The House GOP’s Culture War on Contraceptive Services

Contraception works!  There is no doubt about it – full and easy access to contraceptive services reduces the rate of unintended pregnancies.  Therefore, access to contraception reduces the rate of abortion.

Guttmacher Institute research shows that the two-thirds of U.S. women at risk of unintended pregnancy who use contraception consistently and correctly throughout the course of any given year account for only 5% of all unintended pregnancies.  The 19% of women at risk who use contraception but do so inconsistently account for 44% of all unintended pregnancies, while the 16% of women at risk who do not use contraception at all for a month or more during the year account for 52% of all unintended pregnancies.

So why do anti-choice politicians, and the House GOP in particular, continue their relentless attacks not only Planned Parenthood funds but on all Title X family planning services?

Sometimes it seems as though “…the Republican Party is doing everything in its power to ensure that there are more abortions than ever in the years to come.”

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently remarked that the GOP has “…been on an ‘ideological harangue’ against abortion, contraception, and family planning.”  She went on to say that the GOP needs, “…a lesson in the birds and bees…If you don’t want to terminate a pregnancy, you might want to prevent it.  Family planning funding?  People really get this.  Does that give you any picture of how insulting their mentality is?”  And Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) recently said the GOP is “making it a pre-existing condition to be a woman.”

And these GOP attacks on contraceptive access persist even though the “traditional” female base of the Republican Party believes in contraception despite their religious beliefs.  The Guttmacher Institute’s new report, Countering Conventional Wisdom: New Evidence on Religion and Contraceptive Use, reveals:

In real-life America, contraceptive use and strong religious beliefs are highly compatible.  Most sexually active women who do not want to become pregnant practice contraception, and most use highly effective methods like sterilization, the pill, or the IUD.  This is true for Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants, and it is true for Catholics, despite the Catholic hierarchy’s strenuous opposition to contraception.

The report’s analysis disproves the myth that “…contraceptive use runs counter to strongly held religious beliefs.”  More importantly, the data presented “…shows that opposition to contraception by the Catholic hierarchy and other socially conservative organizations is not reflected in the actual behaviors and health care needs of Catholic and Evangelical women.”

All women, regardless of their religious affiliations, have come to recognize that “…contraceptive use and the prevention of unintended pregnancy improves the health and social and economic well-being of women and their families…”

Guttmacher policy analyst Adam Sonfield emphasizes “[h]ealth policy should not serve as a proxy for religious dogma.”

So why would mostly male, anti-choice politicians want to restrict contraceptive access for the most vulnerable women throughout the nation?  Why would they defy the needs and demands of their own constituencies?  And how do these same politicians justify the hypocrisy of imposing these big government regulations on women’s health care choices, all the while advocating for a limited, small federal government in nearly every other aspect of governance?

The Nation’s Melissa Harris-Perry recently explained “[t]oday’s conservatives… seek to define women’s citizenship as rooted in motherhood, and they are prepared to use state power to enforce this vision.”  Furthermore, the House GOP’s “…belt-tightening deficit reduction is entirely compatible with an older social agenda committed to pushing American women out of the public sphere… forcing women back into the domestic sphere.”  Simply put, a woman who cannot control her own “…fertility will be unable to compete for degrees or jobs with their male counterparts.”

Indeed, these same politicians are willing to impose this patriarchal social agenda at all costs, even if it means increasing the deficit.

And in Michelle Goldberg’s 2009 book, The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World, she explains, “[a]ll over the planet, conflicts between tradition and modernity are being fought on the terrain of women’s bodies…women’s rights are perhaps the most visible sign of modernity and thus an obvious bête noire for flourishing fundamentalist movements.”

An agenda that pushes against access to contraception for women who can least afford the cost goes far beyond a war on reproductive justice – it simply becomes an all out war on women’s social and economic equality.  When low-income women cannot control their reproductive choices they inevitably slide further and further into the economic abyss.  The House GOP and anti-women state legislatures are quite literally using women’s bodies as their weapon to constrain women’s autonomy.

And even though the newly elected and emboldened Tea Party caucus claims that they are only seeking to impose fiscal austerity to rescue future generations from the debt crisis, they too will happily sacrifice that vision of fiscal conservatism to advance their extreme anti-choice ideology.  The mainstream media ignores this fact, just as they continue to bestow the moniker of fiscal responsibility upon the Tea Party without question.

And just like a nightmare that you cannot shake, both the Senate and the House of Representatives had to once again vote on defunding Planned Parenthood yesterday.  Again?  Didn’t we already settle this last Friday?

Well, not really.  Speaker John Boehner managed to extort a standalone vote on Planned Parenthood funding last Friday during the tense budget showdown with the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

And yes, the legislation passed in the House because of its anti-choice majority and failed in the Senate because of the comparatively more women-friendly make-up of that legislative body.  So, these political games will continue to be levied against women’s bodies in the never ending cynical belief that this vote has some relevance to deficit reduction. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable and voiceless women in this country are paying the price.

Choice News Round-Up April 4-8

The Congressional War on Women Continues

Federal and state legislators are focusing their anti-abortion agenda on middle-income women who want to use their own money to buy insurance that covers abortion services. These measures ultimately incentivize “…insurers in the state marketplaces to drop abortion coverage, making it unavailable even for women who pay their own premiums.”

