Gretchen Borchelt, Senior Counsel & Director of State Reproductive Health Policy

Gretchen Borchelt is Senior Counsel and Director of State Reproductive Health Policy at the National Women’s Law Center. She oversees the Center’s state-based legal and policy efforts to protect and expand women’s access to reproductive health care. Gretchen also works on a range of issues as part of the Center’s Health and Reproductive Rights Team, including health care law implementation, access to contraception, refusals to provide health care, and judicial nominations. Previously, she worked at Physicians for Human Rights and was a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow at the National Partnership for Women and Families. Gretchen is a graduate of Columbia Law School and the University of Virginia.

Expert in: Abortion, Pharmacy Refusals, Barriers to Reproductive Care, Family Planning, Health Care & Reproductive Rights
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My Take

More Proof that States are Turning Against Women

Posted by Gretchen Borchelt, Senior Counsel & Director of State Reproductive Health Policy | Posted on: March 16, 2012 at 04:13 pm

Don’t believe us when we say that states are becoming increasingly hostile to women’s access to necessary reproductive health care? If legislation requiring mandatory vaginal ultrasounds and allowing employers to fire women for using birth control, aren’t proof enough, I’ve got more for you. The Guttmacher Institute just released a new study looking at how the abortion policy landscape at the state level has shifted over the last decade. The conclusion: more states are hostile to abortion rights now than in 2000. And more than half of American women of reproductive age live in those states.

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Tags: Abortion, Barriers to Reproductive Care, Health Care & Reproductive Rights | 11 comments

On Roe’s Anniversary, A Standard Refrain

Posted by Gretchen Borchelt, Senior Counsel & Director of State Reproductive Health Policy | Posted on: January 22, 2012 at 09:00 am

My coworker Leila has already explained the problems with the recent decision by the Fifth Circuit overturning a district court’s block of key provisions of a Texas law forcing doctors to give women seeking abortions ultrasound information.

What Leila didn’t mention, however, was who wrote the decision: Chief Judge Edith Jones. And although I am as outraged as Leila by the decision, I’m not entirely surprised.

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Tags: Abortion, Roe v. Wade, Texas, Barriers to Reproductive Care, Pregnancy Rights, Health Care & Reproductive Rights | Add new comment

Please voice your support for birth control without cost-sharing on Wall Street Journal site!

Posted by Gretchen Borchelt, Senior Counsel & Director of State Reproductive Health Policy | Posted on: July 21, 2011 at 10:14 am

The Wall Street Journal has asked for comments on whether readers support the IOM’s recommendation that women be provided the full range of FDA-approved contraception without cost sharing.

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Tags: Birth Control, Institute of Medicine (IOM), Family Planning, Health Care Reform, Health Care & Reproductive Rights | Add new comment

Score One for Patients: HHS Refusal Regulation Eliminated (In Part)

Posted by Gretchen Borchelt, Senior Counsel & Director of State Reproductive Health Policy | Posted on: February 23, 2011 at 03:03 pm

We're pleased to report that on Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services rescinded most of the bad Bush Administration "midnight" regulation on health care provider "conscience." For those of you who have forgotten, the Bush regulation supposedly interpreted three existing laws that allow individuals and entities to refuse abortion services.But it went much further than

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Tags: Religious Restrictions | Add new comment

FDA is Taken Back to Court on Emergency Contraception

Posted by Gretchen Borchelt, Senior Counsel & Director of State Reproductive Health Policy | Posted on: November 16, 2010 at 04:38 pm

Today, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a motion for contempt of court against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It has been over a year and a half since a federal court ordered the FDA to reconsider the baseless age restriction placed on emergency contraception.

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Tags: Emergency Contraception, Barriers to Reproductive Care | Add new comment