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How the Hyde Amendment Discriminates Against Poor Women and Women of Color

vochoice:

In 1973 the Supreme Court decided in the landmark case Roe v. Wade to recognize the constitutional right to abortion for all women. Forty years later, however, this guarantee remains an empty promise for thousands of poor women and women of color thanks to the Hyde Amendment, an annual appropriations measure first passed in 1976. This provision intentionally discriminates against poor women by prohibiting Medicaid, the health-insurance program for low-income individuals and families, from covering abortion care.

Because of the intersection in our country between race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, this restriction also has a disproportionate impact on women of color. Due to a number of root causes related to inequality, women of color are more likely to qualify for government insurance that restricts abortion coverage, more likely to experience higher rates of unintended pregnancy, and less likely to be able to pay for an abortion out of pocket. The Hyde Amendment therefore does not only undermine gender equity, but it also violates principles of racial and economic justice.

The Hyde Amendment discriminates against poor women

• Congress passed the Hyde Amendment in order to deny poor women access to abortion. Former Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), the law’s sponsor, admitted during the debate of his proposal that he was targeting poor women. “I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman,” he said. “Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the … Medicaid bill.”
• 1 in 10 women of reproductive age in the United States relies on Medicaid for their health coverage. By prohibiting Medicaid from covering abortion services, the Hyde Amendment has used the primary source of health care for low-income women to restrict access to abortion.
• Poor women face significant disparities when it comes to reproductive health.Compared with higher-income women, poor women’s rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion are each five times as high, and their unplanned birth rate is six times as high. These disparities are rooted in deeply entrenched inequities in the areas of health-insurance coverage, health care, and medically accurate sex education, as well as other health-promoting resources.
• Abortion costs between $300 and $950 in the first trimester, making it unaffordable for poor women without insurance coverage. In 2009 more than half of nonelderly adult women enrolled in Medicaid had family incomes below the poverty level; one-quarter had incomes below 50 percent of the poverty level. The monthly income for a family of three living at half the current poverty level is $813.75.
• One in four Medicaid-qualified women who seek an abortion is forced to carry her pregnancy to term because of cost. Many more are forced to delay their procedure for as long as two to three weeks while they raise money, with the costs and risks of the procedure increasing the longer they wait.

The Hyde Amendment discriminates against women of color

• A dissenting Supreme Court opinion recognized that the Hyde Amendment was discriminatory. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’sdissenting opinion in Harris v. McRaenoted that the law was “designed to deprive poor and minority women of the constitutional right to choose abortion.”
• Women of color are disproportionately poor and therefore less likely to be able to pay out of pocket for their health care. According to 2011 census data, 25.5 percent of African Americans and 25 percent of Latinas are living below the poverty level, compared to only 10.4 percent of whites and 12.2 percent of Asians. Moreover, certain groups of Asian and Pacific Islander women face much higher poverty rates than are reflected in the aggregate census data. For example, 67 percent, 66 percent, and 47 percent of people of Laotian, Hmong, and Cambodian descent, respectively, live in poverty in the United States.
• Women of color are more likely to be enrolled in government insurance. In 2011, 40.9 percent of African American females and 36.3 percent of Latinas had government-based insurance, including 29.2 percent and 29.6 percent participation, respectively, in Medicaid. In contrast, 32.6 percent of white females and 24.4 percent of Asian American females got their insurance through a government program. While Asian and Pacific Islander women use Medicaid at lower rates for a variety of reasons—only 6 percent were enrolled in the program in 2004—participation is quite high among various subgroups. For example, 20 percent of women of Southeast Asian descent are covered by Medicaid.
• Women of color are disproportionately more likely to need an abortion. Black women had the highest unintended pregnancy rate of any racial or ethnic group and more than double that of non-Hispanic white women. The unintended pregnancy rate of Latinas is 78 percent higher than the non-Hispanic rate. These high unintended pregnancy rates are part of the reason women of color seek abortion at higher rates than non-Hispanic whites. Although they represent much smaller segments of the population as a whole, black and Latina women comprise 30 percent and 25 percent of women who have abortions, respectively. Data on Asian and Pacific Islander women’s utilization of health services, including abortion, is extremely limited, but one study has shown that 35 percent of pregnancies for Asian and Pacific Islander women end in abortion, compared to 18 percent for non-Hispanic white women.
• These health disparities mirror other health disparities that women of color experience. Inaddition to higher rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion, women of color face higher rates of reproductive cancers, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, premature births, low birth weights, and maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. They also encounter poorer health outcomes for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, among other health conditions.
• Root causes of inequality drive the health disparities women of color face. Differential access to treatment, lower levels of respect and competency from health care providers, lack of trust in the medical establishment, lack of accurate information, and a host of other socioeconomic factors lead to poorer outcomes along racial and ethnic lines for overall health indicators, specifically with regard to reproductive health.

