Access Denied: There's nothing to cheer about on the anniversary of the Hyde Amendment

Last year, the Ms. Foundation for Women published this post to raise awareness about the implications of the Hyde amendment. This year, our state of affairs remain unchanged. Please sign on to the ALL Above all petition to repeal the Hyde amendment once and for all. 

The relief that women experienced following the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing access to safe and legal abortion was short-lived. After merely three years, zealous politicians managed to impose their own personal agendas with the passing of the Hyde Amendment, systematically excluding millions of low-income women and women of color from accessing abortion care. 

With broad support from anti-choice legislators, the Hyde Amendment banned federal Medicaid coverage of abortion. Denial of Medicaid-funded abortions subsequently retracted low-income women’s ability to obtain a safe and legal abortion. The rights they gained in 1973 were essentially stripped away.

Today marks 36 years since the Hyde Amendment was enacted. Millions of women who rely on Medicaid for health care are still excluded from accessing abortion care. The restrictions imposed by the Hyde Amendment leave many women in a difficult situation—choosing between basic necessities like food and rent or the medical services that are standard among the majority of private health plans.

This injustice must end. Stand up for choice. Stand up for women’s constitutional rights. Please sign this petition from ALL Above All to repeal the Hyde Amendment.

Progress in Ireland, But Abortion Rights Are Hollow Without Access

By Julie Kay, Ms. Foundation for Women Senior Strategist, Advocacy and Policy

Women in Ireland can breathe a small sigh of relief today. New legislation allowing abortion when a woman’s life is at risk has moved the country one step closer to removing extremist legislative blockades on women’s human and reproductive rights. Yet, the reality is that for women in Ireland, like their American counterparts, these legal rights will be hollow if access to abortion information and services remains out of reach.

In ABC v. Ireland, a lawsuit I argued on behalf of a woman unable to access lifesaving abortion services and information, the European Court of Human Rights found that the denial of access constituted a violation of human rights. Mounting public pressure after the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar, a young woman denied a lifesaving abortion in an Irish hospital last winter, combined with the human right court’s order, has forced the government to enact reforms after decades of delay and wrangling over abortion restrictions in courts, in legislative bodies and on the streets in Ireland. Since 1992, an anti-abortion majority in government had even ignored its own Supreme Court’s ruling calling for access to legal lifesaving abortion.

Worldwide, women’s health gets treated as a political pawn by anti-abortion politicians who prioritize personal political gain over women’s human rights and health. This year, in the United States alone, women face increasing barriers to necessary abortion information and services from anti-abortion forces that continue to exert control over the legislative process. Intensified anti-abortion efforts have brought legislation from conservatives nationwide, including bans on abortion both early and late in pregnancy, regulations designed to shutter clinics in Texas and other states, and false claims about fetal development. The nonsensical push to make both reproductive health care and abortion inaccessible to women in poverty continued through bans on insurance funding for abortion through the Affordable Care Act, which occurred simultaneously with conservatives’ objections to funding for family planning programs.

The fact is that abortion in the U.S. is legal, yet inaccessible, for many women, particularly for marginalized women. Women of color, immigrant women and low-income women face greater barriers to reproductive health care nationwide. As a result, these groups experience higher instances of maternal mortality, increased health risks as a result of delayed access to abortion and outright denial of necessary and often life-saving reproductive health care. Such violations of women’s human rights occur even with greater legal access to abortion services than in other countries, like Ireland.

Unless we take affirmative steps to ensure genuine access to the full range of reproductive health care, American women will not be able to realize their full human rights of liberty, bodily integrity and full participation in society.

Veterans Day: Let’s Fight for the Women Who Fight For Us

The progress women in the military have made is truly remarkable. During the American Revolution, women served exclusively as nurses, water bearers, cooks, laundresses and saboteurs. In the past decade alone, we’ve seen a lot of firsts for women. We saw the first women in U.S. Naval history take command of a fighter squadron, we saw the first woman become Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard and we saw the first woman receive the rank of four-star general in the U.S. Army. The days when a small number of women tended to the health and domestic needs of servicemen are long over. Approximately 205,000 of the 1.4 million-member active-duty force are women.

