Alaska Quashes Abortion Access for Young Women

The fight for reproductive freedom in Alaska has just reached its boiling point.

Last week, Alaska voters passed an initiative requiring that the parents of women aged 17 and under must be notified before any abortion procedure takes place. The new law also puts in place a 48-hour waiting period between parental notification and performance of the procedure.

While it's true that this new legislation does not require parental consent (an earlier law that did was deemed unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court), and while it does allow for a judge to bypass the required notification, the law nevertheless places young women -- and their doctors -- in a precarious situation.

Doctors who fail to notify the parents of an underage patient seeking an abortion could face "felony charges and a prison sentence of up to five years." And for the young women affected by the new law, accessing an abortion just got one step closer to next to impossible. Not only is the measure likely to frighten a good number of young women away from even considering having the procedure (I have to tell my parents? Or stand in front of a judge? Forget it) and thus force them into teen parenthood, it will also inevitably put young women's lives at risk. Many could find themselves homeless if their parents disagree with their choice. Others could find themselves battered or dead for exactly the same reason.

Abortion may still be legal in Alaska, but voters have now made it a potentially harmful, even deadly, procedure for the young Alaskan women whose families may have different views then their own about a woman's right to choose. Remember what it was like to be 16 years old: how many of us -- facing threats of violence or even just parental disapproval -- could say we'd have had the strength to follow through under these conditions? Probably very few -- and that is exactly what anti-choice advocates are hoping for.

(It's worth noting that Joe Miller, who's locked in a recount battle for the Republican nomination for one of Alaska's Senate seats, was a strong supporter of the ballot measure; Miller was endorsed by the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and other far right notables. Lisa Murkowski, the Republican incumbent, may end up losing her seat in the Senate because she refused to take an outspoken stance in support of the measure.)

Alaska is one among dozens of states where forces on the right are rolling back access to abortion while its legality is maintained in name only. Just days before the vote in Alaska, we wrote about exactly that threat, and noted how past and current grantees like Advocates for Youth and SisterSong -- not to mention organizations like COLOR and NLIRH -- are doing the hard work of pushing back against these restrictive measures around the nation. We support these organizations because we believe in their power to turn back the tide of anti-choice legislation making its way across our nation; help us help them by making a donation to the cause today.

Donate now and a special matching grant will double your support -- dollar-for-dollar -- for reproductive justice organizations led by women of color.

Access to Abortion is the Fight of the Future

If you've been looking for a clear elucidation of the difference between fighting for "reproductive rights" and "reproductive justice" -- and why a focus on the latter is increasingly important -- you may want to read Amanda Marcotte's excellent article running on RH Reality Check today.

Framing the conversation around a recent episode of "Mad Men" that featured an abortion, Marcotte explains that, unlike in days past, hinging our current battle for reproductive freedom on protecting the right to abortion just isn't enough. The fact is that anti-choice activists are finding more and more ways to restrict access to abortion, even as the right to it stays nominally in place. This chipping away at our ability to actually access abortions (think of the Hyde Amendment, or any of the many restrictions currently winding their way through state legislatures) is particularly damning for low-income women and young women -- who often lack the resources to pay for abortions, or any of the attendant expenses that may come along with them (when, for example, you're forced to travel out of state to find a provider who might even perform the procedure).

Marcotte doesn't just blame anti-choicers for moving us back to a time where only women with resources could access abortion, even if it was illegal. She also faults the pro-choice movement for failing to capitalize on opportunities (like the most recent health care debates) to increase access for women without resources. The price for those strategic failures will be paid by the millions of young women and low-income women who know better than anyone else that these rights mean precious little when you are denied the opportunity to exercise them.

If we want to make sure that we all have the ability to make the same set of determinations about our bodies and health, then the fight on the reproductive health front must be about ensuring access as much as it is about anything else. "We must view abortion rights less as a thing in and of themselves," Marcotte suggests, "and more as a means to the end of access."

That's a notion the Ms. Foundation has been working to make a reality for decades. Over the years we have helped grow a national reproductive justice movement that places reproductive rights and health within a broader social justice context -- and elevates the voices of those who are most affected by failed policies, but least heard in the national debate: low-income women, women of color, immigrant women and LGBTQ individuals. Our past and current support of organizations like Advocates for Youth and SisterSong (both of which Marcotte lauds in her article) exemplifies our commitment to building a world where all individuals are equally able to make their own choices regarding their reproductive health -- not just the privileged few.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: no woman should find herself forced to forgo an abortion because she can't afford one, can't find a licensed provider, or is intimidated out of the procedure. Take the time to read Marcotte's article, and add your voice to the conversation about where the fight to protect our reproductive health goes from here.



