released its health care reform bill. John Nichols, writing for The Nation, has an excellent summary of how the Senate bill is an improvement over the House bill, which included the dangerous and discriminatory Stupak-Pitts amendment. Still, the Senate bill is far from the overhaul of the Hyde Amendment we’d all hoped for in anticipation of health care reform:

In many respects, Reid’s “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” is a better bill than the House measure.

And it one respect, it is dramatically better.

The Senate plan does not contain the draconian “Stupak” language, which was written into the House bill with the intent of establishing radical new limits on access to reproductive health services.

As part of negotiations to secure passage of the House healthcare reform bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, agreed to a vote on an amendment by Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, that did not merely forbid a government-run “public option” from covering abortion services. It also barred private insurance plans that might participate in the exchange set up by the new program from doing so.

Republicans in the House aligned with 64 Democrats to attach the radical anti-abortion language to the bill, which was then passed by a narrow 220-215 margin.

Reid rejects the Stupak language.

That does not mean that his measure is a pro-choice bonanza.

It preserves existing limits on public-funding of abortions. But, as part of the exchange set up by the bill, families and individuals who participate in the new program could purchase insurance plans that provide abortion coverage.

“We’re basically going to keep current law, which is what we ought to do,” says Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, a pro-choice Democrat who participated in the session where Reid unveiled the Senate

By Tara Sweeney

In a Letter to the Editor, Soo Ji Min, Executive Director of the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health – which hosted last month’s Urban Initiative for Reproductive Health Midwest Regional Summit – takes issue with a Chicago Tribune editorial in support of the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act. Noting that the editorial employs the same worn out arguments to oversimplify a complex issue, she writes:

At first glance, parental involvement laws–either notification or consent–for abortion do seem like common sense measures in the best interest of young women. But, with a little more consideration and analysis, we know that’s not how the world works. Parental involvement laws can put young women at risk after a pregnancy is disclosed. A 16-year-old woman had no previous history of physical abuse. Yet when her brother and father discovered her pregnancy, they beat her severely.

Read the full letter here.

By Maya Dusenbery

Reproductive health advocates have recently engaged in a search for “common ground”—an agreement that will transcend ideological discord. In her recent article on RH Reality Check, the National Institute for Reproductive Health’s Amy Boldosser writes that real common ground can be found at local levels, where municipal policy-makers and community-based leaders are responding to the needs of their cities. And the National Institute’s Urban Initiative for Reproductive Health can help them get there.

Amy writes,

Rather than focusing on the broad ideological debates, local officials on both sides of the abortion issue have found common ground by responding to the needs they see every day in their communities. Along the way, they have improved not only the reproductive health but the overall health and potentially the economic outlook for the people they represent.

Cities across America experience poor reproductive health outcomes. Regardless of ideological disposition, community stakeholders are interested in improving AIDS incidence rates, decreasing unintended pregnancy, and eliminating infant mortality. A multi-year project, the Urban Initiative is helping create and promote real policy solutions to address the reproductive health challenges facing cities today. By creating partnerships between elected officials and advocates at the city and county levels, the Urban Initiative advances an agenda that promotes policies and programs focused on improving reproductive health outcomes.

Amy concludes,

The quickest route to common ground is where the interest isn’t to debate whether abortion is right or wrong but to take action on issues that affect us most. The most effective common ground is when communities come together to prevent teen pregnancy, stop the spread of HIV and STIs, provide pre-natal care and reduce infant and maternal mortality, eliminate environmental toxins, address racial and ethnic health disparities, and improve care for low-income families who are disproportionately lacking health care access. This common ground starts where we all live, where the grassroots work takes place, where all politics is local.

The Urban Initiative is helping to create reproductive health care programs and policies that can be responsive to the needs of a specific community. By keeping the locale’s best interest in mind, the Urban Initiative bypass any ideological debates that may pop up.

By Renée Heininger

Yesterday we blogged about a special report on Crisis Pregnancy Centers from RH Reality Check and the Feminist Majority. Today you can hear advocates from the Feminist Majority Foundation, CPC-Watch, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), and Advocates for Youth discuss the harmful tactics and consequences of these fake clinics on a media conference call. Check it out here!

By Maya Dusenbery

Under the Bush Administration more than $1 billion in federal funds was poured into abstinence-only-until marriage programs. A large portion of these funds have gone towards so-called crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). In a fascinating special report, RH Reality Check, the Feminist Majority Foundation, and Stuart Productions document the deceitful tactics of these fake clinics.