The House GOP is backing extreme legislative measures designed to phase out abortion coverage in all private insurance plans by eliminating all tax benefits employers receive if they provide abortion coverage in their health care plans for their employees. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act introduced in the House in January is the most offensive and direct attack on abortion access in private insurance plans covered under Affordable Care Act (ACA). According to a Guttmacher Institute study “…87% of typical employer-based insurance policies in 2002 covered medically necessary or appropriate abortions.”

During the hearing on the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act “…the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee’s chief of staff Thomas Barthold testified that because the bill bans using tax credits or deductions to pay for abortions or insurance, a woman who used such a benefit would have to prove, if audited, that her abortion ‘fell under the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she had purchased did not cover abortions’.” Furthermore, “…a woman would have to give ‘contemporaneous written documentation’ that it was ‘incest, or rape, or [her] life was in danger’ that compelled her abortion…[and]… parents could face IRS questions about whether they spent pre-tax money from health savings accounts on abortions for their kids.” That’s right, this legislation could lead to deputizing IRS agents as “abortion cops”.

Yesterday a House panel voted along party lines to approve an anti-choice measure that would prevent women from deducting the cost of abortion care as a medical expense from their taxable income. This bill is supported by GOP leaders in the House, but will come against stronger opposition in the Senate.

As the U.S. Senate and House continue their budget negotiations, NPR looks at the full spectrum of health care services jeopardized by anti-choice politicians’ efforts to eliminate the Title X family planning program.

On March 24, 60 pro-choice activists rallied outside of Rep. Dave Reichert’s Mercer Island office in response to his latest vote to defund Planned Parenthood. They also delivered petition signatures against the congressional War on Women. Check out some coverage here and here.

Sign NARAL Pro-Choice Washington’s petition to stop the War on Women!

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States Enacting Legislation to Eliminate Abortion Coverage from Private Insurance Plans

NARAL Pro-Choice America breaks down the federal and state bans on insurance abortion coverage:

“Federal law bars federal employees from selecting a health-­care plan that provides abortion coverage. Retired and current military personnel and their dependents also are prohibited from obtaining coverage for abortion care through military health plans, even if the pregnancy results from rape or incest.” Meanwhile at the state level, NARAL Pro-Choice America reports:

• 13 states prohibit abortion coverage for state employees: AZ, AR, CO, IL, KY, MA, MS, NE, OH, PA, RI, SC, and VA.
• 6 states prohibit abortion coverage in the private insurance market: ID, KY, MO, ND, OK, and RI.
• 5 states prohibit abortion coverage in state insurance exchanges: AZ, LA, MS, MO, TN.
• 9 states have insurance bans that allow consumers to purchase abortion coverage only through a separate rider: ID, KY, MO, NE, ND, OH, OK, RI, and WI.

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Onslaught of Anti-Choice State Legislation Becoming Even More Extreme

NARAL Pro-Choice America reports that last year 174 anti-abortion bills were introduced in state legislatures throughout the country. So far, this year, 351 anti-abortion bills have been introduced in the state legislatures.

Legislation recently passed in South Dakota and Arizona and two proposed bills in Kansas and Iowa represent some of the more extreme anti-choice measures surfacing throughout the country.

South Dakota now has the longest waiting period in the country for a woman to get an abortion: 72 hours. The newly enacted law also mandates that all women seeking abortions, even rape and incest victims, must first be “counseled” by a so-called crisis pregnancy center or limited service pregnancy center. This is the first law in the nation that would require women seeking abortions to submit to forced counseling with biased, medically-inaccurate information. The law will likely face a court challenge and “[b]oth sides in the debate are pretty sure this particular law is likely to be found unconstitutional by the current Supreme Court, even if one side is loathe to admit it publicly.”

South Dakota’s extreme stance on abortion access for low-income women is equally oppressive. South Dakota only allows the use of Medicaid to pay for abortions when the life of the woman is at risk. In South Dakota a victim of rape or incest cannot access Medicaid dollars to pay for an abortion. Now Iowa is following suit and seeking to limit Medicaid dollars solely for when the life of the woman is jeopardized, eliminating exceptions for rape and incest survivors.

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona just signed a law that “…makes the state the first in the nation to outlaw abortions performed on the basis of the race or gender of the fetus.” The law would impose felony charges on any doctor or medical professional “…if they could be shown to have performed abortions for the purposes of helping parents select their offspring on the basis of gender or race. The women having such abortions would not be penalized.” Planned Parenthood in Arizona has condemned the law stating that it “…creates a highly unusual requirement that women state publicly their reason for choosing to terminate a pregnancy — a private decision they already made with their physician, partner and family…”

And in Kansas “[a] bill to strictly limit abortions after 22 weeks based on disputed research that fetuses can feel pain is on its way to Gov. Sam Brownback…” Governor Brownback has stated he will sign the law.

Putting Women at Risk: The Rise of Catholic-Secular Hospital Mergers

When two hospitals in Sierra Vista, Arizona attempted a trial merger a group of community activists, including doctors and retirees, became alarmed at what the merger would mean for the quality of reproductive health care at the newly merged hospital.  The Cochise Citizens for Patients’ Rights (CCPR) decided to fight the merger.  The two hospitals, the Sierra Vista Regional Health Center and the Catholic Carondolet Health Network, would become a singular institution that would be controlled by the the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.

