The 2004 expansion of the… European Union — from 15 countries to 25 — has “changed the equation” on abortion rights in the region, with nine of the member nations either restricting or banning abortion, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Previously, most E.U. countries allowed wide access to abortion, with Ireland and Portugal having the “toughest laws” on abortion, according to the Chronicle. However, the fact that abortion is a national issue rather than a regional issue in Europe shows the “limits of the E.U.’s authority,” the Chronicle reports. Three of the 10 new member nations either restrict or ban abortion, and some of the other seven have restrictions on certain abortions occurring after the first trimester, according to the Chronicle. In addition, although abortion has been legal in France for 30 years and Spain is moving to relax its abortion laws, Poland and Slovakia — both new members of the E.U. — might be “heading in the opposite direction,” which could lead to an “increasingly polarized region,” according to the Chronicle.
Antiabortion Groups More Vocal
“There’s no doubt there are more anti-choice forces at work in Europe (now) than over the last 20 years,” Joke van Kampen, an Amsterdam-based consultant on sexual and reproductive rights, said, adding, “Even in the Netherlands, there are some groups picketing in front of clinics. That would have been unheard of a few years ago.” Although abortion-rights opponents in Europe have “nowhere near the grassroots political clout” as they do in the United States, antiabortion groups in Europe say that are “powered” by the Roman Catholic Church and the continent’s low birth rates and human rights concerns, according to the Chronicle. “I think Europeans are beginning to wake up,” Emilia Klepacka, director of the World Youth Alliance, said, adding, “Young people are fascinated by the whole concept of human dignity. And many people are concerned about the fact that the European continent is dying, that there are fewer and fewer Europeans of working age. They’re beginning to rethink their approach toward the family” (Bryant, San Francisco Chronicle, 3/29).
“Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork.org kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/repro The Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . ?2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
Accusations in the media that black women have higher abortion rates than white women because abortion is “more aggressively marketed” toward blacks “mis[s] the point and distrac[t] from the real issue: the persistent health disparities faced by women, and men, in the African-American community,” Melissa Gilliam, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago and chair of the Guttmacher Institute’s board of directors, writes in a Philadelphia Inquirer opinion piece.
According to Gilliam, black women have higher rates of abortions than white women because they have much higher rates of unintended pregnancies. “In other words, there is no need to resort to far-flung conspiracy theories to explain the higher abortion rate among black women,” Gilliam says. Gilliam writes that the abortion rates among black women are part of the larger picture of disproportionately worse sexual and reproductive health outcomes compared with people from other races and that the root causes of general health disparities among blacks, are “manifold.” There is a “long history of discrimination; lack of access to high quality, affordable health care; too few educational and professional opportunities; unequal access to safe, clean neighborhoods; and, for some African-Americans, a lingering mistrust of the medical community,” she adds.
Gilliam writes that as a black woman, a physician and a reproductive health specialist, she sees “on a daily basis the real-life consequences of unequal access to good health care,” adding that is why she “strongly believe[s] that those professing concern for the well-being of African-American women have an obligation to put the issue of abortion in its proper context and to support evidence-based policies that would have a positive impact.”
According to Gilliam, “there are no easy solutions to these complex challenges.” However, she writes that policies that could make an immediate impact are improving “sexual health literacy,” support of comprehensive sex education programs over abstinence-only programs, and empowering black women to better plan their pregnancies. Gilliam also says that “proven policies” include boosting funding for Title X programs, expanding Medicaid eligibility for family planning services and supporting working parents through paid sick leave, subsidized child care and affordable health insurance.
Gilliam writes her challenge to antiabortion advocates is to “stop throwing out inflammatory terms like genocide and instead channel their considerable energies and resources into supporting policies that reduce the need for abortion.” She concludes, “Let’s get serious about helping women and their families, including women in the African-American community” (Gilliam, Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/10).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
A California judge on Friday ruled that information about a 15-year-old Texas girl who died of blood poisoning in 1994 after abortion-related complications can remain on the official voter guide for a parental notification ballot initiative in November, the Sacramento Bee reports.
