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POLITICS OF BIRTH CONTROL
Birth control is basic health care — yet anti-choice politicians continue to play politics with women's health, and for many women, access to reliable methods of family planning is eroding. These attacks include family planning funding cuts, inequities in insurance coverage for contraception, and restrictions on access to emergency contraception (EC) in hospitals and pharmacies.
Click any link below to read a recent news story about attacks (and victories!) regarding access to reproductive health care and information.
FEATURED REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH STORIES
HEY, SENATOR PATRICK: RACHEL'S MOM NEEDS A MAMMOGRAM
04/08/09 Dear Senator Dan Patrick,
Didn't we just do this? Two weeks ago, the State Affairs Committee of the Texas Senate heard testimony regarding another one of those abortion-related bills that pop up like clockwork every legislative session.
PITY THE FAMILY-PLANNING CLINIC
03/27/09 Family-planning advocates are up in arms over a proposed state Senate budget rider they fear would dismantle a health-care system that provides care for thousands of uninsured and underinsured Texas women
FDA ORDERED TO RETHINK AGE RESTRICTION FOR PLAN B
03/24/09 A federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration yesterday to reconsider its 2006 decision to deny girls younger than 18 access to the morning-after pill Plan B without a prescription.
TEEN BIRTH RATE INCREASES FOR SECOND YEAR
03/19/09 The rate at which teenage girls in the United States are having babies has risen for a second year in a row, government statistics show, putting one of the nation's most successful social and public health campaigns in jeopardy.
EDITORIAL - PROGRESS ON FAMILY PLANNING
03/13/09 Tucked into the big spending bill just signed by President Obama is a welcome provision designed to make affordable birth control available to millions of women across the country.
CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
 Access Denied in Texas
- The Texas Legislature approved an amendment to the state Appropriations Bill that would take $5 million in funds from family planning programs and give it to anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). CPCs provide misinformation to women in order to discourage them from having abortions. They are not licensed or supervised by any state agency and most often they have no licensed medical personnel on staff.
 Access Denied Nationally
- In December 2008, the Bush Administration finalized a health care provider regulation that gave anti-choice health care providers and organizations the right to refuse any services they found "objectionable", including giving information on common forms of birth control such as the Pill or the IUD. The regulation also expanded the right to refuse services to any staff member of a health care provider, include receptionists who object to women access family planning information and pharmacists opposed to dispensing emergency contraception.
 Access Denied Around the World
- International organizations that are eligible for U.S. funding for family planning must promise not to provide or refer for abortions, not to advocate for less restrictions on abortions, and not to educate women about abortion in their clinics—even in countries where abortion services are legal and the organizations use their own money to provide these services. This is known as the global gag rule.
- Nicaragua has recently approved a sweeping new law banning all abortions in the country with no exceptions, even if the pregnant woman's life was endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term. For the 400 Nicaraguan women each year who suffer ectopic pregnancies, this new law would be a death sentence.
OUTRAGED? WANT TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD?
4 things you can do right now:
- Join the Action Network
- Send an e-mail to an elected official
- Send a letter to the editor
- Tell a friend about this page
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