While these turning points and accomplishments are impressive, women in the military have not had it easy. Women in the military are victims of sexual assault at greater rates than the general population. A startling one in three servicewomen has been sexually assaulted compared to one in six civilian women. While efforts to stop sexual violence against women in the military have been put forth, little progress has been made. What’s just as shocking as the lack of protection women have is the lack of reproductive rights women who serve our country have. At this time, women in the military who are impregnated through rape cannot get abortion coverage through their federal health care plans. This is a huge injustice. Women in the military deserve equity and should have the same access to reproductive services as the general population.

Passage of the Shaheen Amendment would provide an essential step in the direction of reproductive justice for military women. This amendment would give servicewomen the same rights to access abortion services that federal employees have. This amendment is currently being debated in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. In honor of equity, rights and justice, we ask you to stand with servicewomen by joining former Ms. Foundation for Women grantee Service Women’s Action Network’s campaign asking Congress to give servicewomen the same health insurance coverage they give to other federal employees. This Veterans Day, let’s fight for the women who fight for us. Let’s honor all armed service veterans, servicemen and servicewomen who make America the great nation that it is.

Anti-Abortion Billboard Heightens Assault on Poor, African American Women

Thanks to Ms. Foundation grantee the Women of Color Policy Network, we've got a major win to report on the reproductive justice front!

As you've likely heard by now, last week, New York City became the latest stop on the campaign trail for an anti-abortion initiative that aims to convince African Americans that legalized abortion is a racialized threat. A billboard once hanging at the corner of Watts and 6th Avenue, in Soho, featured the image of a young African American girl, above whose head dangled these disturbing words: "The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb." Not coincidentally, the billboard was situated less than half a mile from a Planned Parenthood facility.

The campaign's goal, organizers from the group behind the ads will tell you, is to cast abortion as a "genocidal plot" to destroy the Black community -- and they're taking their message nationwide. Last year they launched similar advertising attacks in Georgia, where Ms. Foundation grantees SPARK Reproductive Justice Now and SisterSong led valiant efforts to challenge the campaign's dangerous rhetoric.

Now it's time to add another grantee to the list of organizations successfully shutting the door on this racist campaign: on Thursday of last week, WOCPN was able to report that they, too, had pushed back against the companies involved in placing these ads -- and won! In response to a letter sent by WOCPN to Lamar Billboards (the company that owns the ad space where the billboard was hanging), WOCPN received word from the company that the billboard would be taken down -- immediately. On Thursday night, a crane removed the offensive ad from its downtown location.

C. Nicole Mason, Executive Director of WOCPN, stressed the role that the collective efforts of numerous organizations played in achieving this victory. "I truly believe," Mason wrote in an alert to constituents about the win, "that our collective quick action, phone calls and letters to the company are directly responsible for their decision to pull the ad."

We're thrilled to be able to celebrate the removal of this ad from the New York City streets -- but we know the fight is not yet over. We find these ads attacking African American women both utterly reprehensible and undeniably racist. They represent yet another assault on poor women of color by seeking to limit their access not merely to abortion services, but to the other 97% of preventive health care services Planned Parenthood provides. The group behind these ads is attempting to scare Black women away from accessing the reproductive and preventative health resources many of them so desperately need -- an act that should be criminal, given that it puts women's lives at risk.

Better than anyone else, Black women know what is best for their bodies and their lives, and they must be trusted to decide, individually, which reproductive choices are right for them. Today, we can be pleased that one company eventually understood the racism and sexism implicit in this campaign (or the threat to their bottom line) and chose to stand on the side of decency. But the struggle to make sure that women's voices and perspectives are respected and heard continues on. With organizations like WOCPN, SPARK and SisterSong leading the charge, we have no doubt that reproductive justice will prevail.

Support Reproductive Justice Today!
In times like these, it’s more important than ever to support women-of-color-led reproductive justice organizations. They know best what their communities need, and have a strong track record of mobilizing a diverse grassroots base to block regressive measures and fight for positive change.
 