The ballot argument for Proposition 4 — which would require a 48-hour waiting period before minors could receive an abortion, during which time a physician would notify the minor’s parent or legal guardian — says, “Sarah was only 15 when she had a secret abortion” and suffered a “deadly infection,” adding, “Had someone in her family known about the abortion, Sarah’s life could have been saved.” Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny said that although he is “troubled by the Proposition 4 proponents’ artful characterization” of the girl, he cannot find any “convincing evidence” that the language could convince voters that the measure could have saved the girl’s life. Prior to issuing the ruling, Kenny told lawyers that the “courts have recognized that in ballot arguments, proponents are allowed to engage in hyperbole” (Hecht, Sacramento Bee, 8/9).
Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and other groups earlier this month filed a lawsuit that asked the California secretary of state to remove the language from the voter guide (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 8/4). Attorney Beth Porter, who represented PPAC and the other groups in court Friday, said that “Sarah” is a pseudonym for 15-year-old Jammie Garcia Yanez-Villegas, who was considered a married woman under Texas “common law” regulations because she was living with her fiancé at the time she underwent the abortion procedure. According to Porter, Proposition 4 requires parental notification only for “unemancipated” minors, and the Texas girl would not have fallen under the scope of the measure. “It’s absolutely false to say if someone had known about it, her life would be saved.”
Catherine Short, an attorney for proponents of the initiative, said that the girl’s parents would have been required to be notified of her abortion under the measure because she did not represent herself as married and because California has no common law marriage statute (Sacramento Bee, 8/9).
Editorial
Although Proposition 4 might be similar to “well-meaning but misguided effort[s] … to force minors to notify their parents before seeking an abortion” that were rejected by California voters in 2007 and 2007, “this year’s version is even more insidious,” a San Jose Mercury News editorial says.
According to the Mercury News, less than 3% of teen girls in California become pregnant, and “it’s well documented that the vast majority” who do become pregnant tell their parents. Teens who do not tell their parents are more likely to be rape or incest survivors and often are fearful of violence or being thrown out of their home, the editorial says, adding that these “are the girls who most need help,” but Proposition 4 would “make their tragic circumstance worse by giving them two choices — one worse than the other.”
The editorial says one choice would be trying to convince a judge to give a bypass on the parental notification requirement. “Navigating the courts scares the bejabbers out of most adults, let alone frightened teenagers,” and “delays” because of court hearings could jeopardize girls’ health, according to the Mercury News. The other choice, which the editorial says represents a “new low,” allows minors to tell “certain adult relatives” instead of their parents if they tell a physician in writing that they have been victims of child abuse, the editorial says. Such a statement would “automatically trigger” police action, the Mercury News writes, adding that teens “trying to deal with a pregnancy could quickly be mired in a child abuse investigation involving the parents she was afraid to talk to in the first place.”
The “need for this kind of law in California is widely exaggerated” and should be rejected, the editorial says, adding that supporters of the initiative could not find a “better example” to “illustrate the need” for the measure than a case of a girl who lived in another state more than a decade ago. “Reducing the number of teenage abortions is an excellent goal,” the editorial says, concluding, “The way to make that happen is through education and effective contraception — not by preying on the most troubled of pregnant teens to make a political point” (San Jose Mercury News, 8/10).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
“Divisive social issues” set to be on the ballot in several states in November — including antiabortion-related measures in California, Colorado and South Dakota and a measure to loosen stem cell research restrictions in Michigan — have begun attracting the attention of presidential candidates Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) despite research that indicates ballot measures do not significantly affect voter turnout, the New York Times reports. Jennie Drage Bowser, a policy analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said many of the social measures on the ballots are being pushed by evangelical groups with the hope of forcing McCain to pay more attention to their agendas. According to the Times, there are at least 108 measures on statewide ballots this year, down from 204 in 2007, and no single issue appears to dominate.
