Reproductive Health & Rights

Anti-abortion advocates were in rare form during the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing on H.R. 3541, the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011 ("PRENDA"). The bill would criminalize race and sex selective abortions. Throughout the hearing pro-PRENDA committee members shamelessly misappropriated and exploited civil rights and women's rights history in their crusade to rebrand their "anti-choice" agenda as a "civil rights" agenda. But this proved to be no easy task for pro-PRENDA committee members who unfortunately lacked knowledge of and respect for civil rights and women's rights. This led to several major offenses that outraged the civil rights community. And it revealed these committee members' true colors, exposing PRENDA for what it really is — just another attempt to turn back the clock on women's access to safe, legal abortion care.  

Offense #1: Misappropriating the Names of Susan B. Anthony and Fredrick Douglass

It is not uncommon for legislators to name bills after people who, either through influence or personal advocacy, have a special connection to the legislation. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which extends the federal hate crimes law to cover crimes based on perceived sexual orientation and disability, was named after two men who were victims of hate crimes. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, an act that combats pay discrimination against women, was named after the woman who had the courage and stamina to challenge the pay discrimination she had faced for almost two decades. Read more »

On December 6, 2011, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on H.R. 3541, the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011 (“PRENDA”).  The bill would criminalize race and sex selective abortions. According to the sponsors of the bill, it addresses the disproportionality high rate of abortions among black women and combats abortions performed in the name of son preference in some Asian communities.

Now, it is no surprise that the attacks on women’s reproductive rights continue unabated. But what’s unique (and absurd) about this particular attack is the way those opposed to women’s reproductive rights are shamelessly misappropriating civil right language and history in an attempt to bolster the legitimacy of their assault on women and to distract us from their true intentions. This absurdity was in full display in last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on PRENDA.

Throughout the hearing, women’s rights advocates, including many women of color, watched in amazement and disbelief as many committee members who have historically ignored their needs tried to convince the public (and possibly themselves) that they were the true champions of civil rights and women’s rights. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona), the chairman of the committee and sponsor of the bill, led this charge, opening the hearing with a distorted version of our country’s civil rights history and deceptively invoking civil rights icons and civil rights activism for his own misguided purposes. (For more on this brazen misappropriation of civil rights history, stay tuned for part 2 of this blog.) Read more »

I am guess all of us in the Reproductive Justice community could use a bit of good news these days. Leave it to my friends over at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women to deliver. They just reported that they have been working on a case in Washington State. A young Native American woman, Misty Jones, pregnant and addicted to prescription pain killers, had agreed to enter substance abuse treatment. Here at the Center, we support comprehensive, family-based drug treatment as the best policy solution to address the problem of drug addiction among pregnant women. Read more »

We were disappointed by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ decision to overrule the evidence-based decision reached by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to remove the age restriction on emergency contraception. So it didn’t really come as a surprise when President Obama voiced his support for Sebelius’ decision (watch it here).

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Even worse was how Obama defended Sebelius’ decision – speaking as a father about his daughters. Emily Douglas from The Nation and Rebecca Traister from Salon nailed it when they wrote about Obama’s paternalism.

If President Obama and Secretary Sebelius are concerned about 11 and 12 year old girls accessing emergency contraception without fully understanding how to use it, perhaps they should consider investing in comprehensive sex education programs. Not making emergency contraception readily available, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that young girls won’t need it, it just means that when they do, they will face significant hurdles in obtaining it. And unfortunately that means, these girls may face an even bigger challenge – unintended pregnancy. Read more »

Recently, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), and Karen Bass (D-CA) organized a briefing to highlight the state of reproductive justice for African American women. During this briefing, reproductive justice leaders came together to discuss recent legislative attacks on women’s reproductive rights generally, and challenges to African American women’s reproductive health specifically. Participants urged policy makers to provide full Medicaid coverage of abortion and support comprehensive sex education programs. Speakers also emphasized the importance of implementing policies that deal with the whole notion of “choice” as it relates to needs of black women. Such commitment, speakers highlighted, would entail working to remedy the compensation inequality, economic insecurity, barriers to housing and health care access, and barriers to education that severely impact black women’s choices and health outcomes. Ultimately, their message was clear—African American women need a stronger push for reproductive justice now more than ever.