Your support for Ms. Foundation grantees who are leading the charge for women-of-color-led reproductive justice will be matched dollar for dollar today: Make a gift of $10, $25, $50 or more now and a generous donor will match your contribution to double the impact for this important work.

"The Daily Show" Gets It Right: There's No Such Thing as "Rape-ish"

Looking for a brilliant breakdown of what H.R. 3 and the Right's attempts to redefine rape could mean for the the future of reproductive rights? Then check out the clip posted below, from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Together with Stewart, "Women's Issues" correspondent Kristen Schaal offers a pitch-perfect send-up of how the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" would limit access to abortions by insisting on new, Machiavellian definitions of rape -- and move us ever closer to a time where abortions would once again be outlawed even to save a woman's life. 

Have a good laugh (it's a truly funny bit)-- and then remember that this is no joke. Join Ms. Foundation grantees National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and the National Women's Law Center in their campaigns to make sure that H.R. 3 never passes the House.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape Victim Abortion Funding
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Abortion Rights: When Dollars Can Mean the Difference Between Life and Death

By Ellen Liu, Program Officer

What happens when poor women are denied access to safe abortions? Just ask folks in Pennsylvania, who are now dealing with the fallout from recent revelations of substandard, sometimes deadly, conditions at a "rogue" abortion clinic in West Philadelphia.

Kermit Gosnell, an unlicensed "doctor" who ran the Women's Medical Society for more than 30 years, is now charged in the death of at least one patient and seven newly born babies at his clinic, which largely serves low-income women and women of color. The abuses that Gosnell and his staff are accused of are nothing short of horrific -- and it's all but certain that anti-abortion forces will seize on them as support for the notion that abortion in this country should never be legal.

But as Daniel Denvir points out in an article now running simultaneously on RH Reality Check and AlterNet, abortion foes have once again got it entirely backwards. It's not abortion itself that is to blame for these lost lives and barbaric practices; rather, it's the policies advocated for by anti-abortion activists that bear the burden of guilt here -- particularly those that deny government funding for abortion -- because they too often "[force] women into... life-threatening situations."

Read more »

Women with Pre-existing Conditions Denied Abortion Coverage

Did you know that under our nation's new health care laws, women with pre-existing conditions will still be denied access to abortion coverage?

It's shocking but true: under the rules issued by the Department of Health and Human Services for the new Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plans, women with serious medical conditions (like cancer, heart disease or diabetes) would be prevented from receiving coverage for pregnancy-ending procedures -- even if these pregnancies put their lives at risk.

Ms. Foundation grantees the National Women's Law Center, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and West Virginia Free have added their names to a growing list of organizations and individuals asking HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to reconsider these restrictions. Educate yourself about what these new rules could mean for millions of American families by reading this letter [pdf], sent earlier this week to Secretary Sebelius, or by watching the video below, created by Raising Women's Voices.

Laws to Restrict Abortion: Sara K. Gould Responds to the New York Times

Today, The New York Times ran a Letter to the Editor by Ms. Foundation President and CEO, Sara K. Gould, responding to its June 3 article, Abortion Foes Advance Cause at State Level, and highlighting the Foundation's work to fighting state-based assaults on reproductive choice.

To the Editor:

Re “Abortion Foes Advance Cause at State Level” (news article, June 3):

It is no coincidence that “this is a good year” for restricting abortion access at the state level, as an opponent of abortion is quoted as saying. In an election year dominated by the Tea Party and legalized discrimination in Arizona, we now see conservative America’s familiar strategy of hijacking women’s bodies and personal safety for political gains.

The paternalism of laws that require ultrasounds — “though she may avert her eyes” — reveals that the battle for abortion rights is as much about maintaining inequality as it is about “saving babies.”

The Ms. Foundation has supported advocates working at the state level for comprehensive reproductive health for more than 20 years because we know that attempts to limit access to abortion are a step down the road to limits on other reproductive health freedoms and services, like access to contraception.