Californians will vote for the third time on a measure that would require parental notification for minors seeking abortions. South Dakota voters will consider an abortion ban (Urbina, New York Times, 8/10). Under the measure, abortions would be permitted only in cases of rape or incest, to save a woman’s life, or in cases of a “substantial and irreversible” health risk of impairment to “a major bodily organ or system” (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 4/28). According to the Times, the South Dakota measure would be one of the strictest abortion bans in the country and likely would lead to a challenge in the courts.
Colorado voters will face a measure that would define a “person” as “any human being from the moment of fertilization” — the first of its kind in the U.S. The Times reports that groups such as the National Right to Life Committee and Focus on the Family do not support the Colorado initiative, arguing that the timing and language are not sound.
A memorandum circulated among advocates and lawmakers last year by Indiana law firm Bopp, Coleson and Bostrom, which is closely associated with NRTL, argued that now is not the time to promote “personhood” measures because they will fail in the courts. Clarke Forsythe, president of Americans United for Life, also said such measures “run the risk of taking much-needed resources and attention away from other types of laws that could protect women and their unborn children immediately.”
Kristina Wilfore, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, said the lack of unity and focus among conservatives this year on measures such as the Colorado measure could put McCain in a difficult position by forcing him to choose sides. Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, said, “Many of these conservative measures — be they abortion, affirmative action or gay marriage — may be very risky for McCain to touch directly because voters are very focused on the economy and the war,” adding, “McCain will have to use proxies to play up these issues because his own stances on these issues have not always been so clear” (New York Times, 8/10).
Wall Street Journal Profiles Campaigns For, Against S.D. Initiative
The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday profiled the campaigns for and against the abortion ban initiative in South Dakota. The article also examined the potential national implications of the measure.
According to the Journal, South Dakota has become a “focal point” of the abortion rights debate in recent years largely because of Leslee Unruh, founder of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse and the Alpha Center, which aims to counsel women on alternatives to abortion. Unruh said her goal is to have Roe v. Wade overturned. Proponents of the ban hope that if it passes, it will be challenged in court and trigger a challenge to the precedent set by Roe in the Supreme Court, which has implications in the presidential race, the Journal reports. Obama has said he supports upholding Roe and abortion rights, while McCain has said he wants Roe overturned. “While South Dakota accounts for only 0.1% of all abortions, it has a potentially disproportionate effect on public policy, because people are seeking to create a vehicle to overturn Roe,” Sarah Stoesz — president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota — said.
South Dakota voters in 2007 rejected a similar ban by 56% to 44%. However, the 2007 ban would have allowed abortions only if pregnant women’s lives were in jeopardy, and polling showed that some people who voted against the ban would have voted for it if there were rape and incest exceptions as well, the Journal reports. Abortion-rights advocates said that the new exceptions on the more than 2,400-word 2008 ban are written so narrowly that they have the aim of being meaningless.
Jan Nicolay — co-chair of the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, a coalition of groups opposed to the ban — said, “We need to help people understand that the exceptions are very complicated — this is still a total ban.” Marvin Buehner — an ob-gyn in Rapid City, S.D., who is campaigning against the ban — said he has performed abortions for some women with serious health issues, including a woman with rectal cancer who needed chemotherapy and radiation. If the ban passes, Buehner said he would not perform such abortions because of the risk of being charged with violating the ban and serving 10 years in prison. The phrase “‘accepted standards of medical practice’ is so vague and nebulous that no physicians I know, myself included, would take that chance.”
Groups opposing the ban are planning to hold an event Tuesday in Washington, D.C., that includes leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Groups supporting the ban are gathering endorsements from conservative leaders, including Family Research Council President Tony Perkins (Merrick, Wall Street Journal, 8/12).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
The “cultural battle” over abortion is “shifting” to the possible mental health effects of the procedure, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Journal, the American Psychological Association this week at an annual conference in Boston is expected to release a comprehensive report reviewing 20 years of published research on the mental health effects of abortion. Both abortion-rights supporters and opponents agree that mental health issues could affect abortion policy “for years to come,” and both sides hope to use the APA report “to their advantage,” according to the Journal.