CCPR activists organized rallies alerting the public and the media to the situation.  Eventually, the Arizona Attorney General began investigating “…after the National Women’s Law Center filed a complaint alleging that the Board violated its duty to the community when it entered into a deal that eliminated access to certain services”.

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and PBS correspondent Lucky Severson stated, “[w]hat the merger means is that Sierra Vista, a rural, secular hospital, must now abide by the Catholic ethical and religious directives which prohibit certain procedures.  So physicians can no longer do abortions, even when the mother’s life is in danger, and they can no longer perform sterilizations or provide contraception.”

Dotti Wellman a spokesperson for CCPR explained that the county “…has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country, not just the county.  Immediately when this arrangement went in there would be no talk of birth control.  If we had two hospitals, we would not be here, because there would be a choice.”

Dr. Bruce Silva, an ob-gyn at Sierra Vista, expressed concern regarding who would have the ultimate authority to make medical decisions for his patients.  Dr. Silva said that “[t]he person who makes that decision is not me and the woman.  We can make that decision, but then it has to be okay’d by someone else who puts their belief systems and their ethics on me and on my patients, which I just don’t think is right.”

A few days after PBS aired its Religion & Ethics Newsweekly report on the public outcry, the merger was cancelled.  After concerns were raised by many about the impact of the merger on reproductive health care, Sierra Vista Regional Health Center decided to end the trial merger with the Catholic hospital system.  The National Partnership for Women & Families reported that the president and CEO of Sierra Vista Regional Health Center said:

…the directives were one reason the hospital called off the merger.  ‘We couldn’t make that work’…adding that the hospital was unable to obtain approval from the local bishop to allow it to continue to provide sterilization and reproductive health services.

The National Women’s Law Center declared, “[w]e hope that other nonsectarian hospitals will take notice of this coordinated grassroots organizing, media, and legal effort, and think twice before entering into partnerships that harm women’s health.”

On January 20^th the National Women’s Law Center issued two reports revealing “…that certain religiously affiliated hospitals put women’s health and lives at risk by restricting doctors’ ability to provide the best medical care to pregnant women experiencing miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.”

The National Women’s Law Center filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services urging them to remind all health care providers that they must abide by all Medicare Conditions of Participation (CoPs), and “…require hospitals to institute policies and procedures to protect patients’ legally enforceable rights; to investigate the failure of hospitals to provide standard of care and informed consent, and to take corrective action to prevent further violations.”

Catholic hospitals make up approximately 15 percent of U.S. hospital beds.  Earlier this year St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix lost its certification from the Roman Catholic diocese because the hospital performed a life saving abortion on a mother of four.

The situation at St. Joseph’s involved a 27 year old woman that was 11 weeks pregnant.  She needed an emergency abortion and she agreed to the procedure.  However, St. Joseph’s was then “…a Roman Catholic institution governed by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, a series of doctrine-based rules imposed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.”  The directives specifically prohibit abortions in all cases – regardless of whether the mother’s life is in danger.    Sister Margaret McBride, the hospital’s administrator, was excommunicated for approving the abortion decision that “…was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee.”  Sister McBride was also demoted.  Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix told her that she had created a “scandal” later informing the hospital that it was no longer a “Catholic institution.”  However, St. Joseph’s is standing by its decision.

Another aspect to consider is the fact that Catholic hospital systems “…receive generous public subsidies and in some parts of the country may be the only medical option for residents, yet they impose a strict interpretation of Catholic dogma on all patients – Catholic and non-Catholic.”

Reproductive health services for women are not the only health care services put at risk in these hospital mergers.  End-of-life care, vasectomies, and services for infertile couples are also jeopardized.  Significantly, if these hospitals are the only option available to a low-income woman who has been raped, she may not even be provided with the “morning after” pill to prevent a pregnancy.  And make no mistake, within the Catholic hospital system it is the church bishops that have the final say on medical care – not the doctors and not the hospital staff.

In the 1990s and 2000s after a rash of hospital mergers occurred nationwide, a New York City based organization called the MergerWatch Project developed an advocacy program to help local grassroots activists and coalitions challenge these mergers.  The MergerWatch Project was founded in 1996 after a merger between a religious and secular hospital in Troy, NY led to the loss of all contraceptive services that the secular hospital once provided at an outpatient clinic.  MergerWatch helped the CCPR activists organize in Sierra Vista, Arizona as well.

Some of the threats to health care and patient rights they have identified include:

• Pharmacists may refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives and other medicines they view as morally unacceptable.
• Hospitals may ban treatment that conflicts with religious doctrine.
• Employers and managed care plans may refuse to provide health insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, or abortion.
• Physicians may refuse to provide fertility services to families they find morally unacceptable.
• Politicians responding to religious conservatives may enact laws that make it difficult for patients to refuse end-of-life treatment.

MergerWatch’s 2002 report titled, Public Funding of Religiously-Sponsored Hospitals in the United States, explained that because of the increase in mergers across the country “…many managed care plans are restricting patients’ choices of which local hospitals they may use, leaving them fewer options of where to receive care.  As a result, more and more patients are finding that the only available hospital is one owned by or affiliated with a religious denomination that restricts access to health services.”

