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Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights

Judy Waxman

Judy Waxman is the Vice President of Health and Reproductive Rights at the National Women's Law Center. She pioneers advocacy, policy and educational strategies to promote the quality and availability of health care, including reproductive choice, for American women. Prior to joining the National Women's Law Center, Ms. Waxman served as Deputy Executive Director at Families USA for over a decade. In that capacity, she worked to achieve high quality, affordable health and long-term care for all Americans and was a leader on grassroots and activities on Medicaid, Medicare and other health care access legislative issues. She previously served as a Professional Staff Member with the Pepper Commission (the United States Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care). Ms. Waxman was also an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, an attorney for the Department of Health and Human Services and served as President of the Board of Directors of the Women's Medical Center, a nonprofit health clinic. She served on advisory committees for publications of the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the Older Women's League (OWL), and was the Chair of the Health Task Force of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and of the Leadership Conference of Aging Organizations. She holds a law degree from American University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Miami, in Florida.

My Take

Watch Our New Video: They're Coming After Our Birth Control

Posted by Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights | Posted on: April 24, 2012 at 10:32 am

Attacks on contraception have been all over the news lately — from attempts to defund federal and state family planning programs and providers like Planned Parenthood to efforts to block the health care law's coverage of contraception with no-copays or deductibles. It's shocking that more than 50 years after the birth control pill was approved, we're fighting to ensure that women don't lose access to it. Another startling front in the contraception battle? When you go to a pharmacy to get your contraception, you might be denied.

Women in at least 24 states report that their pharmacists have denied them access to birth control. Watch our new video and tell your leaders: My Health is NOT Up for Debate™!

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Will You Get the Life-Saving Care You Need?

Posted by Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights | Posted on: April 09, 2012 at 12:24 pm

Do you think our nation’s leaders would allow a hospital to refuse to perform an emergency abortion on a woman – even if it means she would die? Unfortunately, if some leaders have their way, the answer would be yes. The House of Representatives actually passed a bill that would allow hospitals to turn away women needing emergency abortion care. This bill is just one example of the recent onslaught of attacks at both the federal and state level that that aim to deny women’s access to reproductive health care.

Getting the emergency care a woman needs should not depend on the hospital to which she is taken.

Watch our new video!

Watch our new video and tell your leaders: My Health is NOT Up for Debate™!

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Slash and Burden: The Ryan Budget

You've heard of slash and burn, but how about slash and burden?

On Thursday, the House is expected to vote on a budget for Fiscal Year 2013 introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The Ryan budget would devastate vital services for women and their families while giving trillions in new tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations — on top of extending provisions of the Bush-era tax cuts that benefit only the very wealthy.

Let's make it clear that we will not stand for a budget that slashes programs for women and families and puts the burden of paying for tax breaks for millionaires and corporations on middle- and low-income Americans.

Tell your Representative to oppose the Ryan Budget. As your Members of Congress start budget negotiations, they need to know that their constituents expect them to protect programs for women and families — and to require the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.

What's wrong with Rep. Paul Ryan's Budget? For starters, it would:

  • Repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Insurance companies could continue to charge women higher premiums than men, deny coverage to women due to preexisting condition, and refuse to cover maternity care.
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Watch Our New Video and Join the Campaign - My Health is NOT Up for Debate

Posted by Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights | Posted on: February 29, 2012 at 12:55 pm

Last year, states passed a record 92 restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health services. Just last week, lawmakers in Virginia were poised to force women to have an invasive and unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound before having an abortion. And as we speak, the state of Texas is cutting reproductive health care services for hundreds of thousands of low-income women.

What other hurdles will they make women jump over to get the reproductive health care they need?

Watch our new video and tell your leaders: My Health is NOT Up for Debate™!

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Act Now! Senate Set to Vote to Repeal No-Cost Birth Control

Posted by Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights | Posted on: February 14, 2012 at 05:46 pm

Call your Senators NOW!

Call your Senators now!

Call 1-888-838-5169 to tell your Senators to oppose the Blunt Amendment because it would eliminate access to no-cost birth control and other critical health care services.   

Last week, President Obama announced that he would continue to protect women's access to birth control without co-pays or deductibles regardless of where they work, including at certain religiously-affiliated employers, while accommodating religious institutions' opposition to contraception.

Despite this accommodation, opponents of birth control in Congress are continuing their attacks on the contraceptive coverage requirement and the Affordable Care Act and they're going to vote VERY SOON on the dangerous and harmful Blunt Amendment. Call 1-888-838-5169 now to tell your Senators to reject the Blunt Amendment. 

The Blunt Amendment would, among other things, allow any corporation whose CEO opposes contraception based on his "moral convictions" to deny all coverage of contraception or any other health care service to the company's employees.

We need your help! Call 1-888-838-5169 TODAY to tell your Senators that you support the President's decision on birth control and oppose the Blunt Amendment because it would eliminate your access to no-cost birth control and other critical health care services.

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