APA declined to comment until its final report is released at the conference. Reviewers who have seen the drafts but not the final report said the drafts are “exhaustive but ambiguous” — stating that some women who have abortions, including teens and younger women, might have higher rates of emotional distress. However, a recent draft concluded that adult women seeking first-trimester abortions, which constitute the majority of procedures, do not have any greater risk of mental health conditions than other women. APA previously has stated it supports access to safe, legal abortion, saying it is crucial to women’s mental health.
According to the Journal, it is difficult to quantify possible mental health effects of abortion in part because many studies rely on women who self-report their abortion histories, and it is unclear how an appropriate control group would be set up. In addition, it is difficult to determine whether women who are depressed following an abortion are depressed because of the abortion itself or other factors, such as relationship issues.
Abortion-rights opponents have cited studies suggesting that women who have had abortions are at higher risk of anxiety, depression and substance abuse to argue that governments should restrict abortion to protect women’s mental health. The U.S. Supreme Court cited similar reasoning in upholding a federal ban on so-called “partial-birth” abortion, and South Dakota also used similar reasoning in a new mandate that abortion providers must tell women seeking abortion they are putting themselves at risk for psychological distress and suicide. Advocates in South Dakota also are using the argument to promote a broad abortion ban that state voters will consider in November, the Journal reports.
Abortion-rights supporters have said that such logic is the equivalent of the government warning women against giving birth because of the possibility of postpartum depression, the Journal reports. Supporters of abortion rights acknowledge that some women who undergo abortion might regret the decision but that there is no proof abortion leads to serious mental illness or that women would be better off if they continued unintended pregnancies.
Supporters of abortion rights have said studies suggesting abortion is harmful to mental health are methodologically flawed. They also are hoping the new APA report says abortion is safe for mental health, the Journal reports. “I would hope it would say that there is no convincing empirical evidence that abortion is a significant cause of psychiatric illness,” Nada Stotland –president of the American Psychiatric Association, which is not associated with APA — said.
Abortion-rights opponents have said that the report focuses on women who do not have mental health problems following abortion instead of warning women seeking the procedure and abortion providers about the possibility of mental distress. Priscilla Coleman, a researcher at Bowling Green State University whose work has been cited by abortion-rights opponents, said that at least 10% to 20% of women who have abortions experience prolonged mental health problems following the procedure. “We’re not doing women any favors by hiding this,” Coleman said.
A study conducted by David Fergusson, a professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand, attempted to control for variables that could affect the findings, including family stability, education level and self-esteem. Fergusson followed 139 women who self-reported abortions for 25 years. The study found that women who received an abortion were more likely to experience mental health problems than women who continued a pregnancy or who never became pregnant. Despite the findings, Fergusson said it is too early to “draw strong conclusions either way.” He added that there could be benefits to abortion, such as allowing women to finish school, get a better job or build fulfilling relationships. Fergusson said he hopes the upcoming APA report will provide some clarity on the issue but that it will be difficult. Both abortion-rights supporters and opponents “have been able to reconstruct the same evidence to meet their agendas,” Fergusson said (Simon, Wall Street Journal, 8/12).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
“It’s hard to imagine anyone in Colorado touting rookie Gov. Bill Ritter (D) as vice presidential timber,” but “2,000 miles away, locked in the surrealism of the Beltway,” Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson “has done just that,” Denver Post columnist Mark Hillman writes in an opinion piece (Hillman, Denver Post, 8/7). Gerson in the piece wrote that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) should consider making Ritter his vice presidential running mate, in part because “picking a genuinely pro-life running mate would be a revolutionary decision” (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 8/1).