It is no secret that reproductive rights took some major blows this year. From bans on private insurance for abortion to attempts to defund reproductive health services, our rights to live healthy reproductive lives have consistently been under assault. This has been especially true for African American women who have historically experienced disparities in access to health care, contraception, health education, and abortion care. In 2011 alone, African American women faced a number of reproductive rights challenges, including misleading and offensive billboard campaigns that targeted women in black communities with the apparent goal of “protecting” black women from themselves. Read more »

Welcome to December! As usual, we’ve got another end-of-the-week roundup for you. This week: stories on teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. and sex education, pondering whether or not Apple’s Siri is pro-choice or anti-choice, ways to find a mentor, some new videos in the NWLC library, and this week’s HERvotes blog carnival. 

Over the weekend, The Abortioneers published a blog post pointing out that Siri, the “personal assistant” feature in the new Apple iPhone 4s, doesn’t seem to be able to find information about abortion and abortion clinics. Siri even seems to have difficulty helping people find information about birth control and contraceptive services. What’s even more troubling to pro-choice advocates is that in some cases, Siri actually directs the iPhone user to anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers.

Many have noted that Siri was programmed with a sense of humor. That she’s meant to be a bit sassy. But now some are also asking, is Siri anti-choice? Read more »

As you may have heard, the Catholic Bishops are urging the Obama administration to expand the religious refusal clause concerning contraceptives. This could allow religiously affiliated institutions that are not churches – such as hospitals, universities, Catholic Charities, and others – to refuse to cover birth control without co-pays for their students and employees. That’s even though birth control constitutes “preventive care” under the Affordable Care Act, which is mandatorily covered at no cost by insurance plans. And as we’ve been telling you, denying contraceptive coverage is harmful to women.

In response, today the HERvotes coalition is banding together for another blog carnival to fight the Catholic bishops’ push to expand the religious exemption for employer birth control coverage. After the jump, we have links to some of the posts in today’s blog carnival to get you started reading. While you’re at it, please make sure to take a moment to tell President Obama that all women need affordable birth control. For more information about contraceptive coverage and for more resources and blogs from the NWLC, please visit our contraceptive coverage overview page.

This blog post was cross-posted from The Center for Infertility Justice, the official blog of RESOLVE.

Lisa Green’s* insurance benefits book listed “artificial insemination” under covered services.  It did not say “but only for married people.”  Yet when her doctor recommended artificial insemination, the insurer denied her claim because she was not married. 

In its communications to Lisa, the insurer claimed that because the benefits book said “cost of donor sperm” was not covered, a woman using donor sperm (e.g., sperm from anyone other than her spouse) was not entitled to artificial insemination coverage. 

Lisa looked again at her benefits book.  There was “artificial insemination” under covered services.  There was “cost of donor sperm” under services that were not covered.  But Lisa did not have any cost for donor sperm, since she was using her life partner’s sperm.  And it did not seem like a narrow exclusion for the “cost of donor sperm” should affect her coverage for the artificial insemination procedure itself. Read more »

Since HR 358 passed the House of Representatives back in October, we’ve heard from a few of our supporters in the states. These advocates have been alerting us that their legislators just don’t get it. They fail to understand what this dangerous piece of legislation would do and they don’t understand why our advocates are opposed to it (hint: because it is dangerous, you know, and women could die as result of its passage).

The thing we learned from looking at the responses from the offices of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and Representative Chris Gibson (R-NY) is that they’re okay being out of touch with their constituents.  In fact, they’re ok not even acknowledging that are taking positions opposed by their constituents. Neither legislator addressed the concerns our advocates raised about this harmful legislation, instead just assuming that the constituents contacting them on this issue were in agreement with their anti-choice stance. Failing to meaningfully respond to the constituents’ concerns is worrisome considering the significant impact HR 358 would have on women and their families. Read more »

A recent article in the New York Times finally sheds light on a question many LGBT individuals have been asking for years: why is it so hard to find culturally competent health care professionals who are willing and able to deal with the unique health issues that face the LGBT community?

In a study done by Stanford’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Medical Education Research Group, researchers found that many medical schools only provide students with five hours of training on health care for LGBT patients. One third of medical schools did not give any LGBT medical training. Also, over twenty-five percent of the medical school deans surveyed characterized their school’s LGBT training as “poor” or “very poor.” About half of the surveyed deans characterized their school’s training as “fair.”   Read more »