Is it “…appropriate for a hospital that is licensed to serve the general public and receives public funding to be allowed to use religious teaching to restrict the health care it provides to a diverse community?  What are the rights of patients and caregivers in such a situation, and how might they be protected?”

Religious hospitals receive Medicare, Medicaid, and other government funds for about 50% of their operating revenues as well as many other benefits from their tax-exempt status.

MergerWatch summed up the problem as the following:

Sectarian hospitals are able to receive public funding while using religious doctrine to guide health care because of a combination of: 1) a lack of explicit standards for protecting patients’ rights and 2) the proliferation of special government exemptions, known as “refusal clauses,” which permit hospitals to refuse to provide services that violate religious teachings.  In essence, the public dollars going to religiously-sponsored hospitals arrive with few or no policy “strings” attached.

And as mergers have increased and religiously affiliated hospitals are now serving more and more communities some hospitals founded by Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Jews have become non-sectarian with respect to health care delivery services.  However, the Catholic hospital system, Seventh Day Adventist, and some Baptists organizations are still being guided by their strict religious doctrine when determining the parameters of health care delivery services.

As the National Women’s Law Center report illustrates, the exemptions that federal and state governments have provided to religious hospitals has put women’s health and their very lives at risk.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has also issued a report identifying the health risks that women face as more and more secular and religious hospitals merge as a cost-saving measure.  The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice’s report states, “[i]n more than 34 states, mergers of religious and community hospitals have curtailed or eliminated comprehensive reproductive health care services, including abortion services.  ‘Merger mania’ has created a hidden crisis in reproductive health care.”  And “[o]f 589 Catholic hospital emergency rooms surveyed by Catholics for a Free Choice, 82 percent deny emergency contraception to rape victims—and of those, almost one third refuse to provide a referral.”

When reproductive health care is threatened by mergers vulnerable, low-income women, generally in rural areas, bear the greatest and most disproportionate burden.  The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has noted the following facts:

• As a result of mergers since 1990, the sole hospital in 91 counties is operating under Roman Catholic health care directives.  In 95 percent of those counties, only a minority of the population is Roman Catholic.
• From 1997 to 1998, the number of Catholic‐operated hospitals grew by 11% while the number of secular facilities declined by 2.1%.
• Of the 127 mergers between Catholic and non‐Catholic hospitals from 1990 to 1998, Catholics for a Free Choice estimates that half resulted in the elimination of all or some reproductive health services.

And then there’s the House GOP’s recent attack on women’s health care with the introduction of H.R.358, the so-called “Protect Life Act.”  H.R.358 would allow, among other things, health care facilities the freedom to refuse a woman an emergency abortion or referral services for an emergency abortion even if doing so would end that woman’s life.  H.R.358 would eliminate the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requirement specifically and solely for abortion services.

EMTALA was enacted in 1986 and requires health care facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid to “…treat, stabilize, or, if needed, transfer patients for appropriate care.”  A hospital receiving Medicare or Medicaid could quite literally let a woman die if she needed an emergency abortion and still not lose its federal funding.

MergerWatch stated that hospitals are “…licensed to serve the public, and should be expected to do so in a way that meets accepted medical standards of care.”

Learn more about the National Women’s Law Center’s efforts to draw attention to this issue.  Share your story if you have been denied care or treatment for pregnancy complications and take the pledge to educate yourself and others about this risk and help put an end to dangerous practices affecting women’s health care.

Choice News Round-Up

NARAL Activists Stand Up for Women’s Health
On March 24, 60 pro-choice activists rallied outside of Rep. Dave Reichert’s Mercer Island office in response to his latest vote to defund Planned Parenthood.  They also delivered petition signatures against the congressional War on Women.  Check out some coverage here and here.

NARAL activists outside Rep. Reichert's Mercer Island office

The Congressional War on Women Continues
Federal and state legislators are focusing their anti-abortion agenda on middle income women who want to use their own money to buy insurance that covers abortion services.  These measures ultimately incentivize “…insurers in the state marketplaces to drop abortion coverage, making it unavailable even for women who pay their own premiums.”

The House GOP is backing extreme legislative measures designed to phase out abortion coverage in all private insurance plans by eliminating all tax benefits employers receive if they provide abortion coverage in their health care plans for their employees.  The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act introduced in the House in January is the most offensive and direct attack on abortion access in private insurance plans covered under Affordable Care Act (ACA).  According to a Guttmacher Institute study “…87% of typical employer-based insurance policies in 2002 covered medically necessary or appropriate abortions.”

During the hearing on the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act “…the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee’s chief of staff Thomas Barthold testified that because the bill bans using tax credits or deductions to pay for abortions or insurance, a woman who used such a benefit would have to prove, if audited, that her abortion ‘fell under the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she had purchased did not cover abortions’.”  Furthermore, “…a woman would have to give ‘contemporaneous written documentation’ that it was ‘incest, or rape, or [her] life was in danger’ that compelled her abortion…[and]… parents could face IRS questions about whether they spent pre-tax money from health savings accounts on abortions for their kids.”  That’s right, this legislation could lead to deputizing IRS agents as “abortion cops”.