Gerson “missed the target” in his “search for a principled, pro-life Democrat,” Hillman writes, adding that Gerson is “[o]blivious to Ritter’s indecisiveness on fulfilling major campaign promises.” According to Hillman, “It is logically indefensible to simultaneously acknowledge … the sanctity of unborn life but refuse to expend political capital in its defense,” but “that is precisely what Ritter has done.” Hillman writes that Ritter’s “pro-life authenticity is a self-made myth.”
Hillman notes that Ritter restored state funding for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains; signed legislation that requires all Roman Catholic hospitals to distribute emergency contraception to rape survivors; said he will not seek to appoint judges who oppose abortion rights; and has “no antiabortion legislation on his agenda.” In addition, Hillman writes, Ritter has “made it clear” that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, he would veto legislation that is “too restrictive.” Such “abject servitude to political expediency would hardly be lauded as courageous or authentic if it guided policy on civil rights or the environment,” Hillman writes, adding, “Once a politician trades for political gain what he knows to be right on an issue as fundamental as human life, it’s hard to imagine anything he won’t compromise” (Denver Post, 8/7).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
The 186-member Democratic Party Platform Committee on Saturday adopted a draft platform that states that the party “unequivocally” supports Roe v. Wade and abortion rights and also says that the party supports efforts to reduce the need for abortions through access to family planning, sex education and adoption programs, the Wall Street Journal reports (Chozick, Wall Street Journal, 8/11).
The draft, which will be presented to the party’s national convention for approval later this month, says, “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.” According to the AP/Google.com, the draft platform does not mention a phrase in previous Democratic platforms that abortion should be safe, legal and “rare.” The draft also pledges that the party will work to ensure access to prenatal care, postnatal care and income support for pregnant women (Woodward, AP/Google.com, 8/10). “What has been sorely needed is new common ground that focuses on reducing the need for abortions,” Jim Wallis, an evangelical leader who has pushed the party to include promotion of alternatives to abortion in the new platform, said (Wall Street Journal, 8/11).
~ ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Saturday examined the debate over the language on abortion in the Democratic Party’s platform. The segment includes comments from ABC News analyst Cokie Roberts and Democrats for Life in America Executive Director Kristen Day (Martin, “Good Morning America,” ABC News, 8/9).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
HHS’ Secretary Mike Leavitt’s entry in his professional blog Thursday — which denied that draft HHS regulations would redefine several common contraceptives as abortion and allow health care workers to refuse to provide them — did not ease concerns among some members of Congress and advocates, the Washington Post reports. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) sent a letter to Leavitt Friday requesting a meeting about the draft regulation (Stein, Washington Post, 8/9). In addition, family planning groups said they are still planning to lobby against the proposed new regulation (Fox, Reuters, 8/8).
Leavitt’s blog entry says he has ordered the draft regulation to be rewritten with a narrow focus on allowing health care workers to refuse to participate in procedures they find objectionable. He wrote that an “early draft of the regulations found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review,” adding that the draft “contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true.”
Leavitt added, “The Bush administration has consistently supported the unborn. However, the issue I asked to be addressed in this regulation is not abortion or contraceptives, but the legal right medical practitioners have to practice according to their conscience, and patients should be able to choose a doctor who has beliefs like his or hers.” Leavitt said that HHS is “still contemplating if it will issue a regulation or not. If it does, it will be directly focused on the protection of practitioner conscience.” However, Leavitt did not say what he meant by “practitioner conscience” or the extent to which the protection would allow health care workers to deny services.
The draft Leavitt referred to in his entry defines abortion as “any of the various procedures — including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.” According to the draft, to receive funding under any program administered by HHS, researchers, clinics, medical schools and hospitals would have to sign “written certifications” that they will not discriminate against people who object to abortion — using a definition of abortion that could include many forms of hormonal contraception and intrauterine devices. The certification also would be required of state and local governments when allocating grants to hospitals and other institutions that have policies against providing abortions. The rule would affect more than 500,000 hospitals, clinics and medical facilities that receive federal funding (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 8/8).