Under the guise of comprehensive women’s health clinics and often with taxpayer dollars, CPCs use shame and misinformation to proselytize against abortion and contraception. After attracting young women—often college students and low-income women—to their facilities with the promise of free pregnancy tests and “accurate information about your pregnancy options,” CPCs use scare tactics, misleading information, and outright lies about the consequences of abortion to dissuade women from seeking one. As the video below shows, the blatant deception is often shocking.

While President Obama has called for an end to federal funding of ineffective abstinence-only programs and a return to scientifically accurate sex education, it is now up to Congress to act. In the next couple weeks the House Appropriations Labor Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee is conducting hearings on its FY 2010 spending bill.

Now is the time to tell House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. David Obey we cannot continue funding failed abstinence-only education programs and fake CPCs that are harming young women and men. Follow the link above to take action now or call Representative Obey’s office directly at 202-225-3365.

To read the whole special report at RH Reality Check, go here.

By Maya Dusenbery

The mantra “think local” took center-stage yet again today—this time, for reproductive rights advocates in the D.C. area. The House Appropriations Committee just voted to lift an anti-choice measure which has prevented the District of Columbia from using its locally raised funds to provide abortion for low-income women for almost every year since 1988. The Appropriations Committee vote was an important first step in defeating the ban which has limited care for D.C. women for almost two decades.

Next week, the bill will face the full House of Representatives for a vote and anti-choice advocates are expected to put up a fight. The measure will also be taken up by the Senate next week. Washington, D.C. is currently the only area where Congress has ultimate control over the locality’s spending and operations.

By Beth Budnick

Health care reform will be happening sooner than we thought.  National Women’s Law Center has outlined the timelines of the three different Congressional bills on health care reform.  The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Bill, called the “Affordable Health Choices Act,” was released earlier this month.  In addition to the HELP Committee Bill, the Senate Finance Committee and a tri-committee from the House are drafting bills to be debated and voted on in the month of July.  The Senate and House will then conduct conferences in August, and in September they will (hopefully) develop one concurrent bill to be sent to President Obama for his review come October.

This fast-paced timeline means advocates need make their voices heard soon.  If you are in the D.C. area tomorrow, June 25^th, join Health Care for America Now for their Health Care Can’t Wait National Rally.  Other ways to get involved include signing up for Health Care for America Now’s e-mail alerts and letting Congressmembers know that health care reform is important to you.  For talking points on why it is vital to remember women’s health care needs, click here to read Raising Women’s Voices Principles for Reform.

 By Pooja Awatramani

In the aftermath of Dr. George Tiller’s assassination—out of the sorrow, anger, and fear—comes a much-needed conversation about the realities of late-term abortions. Over the past several days, Dr. Tiller’s death has provided a chance to speak openly about the work he did, to learn the facts about late-term abortions and—even more importantly—hear the stories behind those statistics.

Jodi Jacobson points out on RH Reality Check that much of the media coverage of Dr. Tiller’s murder has highlighted the fact that he was “one of the very few doctors who perform late-term abortions, without providing any context as to why he did so and under what circumstances.”

Indeed, the terms “late-term abortion,” or “later term abortion” (plus, of course, the politically motivated and medically inaccurate “partial-birth abortion”) are often batted around with little to no discussion about what they actually are, who needs them, and why they do. It’s not surprising then that even some in the pro-choice community are uninformed about the realities.

Late-term abortions are extremely rare. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 1.1% of all abortions performed in the U.S. every year occur after 21 weeks. Thirty seven states currently restrict access to abortion in the third trimester, except when necessary to preserve the woman’s life or health. Dr. Tiller was one of the only providers who would perform abortions past 24 weeks in order to save women’s lives or preserve their health, including their future fertility.

Contrary to right-wing myth, women who have late-term abortions do not choose them for the sake of convenience, out of laziness, or after an impulsive change of heart. In 2006, the National Institute submitted an amicus brief in the case Gonzales v. Carhart, which challenged the federal ban on so-called partial-birth abortion. The amicus brief provided the Court with first-hand accounts from individual women who obtained second-trimester abortions in order to show the real-life impact of the Federal Abortion Ban on women’s lives. As these stories show, the primary reason for second trimester abortion is the discovery of a complication that threatens the life or health of the fetus, the woman, or both. On Salon’s Broadsheet, Kate Harding writes:

[The cases Dr. Tiller took] included women diagnosed with cancer who needed abortions to qualify for chemotherapy, women who learned late in their pregnancies that their wanted babies had fatal illnesses, and rape victims so young they didn’t realize they were pregnant for months.