Yesterday a House panel voted along party lines to approve an anti-choice measure that would prevent women from deducting the cost of abortion care as a medical expense from their taxable income.  This bill is supported by GOP leaders in the House, but will come against stronger opposition in the Senate.

As the U.S. Senate and House continue their budget negotiations, NPR looks at the full spectrum of health care services jeopardized by anti-choice politicians’ efforts to eliminate the Title X family planning program.

Sign NARAL Pro-Choice Washington’s petition to stop the War on Women!

States Enacting Legislation to Eliminate Abortion Coverage from Private Insurance Plans
NARAL Pro-Choice America breaks down the federal and state bans on insurance abortion coverage:

“Federal law bars federal employees from selecting a health-­care plan that provides abortion coverage.  Retired and current military personnel and their dependents also are prohibited from obtaining coverage for abortion care through military health plans, even if the pregnancy results from rape or incest.”

Meanwhile at the state level, NARAL Pro-Choice America reports:

• 13 states prohibit abortion coverage for state employees: AZ, AR, CO, IL, KY, MA, MS, NE, OH, PA, RI, SC, and VA.
• 6 states prohibit abortion coverage in the private insurance market: ID, KY, MO, ND, OK, and RI.
• 5 states prohibit abortion coverage in state insurance exchanges: AZ, LA, MS, MO, TN.
• 9 states have insurance bans that allow consumers to purchase abortion coverage only through a separate rider: ID, KY, MO, NE, ND, OH, OK, RI, and WI.

Onslaught of Anti-Choice State Legislation Becoming Even More Extreme
NARAL Pro-Choice America reports that last year 174 anti-abortion bills were introduced in state legislatures throughout the country.  So far, this year, 351 anti-abortion bills have been introduced in the state legislatures.

Legislation recently passed in South Dakota and Arizona and two proposed bills in Kansas and Iowa represent some of the more extreme anti-choice measures surfacing throughout the country.

South Dakota now has the longest waiting period in the country for a woman to get an abortion: 72 hours.  The newly enacted law also mandates that all women seeking abortions, even rape and incest victims, must first be “counseled” by a so-called crisis pregnancy center or limited service pregnancy center.  This is the first law in the nation that would require women seeking abortions to submit to forced counseling with biased, medically-inaccurate information.  The law will likely face a court challenge and “[b]oth sides in the debate are pretty sure this particular law is likely to be found unconstitutional by the current Supreme Court, even if one side is loathe to admit it publicly.”

South Dakota’s extreme stance on abortion access for low-income women is equally oppressive.  South Dakota only allows the use of Medicaid to pay for abortions when the life of the woman is at risk.  In South Dakota a victim of rape or incest cannot access Medicaid dollars to pay for an abortion.  Now Iowa is following suit and seeking to limit Medicaid dollars solely for when the life of the woman is jeopardized, eliminating exceptions for rape and incest survivors.

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona just signed a law that “…makes the state the first in the nation to outlaw abortions performed on the basis of the race or gender of the fetus.”  The law would impose felony charges on any doctor or medical professional “…if they could be shown to have performed abortions for the purposes of helping parents select their offspring on the basis of gender or race.  The women having such abortions would not be penalized.”  Planned Parenthood in Arizona has condemned the law stating that it “…creates a highly unusual requirement that women state publicly their reason for choosing to terminate a pregnancy — a private decision they already made with their physician, partner and family…”

And in Kansas “[a] bill to strictly limit abortions after 22 weeks based on disputed research that fetuses can feel pain is on its way to Gov. Sam Brownback…”  Governor Brownback has stated he will sign the law.

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The Fiscal Irresponsibility of Anti-Choice Politicians: More Lies about the Budget

GOP leaders at both the state and federal level have turned the very definition of limited, small government on its head.  The onslaught of ideologically extreme anti-choice legislation at the state and federal level has transformed the notion of fiscal conservatism and limited government into an obvious charade.  Yet, most of the traditional, mainstream media makes no mention of this all consuming hypocrisy.

“Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood will likely cost the government more money in both the short and long run, adding to the deficit.  Simply put, Planned Parenthood offers extremely cost-effective care compared to other government-funded providers, and each dollar spent on contraception saves taxpayers multiple dollars down the line.”  Defunding Planned Parenthood will force its patients to seek out health care services at other clinics.  And these other Title X clinics “…typically charge the government more for the same services.”

In fact, “Planned Parenthood cost Medicaid an average of $154 for a patient’s contraceptive care in a year, while other clinics spent $244 a year per patient.  Just pushing contraceptive care for Medicaid patients from Planned Parenthood to other clinics would thus cost the government an additional $225 million a year.”

There are many reasons why Planned Parenthood is so cost effective:

• Drug companies are mandated by federal law to provide deep discounts to Title X clinics;
• Planned Parenthood has incorporated the latest and most cost effective preventative care measures such as providing pelvic exams once every three years versus once a year;
• Planned Parenthood is “…the biggest reproductive health care provider in the country, with more than 800 clinics nationwide…  [and they’re]… able to do national purchasing for medical supplies and other things at lower costs.”

So, if Planned Parenthood is defunded Medicaid would end up paying more for contraception, STD testing and treatment, and cancer screenings.   And without access to Planned Parenthood, other Title X clinics would become overwhelmed with patients creating a longer and longer waiting lists for critical care.

