Health Care & Reproductive Rights

Roe v. Wade 40th Anniversary

For 40 years women have had the legal right to decide whether or not to have an abortion, yet even today numerous barriers threaten that right.

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Preventive Services in the Health Care Law

Preventive Services in the Health Care Law

This new year, more health plans will come under the reach of the law and will cover certain women's preventive health services with no co-payments.

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This Is Personal

Join the Reproductive Health Campaign

Go to ThisIsPersonal.org to get the facts and tools you need to help protect women's reproductive health.

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Not in Her Shoes

This is Personal

At 40, Roe v. Wade is more relevant than ever. Tell opponents: no one knows what it's like to be in your shoes.

Share your shoes & thoughts.
Women's Health Report Card 2010

Are we making the grade on women’s health?

Find out how healthy women in your state are and how the new health care law will affect women's health and health policy.

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Roe v. Wade 40th Anniversary
Preventive Services
This Is Personal
Not in Her Shoes
Report Card on Women's Health

Highlights

Fact Sheet | Requiring Crisis Pregnancy Centers to Disclose Limits on Care Is Part of a Long Tradition of Protecting Women’s Decision-making and Access to Reproductive Health Care

April 9, 2013

Women face many obstacles to receiving comprehensive, affordable, quality health care, including when individuals and institutions refuse to provide health care services.   Some even go so far as to refuse to inform women about their health care options or even to notify women that there are certain services or information that they will not provide.  This prevents women from participating fully in their own medical decision-making.  Not only are their rights compromised, their health may be harmed.

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Fact Sheet | Strong Public Support Continues for States to Accept Federal Funds to Cover More Uninsured People Through Medicaid

April 9, 2013

A new national survey sponsored by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and the National Women’s Law Center shows strong support among adults 18 and older for their states to accept federal dollars that have been allocated to cover more uninsured people through Medicaid.  The survey, conducted March 15-19, 2013 among 1,016 adults 18 and older, has a margin of error of + 4 percentage points.

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Resource Page | Overview of the Lawsuits Challenging the Affordable Care Act’s No Cost-Sharing Contraceptive Coverage Benefit

April 4, 2013

Full Document with Chart

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Fact Sheet | The Ryan Budget’s Catastrophic Health Cuts and their Impact on Women

March 14, 2013

Representative Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed budget for fiscal year 2014 includes devastating cuts to the health care programs women and families rely on.  Ryan would repeal the Affordable Care Act, make drastic cuts to Medicaid, and convert Medicare into a voucher program. These changes would leave millions of women and their families without the financial security of high-quality health insurance, unable to access the health care services they need, and facing dramatic increases in their healthcare costs.

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Fact Sheet | Health Care Refusals Harm Patients: The Threat to Reproductive Health Care

January 25, 2013

Across the nation, the personal beliefs of individuals and institutions are interfering with patients’ access to health care.

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Fact Sheet | Even More Than Abortion: The Constitutional Importance of Roe v. Wade and the Right to Privacy

January 18, 2013

Roe did far more than establish the right to abortion; it solidified and expanded the constitutional “right to privacy,” which has also been described as the right to autonomy or to be let alone.  This right to privacy is part of the right to liberty protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which state that no person shall be deprived of “life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”

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More Resources

Fact Sheet | If You Really Care About Intimate Partner Violence, You Should Care About Reproductive Justice

April 30, 2013

For a PDF version with footnotes of this factsheet, please see below.

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Legal Briefs & Testimony | NWLC Amicus Briefs Supporting the Contraceptive Coverage Benefit

April 30, 2013

The Center is filing friend of the court briefs in lawsuits challenging the federal contraceptive coverage benefit, brought by employers who want to deny their employees this important benefit.  These cases involve suits brought under the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  These cases will decide whether a boss’s religious beliefs trump women’s health and women’s access to the health care they need.

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Fact Sheet | State Bans on Insurance Coverage of Abortion Endanger Women’s Health and Take Health Benefits Away from Women

April 26, 2013

The health care law goes a long way toward improving women’s health and addressing the discrimination women have faced in the health insurance market. Unfortunately however, the health care law explicitly allows states to pass laws banning private insurance coverage of abortion in any exchange set up in their state. State politicians who want abortion to be illegal have wasted no time pushing bans on insurance coverage of abortion, making abortion unaffordable and interfering with a woman’s ability to make her own health care decisions.

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Fact Sheet | The “Peace Corps Equity Act” Corrects a Health Care Coverage Inequity for Peace Corps Volunteers

April 25, 2013

Peace Corps volunteers are provided NO coverage for abortion, even in the case of life endangerment to the woman or if she is a survivor of rape or incest. The Peace Corps Equity Act of 2013, sponsored by Senator Lautenberg, would ensure that Peace Corps Volunteers are treated the same as other women with federal health insurance.

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Fact Sheet | The President’s FY2014 Budget and Women’s Health

April 24, 2013

On April 10th, the President released his budget proposal for fiscal year 2014. Compared to the recently released House Budget   the President’s budget demonstrates a commitment to preserving women’s access to the health care coverage and services they need. The President’s budget fully funds implementation of the Affordable Care Act and does not make drastic cuts to the Medicaid program. However, it does include cuts to the Medicare program that will increase beneficiaries out of pocket costs and make it harder for older women to afford the care they need.

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