The Hyde Amendment treats the rights of women in this country according to two different standards: whether you can afford to pay for your rights or not. That is not equality.

Repealing the Hyde Amendment and similar restrictions will not, by itself, ensure full equality for poor women and women of color. But doing so is a necessary precondition. Anyone who cares about fighting racism and poverty must realize that attacks on abortion—and especially on abortion coverage—are first and foremost attacks on poor women and women of color.

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Elizabeth Reyes: More U.S. babies die the day they're born than the rest of the industrialized world

fuckyeahfeminists:

forthecatholicgirls:

According to new analysis from the Save the Children organization, the United States is the riskiest place to give birth among the industrialized nations. In 2011, approximately 11,300 babies died the day they were born in the U.S. The report also found that some counties in the U.S. had infant mortality rates as high as 98 percent.

Save the Children proposes that low-cost supplies, including injectable antibiotics, can help save newborns in the U.S. and around the world.

In late February, the Quality Care for Moms and Babies Act, a bill proposing improvements to maternal care under Medicaid and CHP, was proposed in Congress and referred to a committee—will this bill ever go anywhere? Or will we instead focus on the proposed Pregnant Women Health and Safety Act, which does not provide any aid nor support to pregnant women, but imposes imprisonment on abortion providers for not having admitting privileges? Will those who are pro-life actually stand up for those who are the dying?

I am hearing crickets from the anti-choice crowd. They only care about pressush fetuses! It’s the only way they can make sure they are bullying the person carrying them!

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secularwoman:

Crisis Pregnancy Centers, bad for women everywhere.

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They Are Coming for Your Birth Control: ‘Do We Want to Make the Pill Illegal? Yes!’

vochoice:

Think that anti-choice politicians and activists aren’t trying to outlaw contraception? Think again. Follow along in an ongoing series that proves beyond a doubt that they really are coming for your birth control.

Move over, 16 and Pregnant. MTV has a new message for teens that may be way more effective when it comes to educating them on sex and contraceptives.

Watch out for the rabid anti-choicers!

The network’s True Life series often focuses on unusual or controversial characters to draw in viewers, but a winter episode went beyond “I Hate My Body” or “I Have a Weird Habit” to an even darker place. “I Hate the Government” follows three young adults who say they don’t trust the government and have joined groups to “reform” it: a teenage Tea Party activist, a young woman trying to break into the militia movement, and an anti-choice extremist.

The show follows Andrew Beacham, who believes the current government needs to be tossed aside because it has abandoned the Bible. In watching the show, however, it becomes clear that the 28-year-old activist really is there simply to give camera time to former Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry. Beacham, as Terry’s accolade, is shown protesting with him, creating graphic abortion campaign ads, and even moving into a group home where the goal is to find a way to end all abortion.

But it’s not just abortion that they are targeting. Terry makes it clear that to be truly “pro-life,” you have to outlaw anything that will allow someone to have sex without risking pregnancy, childbirth, or parenthood—even if that means putting women in jail for avoiding pregnancy.

Terry: Without a clear message of “This is what it means to be pro-life,” then we’re doomed.

Beacham: Nobody articulates our message better than Randall.

Terry: Do we want to make the pill illegal? Yes. Do we want to make the IUD illegal? Yes. The morning after pill? Yes. The patch? Yes. Anything that’s a human pesticide, they all have to be made illegal. A woman has to go to jail if she kills her baby.

Of course, a number of anti-choice activists would bend over backwards to say that Terry doesn’t represent the mainstream of the movement. After all, the current Operation Rescue group is in constant battle to affirm its distance from its former leader. Yet although they may disagree with Terry’s newer tactics, such as purposefully getting arrested in public places or running political ads on television for the sole purpose of showing graphic images on screen, no one mentions disagreeing with his view of what it means to be “pro-life.”