The Guttmacher Institute estimated in 2008 that every dollar spent on family planning saves taxpayers $3.74 in government spending on prenatal care, childbirth, and the first year of an infant’s health care.  But if more women who are financially stressed end up bearing children they don’t want, the costs of pregnancy and infant care will quickly be dwarfed by government spending on public assistance, food stamps, and health care.

The Hartford Courant explained how defunding Planned Parenthood would devastate Connecticut women:

More than 60,000 Connecticut women this year will visit the local clinics of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England for basic health care, breast and gynecological exams, birth control, abortions and treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases.

If the House GOP has its way, in Connecticut alone 20,000 women that rely on Medicaid to pay for Planned Parenthood services would be left out in the cold.  Title X clinics in Connecticut are already overburdened and could not handle the influx of these new patients; inevitably these women would not receive access to vital health care services.  The president of the Community Health Center Inc. in Connecticut explained “[m]any women in the state would just go without vital reproductive health services…This is what people just don’t seem to understand.  There just is no other capacity in Connecticut for what Planned Parenthood provides.”

Finally, Connecticut’s health commissioner noted that the national teen birth rate has been dropping “…with Connecticut registering the fourth-lowest teen birth rate in the country” and that Planned Parenthood’s contraceptive care services “…especially to the urban poor — have played an important role in lowering the teen birth rate.”

This House GOP sponsored plan is antithetical to fiscal conservatism.  But the hypocrisy of the House GOP leadership does not end with defunding Planned Parenthood.  Mother Jones recently reported that while the House GOP has defended stripping Planned Parenthood and other Title X funding programs as critical for deficit reduction, Representative Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) introduced a bill in January that “…would provide federal funds for the purchase of sonogram machines at organizations that counsel women against having an abortion…”

H.R. 165 would “…authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to nonprofit tax-exempt organizations for the purchase of ultrasound equipment to provide free examinations to pregnant women needing such services, and for other purposes.”

In order to qualify for a grant under H.R. 165 “…a facility would have to show every woman seeking services the ultrasound image and describe to them the ‘general anatomical and physiological description of the characteristics of the fetus.’”  Additionally, the facility must provide “alternatives to abortion such as childbirth and adoption and information concerning public and private agencies that will assist in those alternatives.”  Planned Parenthood and all abortion providers would be ineligible for these grants because the facility receiving the grant cannot charge patients for their services.

Representative Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) commented that H.R. 165 represents:

…hypocrisy in its most obvious form…As Republicans seek to defund Planned Parenthood and deny vital health care services to American women most in need, they want to spend taxpayer dollars to support crisis pregnancy centers, which have become anti-choice groups’ sneaky alternative to legitimate reproductive health clinics…These deceiving clinics entice women who are seeking abortions and then subject them to ultrasounds—with the explicit goal of convincing them not to have an abortion.

A 2006 House Energy and Commerce Committee report found that from 2001 to 2006 the Department of Health and Human Services provided limited service pregnancy centers with $30 million; and since 2007 these fake clinics have received another $9.3 million in funding.

But these fake clinics are now getting a further imprimatur from South Dakota.  South Dakota’s governor just signed a law that forces women to be “counseled” at these fake clinics before a woman can get an abortion.  This is the first law in the nation requiring women seeking abortions to submit to forced counseling at typically Christian fundamentalist organizations.  And the intent of the law is very clear:

It is a necessary and proper exercise of the state’s authority to give precedence to the mother’s fundamental interest in her relationship with her child over the irrevocable method of termination of that relationship by induced abortion.

Interestingly, some of the very same benefactors that have supported Live Action and Lila Rose’s “sting” operation against Planned Parenthood are donating money to a South Dakota fund set up to defend the new anti-choice law in court.  The “Life Protect Fund” has been receiving a steady stream of donations in anticipation of a legal challenge to the South Dakota law.

And even though there has been some limited progress geared towards exposing these fake clinics; the NYC Council approved consumer protection legislation to hold limited service pregnancy centers (LSPC) accountable by requiring that women be informed about what services they do and do not provide, similar legislation that would have held LSPCs accountable in Washington State  expired on March 7^th without a vote before the State House .  NARAL Pro-Choice Washington, Planned Parenthood VOTES! Washington, Legal Voice, and other women’s groups will try again in the next legislative session.

Meanwhile a federal district court judge in Maryland issued a ruling on March 15^th that weakened a law in Montgomery County requiring LSPCs to post information about the services they provide.  The judge ruled that LSPCs cannot be forced to post signs stating “Montgomery County Health Officer encourages women who are or may be pregnant to consult with a licensed health care provider.”  However, the judge did uphold the county’s right to have LSPCs post signs telling women that the center is not staffed by licensed medical professionals.  A trial date on the validity of the ruling has not yet been scheduled.

A similar law in Baltimore was declared unconstitutional by another federal district court judge in January; the judge concluded that the Baltimore law violated the First Amendment by requiring LSPCs to engage in “forced” speech.

These fake clinics are unregulated, are generally staffed by volunteers and not by medical professionals, and they often lie to women about the health risks associated with abortion and contraception.  You can read more about LSPC’s deceptive practices in Washington in this investigatory report prepared by Legal Voice and Planned Parenthood VOTES! Washington.  And here’s a recent article in Slate describing the kind of “counseling” women typically endure at LSPCs.