It is dangerous to women’s overall health and well-being to isolate abortion from the full range of health services every person deserves.


Sara K. Gould
President and Chief Executive Officer
Ms. Foundation for Women
Brooklyn, June 3, 2010

[Originally posted at The New York Times]

States Move to Further Limit Abortion Coverage

Think the battle over health care reform is behind us? Time to think again – particularly when it comes to abortion coverage.

According to the Associated Press, lawmakers and policy groups in more than 29 states have “expressed serious interest” in enacting laws that would further restrict coverage of abortions by insurers in “new markets” (those health care exchanges you heard so much about in the run up to the vote) – even, as we noted earlier this week – if that insurance is private.

How is that possible? Look to language in the health care bill if you want an explanation. Buried in the not-so-fine print is an allowance that makes it ok for states to do precisely what they are now doing: limit abortion coverage by private insurers if they are operating in these new markets, or exchanges. Arizona, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi and Missouri, have already made their move, banning insurers from covering these services. And three other states – Louisiana, Ohio and Oklahoma – are apparently not far behind.

Scary as it may be to confront, this kind of action at the state level proves just how vital grassroots organizations will be to keeping reproductive freedom real – in the near term and beyond. Learn more about how the Ms. Foundation is providing strategic support to state and local organizations that are working to combat restrictive reproductive rights policies.

Missouri Follows Oklahoma in Passing Stringent Anti-Abortion Laws

More proof that conservative ideology is on the march: First, in late April, the Oklahoma legislature overrode the governor’s vetoes of two laws that would increase restrictions to abortion access. Then, late last week, the Missouri state legislature followed suit, passing the aptly named “Abortion Restriction Bill” which puts further limitations on access to abortions. Both votes are a sharp indication of the fragile state of reproductive rights across the country – and a reminder of how important our grantees’ work on the reproductive justice front continues to be.

The passage of the Oklahoma bills -- one of which requires a woman seeking an abortion to have an ultra-sound and mandates “that a doctor or technician set up the monitor so the woman can see it and describe the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus,” making no exceptions for rape and incest victims – makes Oklahoma one of the most restrictive states in the nation when it comes to obtaining an abortion. And Missouri’s newly minted law comes with a bevy of fresh limitations, similarly designed to curtail abortion access. According to Robin Marty, writing for RH Reality Check,

Under the new law, physicians are required to repeat medically inaccurate statements to the patient prior to the procedure and all informed consent processes must be done face to face, adding to the length of time required to obtain an abortion. Abortions will no longer be included in any private health care plans in the state, regardless of whether or not a woman would have paid for the coverage with separate funds. Also, clinics will be required to put up signs that read that the state will provide support for mothers who decide to continue their pregnancies, although the state does not at this time have resources in place to give to these mothers.

Oklahoma and Missouri are not alone. At present, at least a dozen states are considering legislation that would put harsher restrictions on access to abortions, including by cutting off insurance coverage of such procedures even in instances where policies are privately funded (just one example of how right-leaning state legislatures are already challenging health-care reform). States like Florida and Nebraska have already passed versions of these more restrictive abortion bills, and nationwide there are said to be more than 500 pieces of anti-abortion legislation winding their way through state houses – a level of activity that hasn’t been seen since the late 1990s.

The impact of measures like these are precisely why the Ms. Foundation maintains a steadfast commitment to supporting grassroots organizations that are fighting for reproductive justice across the country. Organizations like the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR), the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and Young Women United – all of which are working to ensure that women in diverse communities, and at all stages of their lives, have access to comprehensive reproductive services. We’ve long known that the “next frontier” in the fight for abortion rights would play out at the state level, which is why we’ve funded groups like Faith Aloud, based in Missouri -- a group that has been mobilizing its members to lobby the legislature in defense of abortion rights. So far this year they’ve already held three advocacy days in Jefferson City, and continue to stand up for the rights of women, even as their legislature moves in exactly the opposite direction.

For a recent overview of legislation pending at the state level, visit NARAL's Blog for Choice.