In fact, much of what Terry said can be found echoed in the words of current office holders, from Sen. Dick Black (R-VA) to Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ).Even the anti-choice action group Population Research Institute argues against “human pesticides” like contraception being used to stop the creation of the “most precious resource”: more people.

The “outlaw birth control” mindset isn’t playing well with the MTV bunch, if the comments responding to the show are any indication. Hopefully, they will continue to be outraged over the idea, because soon they will learn that it isn’t just Terry they have to worry about.

The entire anti-choice movement is coming for your birth control.

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Why Does the ACGME Want to Eliminate Contraceptive Training for Family Physicians?

vochoice:

In one of the clinics where we work, a 16-year-old girl came in with a sprained ankle.  She left with a prescription for birth control.

This turn of events is not as surprising as it seems:  As family physicians, we treat the whole person.  A quick update revealed that our 16-year-old patient had recently begun to have unprotected sex—and had no plan to get birth control. One of the reasons we love practicing family medicine is that we get to know our patients over time and provide the preventive care they need at every possible opportunity.

That is why we are dismayed that the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has proposed changes to the guidelines for family medicine residency programs removing the requirement that residents learn to provide contraception. These changes will go into effect in 2014 unless the ACGME is convinced otherwise, during an open comment period taking place this week.

A majority of U.S. women get their basic health care from a family physician or other primary care provider, and often that includes reproductive health care. Especially in rural and low-income areas, family physicians do it all! They not only provide birth control but also provide prenatal care, deliver babies, manage miscarriages, counsel patients about unintended pregnancies, and, increasingly, offer pregnancy termination so that their patients do not have to travel long distances and see unfamiliar doctors for these services.

ACGME’s motivations are legitimate:  It seeks to simplify the rules for the nation’s family medicine residency programs—numbering over 450—and to allow for more creativity and flexibility. In some areas of practice, this makes sense. Many programs will continue to teach contraception; it will depend on the culture of the institution. However, residency programs based in religiously-affiliated hospitals (which operate nearly 20 percent of inpatient community-hospital beds in the U.S.), will most likely drop birth control training immediately.

Because the ACGME currently requires birth control training, religiously-affiliated institutions must figure out a way to comply. Many rotate their residents through external clinics to learn these skills—which are essential since 99 percent of women in the United States who have ever had sexual intercourse have used a method of contraception other than natural family planning at some point in their lives. Without this requirement, residents in religiously-affiliated programs may get no training at all in contraception.

Just last week, we attended a meeting where an assistant residency director expressed satisfaction at the prospect of no longer needing to teach residents how to counsel patients with unintended pregnancies of all of their options. This is our concern: Limiting the training of family medicine residents in birth control will have a disproportionate impact on the millions of low-income and rural women and teens who rely on their family doctors to provide the full-spectrum of reproductive health care. The Affordable Care Act greatly expands access to contraception for millions of women in the United States. But, if clinicians aren’t trained in providing contraception, then that access is meaningless, even if it is covered. We need to make sure all clinicians who provide primary health care for women are trained to provide high-quality contraceptive care.

Our next generation of family physicians must learn and practice more contraception, not less. Otherwise our shamefully high rate of unintended pregnancy (the highest in the developed world) will rise further.

There is time to make a difference. The ACGME is accepting comments on the proposed guidelines until April 25, 2013. Click here to download our suggested version of the official comment form.  Fill in your information and email it to familymedicine@acgme.org.  The Reproductive Health Access Project has an online campaign for all of us to tell the ACGME that their changes affect our health care.

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In El Salvador, a woman fights for her life while waiting for Supreme Court to approve her abortion

stfuconservatives:

rhrealitycheck:

A 22-year-old Salvadoran woman with severe chronic medical conditions is pregnant with a fetus without a brain. But a 1998 law in El Salvador prohibits all abortions, without exception.

Within the past few days Amnesty International has initiated a petition asking for life-saving medical care, including an abortion; the United Nations has spoken; and the Salvadoran Minister of Health, Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, has requested that the Supreme Court approve the request. Dr. Rodriguez emphasized that Beatriz’s kidney function continues to deteriorateas the pregnancy advances, and that the public health system is ready to perform an abortion. The Salvadoran Attorney General for Human Rights also supports the request.