The House GOP leadership’s hypocrisy has never been clearer:  trying to defund Planned Parenthood with one hand, and falsely claim that defunding it will save the country money, while simultaneously seeking to fund LSPCs with the other hand.  It is women who pay the ultimate price for this hypocrisy.

Choice News: Health Care Reform Anniversary Edition

NARAL Pro-Choice Washington Marks the One Year Anniversary of the Passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA).
The National Women’s Law Center and the Center for American Progress have put together a series of fact sheets detailing the different ways ACA benefits women, including:

• Employers must provide nursing mothers with a private and sanitary space to express breast milk at work as well as unpaid breaks.
• Maternity and newborn care must be covered in all new health insurance plans sold to individuals and small groups/small businesses.
• Pre-existing Conditions: Insurance companies can no longer claim that being a domestic violence victim/survivor or a breast/cervical cancer survivor as a reason for denying a woman health insurance coverage. And insurers can no longer reject any women applying for insurance coverage based upon the fact that she had a C-section.
• One of the major ACA initiatives is to increase access to preventative health care for women, including mammograms and Pap smears.

Take Action in Support of Access to Health Care

Exactly one year ago today, President Obama signed historic health insurance reform into law. Since then, seniors are paying less for their prescriptions and care, kids are being covered by their parents’ health insurance, and children with pre-existing conditions can’t be denied insurance coverage.

But because of Attorney General Rob McKenna, all of this progress and more is at risk.

McKenna joined a lawsuit with other conservative Attorneys General seeking to overturn the entire law, including even the most basic reforms such as protections for those with pre-existing conditions. Rob McKenna is putting partisan politics above good policy by trying to drag us back to a broken health care system.

We’ve joined a strong coalition demanding that Attorney General McKenna immediately drop his lawsuit and stop playing politics with our health. Check out our new website and add your name to the petition demanding that McKenna drop his health care lawsuit.

Our pro-choice Governor Christine Gregoire filed a brief in federal court challenging McKenna’s involvement in the lawsuit, making it clear to the Court that McKenna’s participation “…doesn’t reflect the state of Washington’s position — and shouldn’t stand in the way of the law’s implementation.”

The Congressional War on Women
Unfortunately, ACA sets up bureaucratic hurdles for plans that cover abortion, which is a direct disincentive for insurance companies to offer any abortion coverage under ACA.

The House GOP is currently backing extreme legislative measures designed to phase out abortion coverage in all private insurance plans by eliminating all tax benefits employers receive if they provide abortion coverage in their health care plans for their employees. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act introduced in the House in January is the most offensive and direct attack on abortion access in private insurance plans covered under ACA. Mother Jones reports that one of these measures could turn IRS agents in “abortion cops.”

An opinion piece in the Seattle Times illustrates how defunding Planned Parenthood clinics would affect Washington women and families.

Check out Antoinette Bonsignore’s post on the congressional attacks on women’s rights and health, and sign our petition to stop the War on Women.

Sexual Assault in the Military: Holding the Department of Defense Accountable
Last month a number of advocacy groups representing seventeen US veterans and military sexual assault victims filed a class action lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and current Defense Secretary Robert Gates alleging civil rights violations for the Pentagon’s failure to investigate and prosecute rape and sexual assault cases that have reached epidemic numbers in the armed forces. You can find out more about the class action lawsuit and what you can do to help facilitate much needed reform in the way the military deals with this rape and sexual assault epidemic at the Service Women’s Action Network.

The GOP’s War on Women in the States
After the 2010 elections the GOP controlled more state legislatures and as a result those state legislatures have begun a steady onslaught of extreme anti-choice measures designed to restrict a woman’s access to abortion services. People for the American Way has put together a comprehensive series of fact sheets enumerating these measures around the country.

Rape Myths: Not Even Children Can Escape Being Blamed for Rape
Outrage erupted last week over a NY Times article regarding the gang rape of an 11 year old girl in Cleveland, Texas. Mother Jones, Ms. Magazine, Loop21.com, and other news outlets were shocked that the NY Times chose to focus only on how this heinous crime was going to destroy the lives of the alleged rapists and how “provocatively” the 11 year old girl was dressed. The Women’s Media Center posted a petition on their Facebook page demanding that the NY Times apologize for blaming an 11 year old child for her gang rape. Adding further fuel to the outrage, a state legislator from Florida introduced legislation last week mandating that young girls be dressed “appropriately” at schools in order to prevent them from being raped.  You can read more about the persistence of rape myths at the Women’s Media Center blog.

Deficit Reduction Lies: The House GOP Leadership’s War on Women’s Health and Contraception

We have no time to waste: the anti-choice House leadership is using the budget deficit as a justification for their devastating and draconian budget cuts for Title X family planning programs and specifically their demands that Planned Parenthood be defunded – with potentially disastrous consequences for women’s health.  The chair of the Washington section for the American Congress of Gynecologists and Obstetricians, Dr. Judy M. Kimelman debunks this lie specifically for Washington women by explaining:

In Washington, for every dollar spent on family planning the state saves more than $4 in costs associated with unintended pregnancy…Planned Parenthood serves more than 140,000 women in Washington, provides education to 35,000…In 2010 alone, 72 percent of women in Washington who used Title X funds received their care at a Planned Parenthood health center.