Lawmakers’, Advocates’ Comments
Clinton and Murray’s letter says, “We remain concerned by the regulations’ potential to create barriers for women seeking health care, to jeopardize federal programs that provide family planning services and to disrupt state laws securing women’s access to birth control” (Washington Post, 8/9). The senators also told Leavitt that his blog entry did not give them “confidence” that HHS is “drafting a rule that would ensure these services.” The letter also notes that Leavitt has not responded to two previous letters from the senators (Young, The Hill, 8/8). Clinton said in a statement that it is “crucial” that HHS regulations be based on “science, not ideology,” adding that it is “unconscionable that the administration would even consider putting women’s health and prevention in jeopardy” (Reuters, 8/8).
Planned Parenthood Federation of America and NARAL Pro-Choice America also expressed concerned that the proposed rule remains too broad, the Post reports (Washington Post, 8/9). Cecile Richards, president of PPFA, said, “Secretary Leavitt’s vague comments on the draft HHS rule do nothing to reassure Americans that the administration is not considering redefining abortion to include forms of contraception, thereby jeopardizing women’s access to basic health care,” adding, “The administration needs to stop playing word games with women’s health and state clearly they will reject any regulations that will undermine women’s access to basic health care.” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan said, “Bush and his political appointees have a long, long record of attacks on contraception. So Secretary Leavitt’s claim that the department never intended to target birth control isn’t believable.” Keenan said her group “will continue to engage our activists and work with leaders in Congress to stop this administration from pushing a last-ditch attack on birth control as Bush prepares to leave the White House. In the face of growing public outrage over this attack on birth control, the Bush administration is trying to backtrack” (Neuman, “Countdown to Crawford,” Los Angeles Times, 8/8).
Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights said that in addition to objections over the definition of abortion, her group is concerned that the proposal “broadly defines everyone who works at a health care establishment as being involved in doing procedures,” adding, “It allows everybody, whether you are a receptionist or a maintenance person … to object to doing their jobs because they object to abortion or sterilization. It puts women in the position of not knowing when they go to get health care if someone is going to say, ‘I am not going to help you here.’”
The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association said it is concerned the proposed regulations could affect 37 state laws. According to a statement from the group, “These laws mandate the availability of [emergency contraception] in emergency rooms, bar pharmacies from flatly refusing to fill prescriptions and mandate coverage of contraception when other prescriptions are covered.” It added, “Given that at least 17.5 million women in America are in need of publicly funded contraceptive services … we believe the department should be working to increase access to these crucial health care services, rather than working to limit them” (Reuters, 8/8).
Editorial
A Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial says that even if Leavitt is to be believed that there is a “misunderstanding” about the potential rule, “there is no reason to doubt an intent within the administration to cater to fundamentalist and anti-women agendas during President Bush’s final months in power.” According to the editorial, the regulation as drafted would “clearly impinge on states’ laws on emergency contraception and potentially on whether employers’ insurance companies are required to cover contraceptive services.” The Post-Intelligencer adds that “only sustained public and political pressure can stop the repeal of a half-century of progress in family planning” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8/10).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
The New Republic on Friday examined how the advocacy work of groups such as Democrats for Life of America to change the Democratic Party platform on abortion is “welcomed by some Democrats as a way to broaden the party’s support,” while “others see them threatening the party’s principles.” Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life, said, “Republicans do nothing to help pregnant women who are facing pregnancy.” She said many women lack the resources to sustain a healthy pregnancy, adding, “If you make abortion illegal, what are these women going to do?”