Tragically, women in these desperate situations also face the added difficulty of finding a doctor who will perform a late-term abortion. At the vigil held for Dr. Tiller in New York City’s Union Square on Monday night, fellow abortion provider Dr. Laura MacIssac spoke eloquently about how thankful she and her colleagues were that they could send many of their most heartbreaking cases to Dr. Tiller.

Conventional wisdom holds that when it comes to abortion the earlier the better, yet late-term abortions are often the ones that are absolutely necessary to preserve a woman’s health or life. Michelle Goldberg writes on The American Prospect:

Late-term abortion is often spoken of as the most morally dubious aspect of the abortion debate. Many people who are nominally pro-choice, particularly politicians, are quick to condemn it, to treat the work that Tiller did as repugnant even if it’s legal.

Ironically, though, many of the procedures Tiller did were as far away from the much-reviled concept of “abortion on demand” as one could get. Unwanted pregnancy can, to some extent, be prevented. A pregnancy that goes horribly wrong cannot.

To me, it is the stories of women who have found themselves in need of an abortion late in their pregnancies that provide the most harrowing illustration of why abortion must be safe, legal, and available As Erin Kate Ryan of the National Network of Abortion Funds writes on RH Reality Check, in the high-stakes world of late-term abortions “our own biases about which abortions are necessary, justifiable, or merciful” are rendered irrelevant:

When faced with real families and real stories and the dazzling complexity of women’s lives, the one-dimensional slogans and false righteousness of the extreme anti-choice movement are revealed again as flimsy and hollow distractions that disregard women’s realities and dignity.

These difficult and complex realities serve as a reminder that the only moral rule when it comes to abortion is the one Dr. Tiller lived by and had printed up on buttons: “Trust women.”

By Maya Dusenbery

Promoting the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Bristol Palin today made several appearances today in her new capacity as Teen Ambassador for the Candie’s Foundation, which works to expose “the devastating consequences of teenage pregnancy, while educating and challenging America’s youth to make healthy decisions about sex.” Yet Bristol’s message, as well as the Candie’s Foundation campaign, has the distinct ring of another failed abstinence-only movement.

First up, Bristol went on “Good Morning America,” where her “message of caution” about the difficulties of being a teen mom quickly turned into a message that abstinence is always the best policy. Straying from her October assertion that abstinence is “not realistic,” Bristol told GMA, “I just want to promote abstinence” and “abstinence is the only way that you can effectively, 100%, fool proof way to prevent pregnancy.” Bristol also appeared on “The Today Show” this morning, spouting the same abstinence-only message.

Not to be outdone, Bristol’s son’s father, Levi Johnston, was on “The Early Show” this morning countering Bristol’s abstinence-only message. Levi said, “Abstinence is a great idea…but I also think you need to enforce, you know, condoms and birth control and other things like that to have safe sex. I don’t just think telling young kids, you can’t have sex, it’s not going to work. It’s not realistic.” Well said, Levi.     

Then this afternoon, Bristol continued the abstinence-only tour-de-force at the Candie’s Foundation’s New York City Event to Prevent town hall meeting for teens, presented in conjunction with the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy. RH Reality Check’s Emily Douglas has an eye-opening review of the event, which reportedly espoused a “prurient preoccupation with picking apart girls’ attire” while failing to mention birth control as an option or boys’ responsibility in preventing teen pregnancy. Summarizing the experience of the many students in attendance, Douglas writes, “Not one teen could have headed back to school with a plan for ‘the moment’ – or a heightened sense of how gender stereotypes feed sexually unhealthy outcomes.”

As opposed to ideologically driven messages that aim to dissuade teens from engaging in sex, the National Institute has developed a model for teen education that takes a more nuanced, realistic, and ultimately effective approach. Recognizing that preventing unwanted pregnancy relies upon accurate and comprehensive information, consideration of realistic sexual behavior, and an emphasis on creating healthy relationships, the National Institute created the Adolescent Health Care Communication Program (AHCCP). AHCCP puts adolescents in the driver’s seat by empowering and equipping them to teach their peers about sexual health and pregnancy prevention. And because keeping teens in sound reproductive health requires the help of the health care community, AHCCP peer educators also work to improve communication with doctors and providers.

Read about the work the AHCCP is currently doing in four states, where local groups are putting the AHCCP model into practice with great success.

By Tara Sweeney