Beatriz’s life is threatened by her health conditions and a high-risk pregnancy. However, the deeper threats come from an intractable and misogynistic political and religious system which criminalizes women for being young, poor, rural women.  Right now the eyes and voices of  the world constitute Beatriz’ hope for life. She wants to live.

This is what happens when abortion is illegal. Feel good about this, pro-lifers?

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Obama Administration Condemns Judge's Lifting of Plan B Ban, Citing That The Pill Would Be "Too Dangerous For Young Women To Use Correctly," So Obama Agrees With Republicans Now!

stfuprolifers:

rabbleprochoice:

thepoliticalfreakshow:

On Friday, a federal judge struck down the Obama Administration’s decision to restrict access to emergency contraception for Americans under 17 years old, ruling that Plan B should be available over the counter for women of all ages. Judge Edward R. Korman criticized the Administration’s “politically-motivated effort” to placate religious conservatives and prevent young women from accessing an extremely safe contraceptive method. Nevertheless, the White House is standing by its policy to require young women to obtain a prescription for Plan B, citing false claims that “it could be dangerous if misused.”

At the daily White House press briefing on Friday, Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed that President Obama has not changed his position on restricting access to Plan B for women younger than 17. “He believes it was the right, common sense approach to this issue,” Carney told reporters, crediting Obama’s view on the issue partially to the fact that he is a parent and can therefore understand parents’ concerns about safety.

According to Carney, young girls may not be able to take the medication correctly if they do not first consult with a medical professional. “We do not have enough evidence to show that all those who could use this medicine, Plan B, can understand the label and use the product appropriately,” Carney said. “It could be dangerous if misused.” But that’s simply a distortion of the actual science behind emergency contraception. In fact, the morning after pill is safer than aspirin, which is obviously available over the counter to people of all ages.

And it’s not clear why the Obama Administration doesn’t trust the numerous doctors’ groups and medical professionals who have all confirmed that Plan B is safe for teens to use. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics has come out in favor of expanding young people’s access to emergency contraception, explaining that requiring teens to obtain a prescription is an unnecessary hurdle that likely prevents many of them from using the contraceptive method effectively.

Just as Judge Korman pointed out, the morning after pill is “among the safest drugs sold over the counter” and the standards for the FDA’s guidelines need to be “the same for aspirin and for contraceptives.” Even though Americans tend to be squeamish when it comes to teen sexuality, and may prefer to pretend that teenagers aren’t having the types of sexual encounters that would necessitate emergency contraception, that isn’t an acceptable basis for a federal policy. Pretending that Plan B is somehow “dangerous,” even when all the scientific evidence says otherwise, isn’t an acceptable basis either.

I’ve bolded the above because I just want to point out that this judge wants it available over-the-counter for everyone but the bolded above is part of the argument for why this judge is wrong to make such a ruling.

This ruling means that you still have to go up and ask a pharmacist (WHO IS A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL) to get it for you and then…OH….look how convenient! When they hand you the package you can then be like, “Can you explain how to take this, please?” They DO realize that pharmacists, like, went to school and shit and have a motherfucking DOCTORATE in pharmaceuticals, right? They are more than qualified to counsel customers on how to use a range of medicines including this one. It wouldn’t be any different for me to ask a pharmacist how to accurately take Plan B from when I have to pick up some cold medicine for my mom and ask them if it’ll interact with her thyroid meds.

It is, literally, a pill (maybe more depending on which brand option). Taking fucking NyQuil is more complicated than taking Plan B One Step (seriously, you have to measure that shit out in a cup and hope you don’t get drunk).

I am extremely disappointed in the Obama administration’s response to this. THIS WILL PREVENT TEENAGE PREGNANCIES. This is giving young girls (and others who can get pregnant) a way to control their sexual health. So parents won’t be in the loop if their kid uses this. Or they find out after the fact. Big damn deal! I can guarantee you that I’d rather have my mom find my Plan B package than a positive fucking pregnancy test in the trash. I’d rather have to explain that than explain why I need money for an abortion.

Love,

Rabble

Oh, Obama.  You’re still so much better than the other options we were given, but you’re still disappointing for so many reasons.

-Hannah 

I JUST DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW PEOPLE CAN THINK THIS IS CONFUSING AND DANGEROUS IT’S JUST SWALLOWING A PILL HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WOMEN ARE?????