Photo: Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris in Mad Men.

Join the Fight for Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Former Ms. Foundation grantee Advocates for Youth is pushing to bring comprehensive sex ed to every state in the nation -- and they need your help!

Thanks to the hard work of thousands of advocates around the country, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has officially launched the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), allowing states to apply for $55 million in first-of-its-kind federal funding for comprehensive sex education. Now the key is to get state governors to actually apply to bring that funding to their states.

Urge your Governor to apply for PREP funding to bring comprehensive sex ed to your community!

States have until August 30th to make their intention to apply known -- so time is short. Make sure the leadership in your state capital knows that you support the teaching of medically accurate sexuality eduction, not abstinence-only programs that have been proven ineffective but continue to garner support at the highest levels of governance, in terms of both domestic and international policy.

Take action on behalf comprehensive sex-ed today!

Abstinence Only: Shelby Knox Gets to Heart of Souder "Affair"

You may by now have heard the scuttlebutt surrounding Representative Mark Souder’s (R - IN) resignation from office (you know: the increasingly common tale of a politician being caught in an affair after years of preaching “family values” to a conservative base). But what you may not have seen yet is Shelby Knox’s fantastic piece, which highlights how dangerous support for the abstinence-only approach lauded by Souder has been for millions of school children around the country.

Leaving somewhat to the side Souder’s hypocrisy in promoting sex-inside-marriage as the “only way” to prevent pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, while actually engaging in sex outside of his own marriage, Knox focuses her critique on the real world impact of these policies on America’s youth. On the Women’s Media Center site, she writes,

What I really want to know is what Rep. Souder and others like him have to say to the millions of young people whose health was endangered by being told condoms don’t work, or that we’re worth less as human beings depending on who we have sex with and when. What I want to know is how in good conscience adults – who knew by the simple benefit of life experience it was a lie – could pretend that sex and sexual relationships are always uncomplicated as long as they’re kept inside the safe confines of marriage?

Seeing folks like Souder hoisted on their own petards may bring a certain satisfaction – but remembering how many lives have literally been put at risk because of policies like these is sobering indeed. And while you may have thought with a new president we'd be able to right this wrong and focus solely on evidence-based alternatives, not so fast: these failed policies will continue to threaten youth nationwide. Last summer, the Obama Administration did allow federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs to lapse, but this year's health-care reform legislation brought support for them right back.

Navigating this complex and politically charged environment, our grantees, including California Latinas for Reproductive Justice and New Mexicans for Responsible Sexuality Education and many others, continue to work hard in states and school districts across the country to build a future where all youth have access to comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education; despite what Rep. Souder and his cohort would tell you, it’s the least they deserve.

Health Care Reform Revives Funding for Failed Abstinence-Only Approach

Federal funding for abortion, as we well know, has been front and center in the health-care debate. But what has received far less attention is the revival of federal funding for Bush-era abstinence-only-until-marriage programs (yep, the ones that prohibit any discussion of the benefits of contraception) in the final health-care bill. We find this incredibly hard to believe. After celebrating a long-fought, hard-won victory last year when President Obama let federal funding for the failed abstinence-only approach lapse, we join our grantees and other activists who are shocked and dismayed that such a discredited program is yet again alive.

Still, it is true: the final health-care reform bill includes funding – to the tune of $50 million a year – for the abstinence-only-until-marriage initiative, Title V. This reinstatement flies in the face of evidence – including a study commissioned by the federal government – that these programs are not only unsuccessful, but harmful. Evidence that Congress, says Joseph DiNorcia, Jr., president and CEO of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), a Ms. Foundation grantee partner, is well aware of:

[Congress has] the facts. They know that this program is harmful to young people, uses federal dollars to spread misinformation, fear, and shame, and is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars. Who decided it was a good idea to forgo saving a quarter-of-a-billion dollars over the next five years and continue funding for a failed program that leaves young people at risk? Why this program is being brought back from the dead is a mystery.

Whatever the impetus, this is a frustrating setback for advocates of medically accurate, comprehensive sexuality education who for years worked tirelessly to convince state after state to reject abstinence-only-until-marriage funding. Now advocates will be forced – yet again – to resort to this approach. In the words of James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, also a Ms. Foundation grantee partner: “Together, we now have even more to do. We need to convince every governor in America to reject the bad funding for Title V programs and accept the good funding for evidence-based, comprehensive programs.”