The Democratic Party’s platform calls for abortion to be “safe, legal and rare.” In 2004, Democrats decided not to add language to the platform that called for a reduction in the abortion rate. A 186-member Democratic platform drafting committee last week accepted submissions on suggestions to change the platform, including Democrats for Life’s suggestion of adding language calling for the reduction of abortions. The proposal does not mention Roe v. Wade, according to the New Republic. Over this weekend, the committee will finalize a draft to recommend to the national convention. Ramona Oliver, communications director of EMILY’s List, said, “These kinds of efforts are perennial. They’re based on the assumption that Democrats’ position isn’t in the mainstream, and that’s just wrong. They’ve not succeeded in curtailing Democrat’s principles, and I don’t think they will in the future.”
According to the New Republic, the debate over language in the platform is a “proxy war in larger internecine face-off: What role should pro-life activists play in a pro-choice party?” Day said many positions consistent with a stance opposing abortion could be supported by supporters of abortion rights, including forbidding insurance companies from classifying pregnancy as a pre-existing condition, which would make coverage more accessible for pregnant women. However, other proposals supported by Democrats for Life have been criticized by abortion-rights supporters, such as granting health insurance to fetuses, encouraging ultrasounds for women considering abortions and requiring “informed consent” forms from women seeking abortions, the New Republic reports.
“It’s been our view as Democrats that women should make their decisions based on their moral values,” Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, adding, “The pro-life Democrats’ language is a means to an end, and the end is to limit abortions.” Michelman said she supports pledges to reduce the “need for abortion,” while Day said she believes there is “never a need for abortion.” Day said if her group does not succeed in changing the party’s platform this year, it will try again in 2012, adding, “I truly believe my party will be the one to solve this issue” (Zimmerman, New Republic, 8/8).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt in a Thursday entry in his professional blog said that he wants draft HHS regulations rewritten with a narrow focus on allowing health care workers to refuse to participate in procedures they find objectionable, the Wall Street Journal reports (Simon, Wall Street Journal, 8/8). According to the AP/Las Vegas Sun, federal law bars organizations from discriminating against providers who refuse to perform abortions. HHS is considering issuing a rule outlining compliance with the laws, which several lawmakers and advocacy groups have criticized as an attempt to include contraceptives in its definition of abortion (Freking, AP/Las Vegas Sun, 8/7). Leavitt said he asked for the regulations to be drafted after writing to the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in March about the groups’ certification requirements, which Leavitt wrote “potentially violate a physician’s right to choose whether he or she performs abortions.”
He wrote that an “early draft of the regulations found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review,” adding that the draft “contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true.” Leavitt wrote, “The Bush administration has consistently supported the unborn. However, the issue I asked to be addressed in this regulation is not abortion or contraceptives, but the legal right medical practitioners have to practice according to their conscience, and patients should be able to choose a doctor who has beliefs like his or hers.”
Leavitt said that HHS is “still contemplating if it will issue a regulation or not. If it does, it will be directly focused on the protection of practitioner conscience” (Fox, Reuters, 8/8). However, Leavitt did not say what he meant by “practitioner conscience” or the extent to which the protection would allow health care workers to deny services, CQ HealthBeat reports.
Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, said Leavitt’s blog entry seems to be an attempt to quell the controversy over the earlier draft by attempting to “get that contraceptive term off [HHS’] back” but has not done so. It is “really not acceptable to the people I represent that this administration is considering allowing doctors and nurses and pharmacists that have received their education to provide services to now be able to not provide those services if they don’t want to,” Gallagher said, adding, “Who’s going to provide access to contraceptive services if the administration provides this large loophole to deny services?” (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 8/7).
The draft version of the rule defined abortion as “any of the various procedures — including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.” According to the draft, to receive funding under any program administered by HHS, researchers, clinics, medical schools and hospitals would have to sign “written certifications” that they will not discriminate against people who object to abortion — using a definition of abortion that could include many forms of hormonal contraception and intrauterine devices. The certification also would be required of state and local governments when allocating grants to hospitals and other institutions that have policies against providing abortions. The rule would affect more than 500,000 hospitals, clinics and medical facilities that receive federal funding (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 8/6).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
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