Stop Stupak -- The Reinforcements

"The reinforcements have arrived!" exclaimed one legislator in response to the hundreds of women’s health advocates who poured into Washington, DC on December 2. More than 500 advocates from 30 states across the country demanded that the final version of health care reform legislation not include language further restricting women’s access to abortion coverage.

Ms. Foundation grantees were a visible, powerful presence during last Wednesday’s “Rally and Lobby Day.” Notably, representatives of grantee partners National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective took to the stage to speak to the need to connect the fight for women’s reproductive health, rights and justice to other social justice movements, including immigrants’ rights and environmental justice. They joined our other health care grantees we reported on last week.

Ms. Foundation grantee organizations are leaders in the growing reproductive justice movement, which responds directly to the impact of low-income women’s lack of economic, social and political power on the full-range of reproductive health decisions. Read here for further examples of the reproductive justice work supported by the Ms. Foundation. To partner with us in this important work, make a gift; your contribution will be worth twice as much, thanks to a generous $100,000 challenge grant.

This afternoon, debate begins on the Nelson Amendment, the Senate version of Stupak Amendment. Read Ms. Foundation grantee partner Raising Women’s Voices coverage and analysis of the deliberations.

Reinforcements, indeed.

Stop Stupak!

This Wednesday, December 2, hundreds of women, including Ms. Foundation grantees, will head to Washington, D.C. to rally and lobby against a potential rollback of women’s basic rights that would deny abortion coverage to millions of women who currently have it and to millions more who lack access today. Click here for more information on the Stop Stupak Campaign.

It is extraordinary that in 2009 women’s right to reproductive care of their choosing is on the chopping block again. The Stupak Amendment is wrong and regressive, and goes well beyond reinforcing the Hyde Amendment—already harmful in its own right—despite what mainstream media is saying. As the Senate debates its health care bill, we expect them to do better. It is simply unacceptable—and contradictory—to trade away women’s access to reproductive services under the guise of expanding care. And who will be most impacted? Ultimately, all women and their families, but disproportionally low-income women and women of color. Once again, Congress runs the risk of creating another exclusionary policy when we should be striving for inclusive and equitable solutions—and most certainly within the context of the stated goals of health care reform.

Our health care grantee organizations Communications Consortium Media Center, Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need and Women of Color United for Health Reform are on the front lines mobilizing to prevent Stupak or a similar Senate amendment from becoming law. Together, they continue to elevate the voices of low-income women and women of color for truly inclusive, equitable reform.

Reproductive Health: Once Again, Ripe for Conservative Compromise

With the health care reform debate in full swing, it's become frighteningly clear that key elements of reproductive health care are in danger of being barred from whatever package emerges from Congress. The National Women's Law Center, a Ms. Foundation grantee, today wrote, "Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee are demanding the introduction of health care reform language that will strip women's access to abortion." And it's not just Republicans. As Time Magazine reports, a group of conservative House Democrats sent a letter at the end of June to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating that they "cannot support any health-care-reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health-insurance plan."

Anti-choice demands from both sides of the aisle would have dangerous implications for women--and their families, and their communities. They would further cement the deeply discriminatory Hyde Amendment, which since 1976, has prohibited the use of federal funds to cover abortion, with an overwhelming impact on low-income women and women of color. They could also prohibit coverage of abortion for millions of women who are now guaranteed it by their private health insurance.

So, once again, women's health and human rights are framed as a "wedge issue" and as such, considered ripe for compromise. And it isn't just women, of course. As Raising Women's Voices, another Ms. Foundation grantee at the forefront of the health care debate, writes, "If conservatives get their way on health reform, we will soon have quality, affordable health care for all --- except for women, terminally ill patients, gays and lesbians, people with HIV and anybody else conservatives don't like!" And let's not forget that women's health is intimately connected to the health and economic well-being of children, families and communities. Nobody can afford to let this pass.

The Senate Finance Committee is meeting this week. Take action by contacting your senator at help_comments@help.senate.gov if s/he is on the Committee (find out here) and urge her/him to refuse such politically-motivated exclusions and ensure access to comprehensive reproductive health services for all women.