It is also true that the health-care bill provides $75 million per year over five years for a new evidence-based “personal responsibility education program,” [see this analysis by the Guttmacher Institute] intended to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. But the implications of the nonsensical abstinence-only backtrack cannot be ignored: forced to resurrect their strategy to convince states to refuse abstinence-only funding, advocates will likely have to divert resources from the implementation of evidence-based, comprehensive sexuality education – district by district, school by school – which still, for all intents and purposes, remains a monumental task.

Sex-Ed Debate Picks Up: Teen Pregnancy Climbs, Abstinence Advocates Mistake New Study as Proof

Two newly released studies have added fuel to the debate about our nation’s approach to sexuality education and reducing unintended teen pregnancy: one by the Guttmacher Institute, which reported an increase in teen pregnancy in the U.S. -- the reversal of a long-term decline -- and the other about an abstinence-only curriculum that was shown to delay sexual activity in very young adolescents.

Guttmacher reports that after teen-pregnancy rates began declining in 1990 (due to better use of contraceptives), the trend reversed in 2006 -- not surprisingly, at the depths of the Bush presidency. In fact, says Guttmacher, the decline had already begun to “stall out in the early 2000s, at the same time that sex education programs aimed exclusively at promoting abstinence -- and prohibited by law from discussing the benefits of contraception -- became increasingly widespread.”

Advocates for medically accurate, comprehensive sexuality education received the new data as further evidence that abstinence-only programs don’t work. Yet, within a few days, another report was released suggesting that they can. The study, led by Dr. John Jemmott of the University of Pennsylvania, focused on a small group of preteens (average age 12) and demonstrated that a very particular kind of abstinence curriculum helped delay sexual activity for up to 24 months.

Abstinence-only advocates rejoiced, proclaiming the Jemmott study as proof that their approach was correct all along. But what they fail to acknowledge -- and what the press has failed to sufficiently report -- is that the program studied does not at all mirror the abstinence-only programs that received federal funding from the Bush Administration. For starters, the program doesn't even exist yet in schools. Second, instead of an abstinence-only-until-marriage program, the goal of the experimental one was to help young people avoid sex until they were "ready." Finally, the training and curriculum manual, in Jemmott's own words, "explicitly instructed the facilitators not to disparage the efficacy of condoms or allow the view that condoms are ineffective to go uncorrected" -- a significant departure from Bush-funded programs which often disparaged, prohibited, and/or delivered inaccurate information about contraception. The bottom line: the Jemmott study does not provide data to support the failed Bush-era abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

Read Ms. Foundation grantee Advocates for Youth response to the Jemmott study.
Read the Guttmacher report [PDF].
Read the Jemmott study.
Read a related post: Abstinence from Federal Sex-Ed Funding?

Outrageous Act: Tell Your Legislators to End Funding for Abstinence-Only Programs

Advocates for Youth, a Ms. Foundation grantee, is calling for support of President Obama’s budget eliminating abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs. They ask you to write to your Representative in the U.S. House and your U.S. Senators urging their support for the funding elimination. Ask your representatives to support the elimination of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

Senate to Consider Extending Abstinence-Only Funding in Medicare Bill

Two of the Ms. Foundation's national Sexuality Education Advocacy Initiative grantees are calling on voters to oppose an 18-month extension of the Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage program included in the Medicare package prepared by the Senate Finance Committee.

The grantees, Advocates for Youth and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SEICUS), joined the Ms. Foundation and many other organizations in signing a letter to Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The letter objects to continued funding of abstinence-only programs and their inclusion in a Medicare bill. It notes:

The Senate Medicare package extends these programs despite the mounting scientific and medical evidence indicating that abstinence-only-until-marriage funding is a poor public investment.

It is extremely noteworthy that at least 17 states have firmly rejected federal funding through Title V of the Social Security Act. Acting on principle and in the best interest of their youth, these governors have rebuffed a source of much needed revenue after concluding that these unduly restrictive and ideologically-driven programs were, at a minimum, ineffective and, at worst, harmful.

An eight-year, congressionally mandated evaluation published by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. in April 2007 shows that abstinence-only programs have no beneficial impact. Students who participated in a range of curricula funded through the federal Title V abstinence-only program were no more likely than non-recipients to delay sexual initiation, to have fewer partners, or to use condoms when they did become sexually active. [Report Executive Summary – PDF]

A November 2007 report by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy confirmed these findings, concluding that "[a]t present, there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence, or reduces the number of sexual partners," and therefore there isn't "sufficient evidence to justify their widespread dissemination." [Report]

To find out more about how to promote comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education, visit Advocates for Youth and SEICUS. To send an email with your opposition to the extension of abstinence-only funding in the Medicare bill, you can join this effort organized by Advocates for Youth.