Take Action Now: Sign our petition to our Senators and Representatives and ask them to stand up against the War on Women.

Planned Parenthood provides women with a litany of medical services ranging from cancer screenings, HIV testing, and annual health exams.  The real truth is that the House GOP wants to stop Planned Parenthood from providing abortions and they are willing to sacrifice the health and welfare of women to do it.  The House GOP wants to deny vulnerable, low-income women access to medical care but specifically they want to deny these same women any access to contraception.  Anti-choice politicians reveal their hypocrisy when they say they’re opposed to abortion while simultaneously trying to restrict access to birth control.  Telling people that access to birth control does not reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancies and therefore does not reduce abortion rates flies in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Access to birth control is the best way women can prevent unintended pregnancies.  The Guttmacher Institute’s recent report, Contraception Works—and Publicly Funded Family Planning Programs Are Essential to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion, explains:

Contraceptive use dramatically reduces unplanned pregnancy.  By doing so, it also dramatically reduces abortion, since behind almost every abortion is an unplanned pregnancy.  Guttmacher Institute research shows that the two-thirds of U.S. women at risk of unintended pregnancy who use contraception consistently and correctly throughout the course of any given year account for only 5% of all unintended pregnancies.  The 19% of women at risk who use contraception but do so inconsistently account for 44% of all unintended pregnancies, while the 16% of women at risk who do not use contraception at all for a month or more during the year account for 52% of all unintended pregnancies.

Representative Mike Pence (R-Ind.) has become the House GOP’s designated attack dog with the destruction of Planned Parenthood defined as his ultimate reward.  But the real victims are the women he so callously turns his back on.  Pence introduced the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act (H.R.217) on January 7^th in his never-ending quest to demonize and delegitimize Planned Parenthood right out of existence.

Pence and other anti-choice politicians simply want to stop Planned Parenthood from providing abortions and if that means eliminating all health care access for low-income woman – then that’s just fine with them.  Elaine Rose, chief executive of Planned Parenthood Votes! Washington, recently stated “[i]n Washington, 60 percent of patients at Planned Parenthood have no other medical provider…[and]…[w]hat the Republicans ultimately want is they don’t want birth control.”

The attacks on access to abortion services combined with the attacks on all family planning services demonstrates that the House GOP is concerned with one thing and one thing only: continuing their ongoing war against the health and welfare of America’s women by any means necessary.  Instead of focusing on the nation’s economic woes they have chosen to prioritize restrictions on abortion and contraception.  This legislative agenda was of course “…all but invisible during the midterm elections…” belying the claims that new House GOP leadership was elected to tackle the jobs crisis.

Publicly funded family planning is vital to vulnerable women because “…unintended pregnancy and its consequences, either an abortion or an unplanned birth, are highly concentrated among economically disadvantaged women.”  Moreover, “…there is strong evidence that modern contraceptive methods are replacing abortion as the primary means of family planning.”  The Guttmacher Institute reports:

…most women having abortions were either not using any contraception or were using a method inconsistently. In 2000, the most recent year for which data are available, almost one-half (46%) of abortion patients were not using a contraceptive method in the month they got pregnant. Among the 54% of abortion patients who were using some form of contraception, the overwhelming majority acknowledged that their use was inconsistent…

However, the pushback against this smear campaign is coming not just from Democrats but also from GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.  Objecting to Planned Parenthood funding cuts, Senator Murkowski stated that “…Planned Parenthood provides vital services to those in need…”  Susan Collins explained, “[t]he program has successfully reduced the number of unplanned pregnancies, therefore helping to reduce health care costs.”  Further expanding on her position, Senator Murkowski explained:

From 2002-2008, Planned Parenthood received $342 million in federal taxpayer money through Title X funding alone. With these funds, Planned Parenthood has provided women throughout the U.S. with important family planning and contraceptive services as well as screening for breast and cervical cancers for low-income women. I believe it is important that Title X organizations continue to receive funding. In Alaska, this includes five centers — two health department clinics, two Planned Parenthood clinics in Sitka and Soldotna and one independent clinic.

If anti-choice politicians were really concerned about reducing abortion rates then they would not want to eliminate access to contraception for low-income women.  The cost of contraception is a major barrier to access in the U.S.  A May 2010 Guttmacher Institute report detailed the following statistics:

• Of the 36 million women in need of contraceptive care in 2008, 17.4 million were in need of publicly funded services and supplies because they either had an income below 250% of the federal poverty level or were younger than 20.

• The number of women in need of publicly funded services increased by more than one million (6%) between 2000 and 2008.

• Among the 17.4 million women in need of publicly funded contraceptive care, 71% (12.4 million) were poor or low-income adults, and 29% (5 million) were younger than 20.  Four in 10 poor women of reproductive age have no insurance coverage whatsoever.

Adding insult to extreme injury, the House GOP is also attacking teen sex education programs with their bottomless narrative that abstinence-only education really does work.  The House GOP doubled down on this falsehood by voting to wipe out sex education programs for teens within their attack on Title X family planning programs.

The anti-choice politicians who are currently dominating the congressional GOP are joined by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in their dogged determination to eliminate contraceptive access.

The New York Times recently reported that the Obama administration is looking into whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA) “…can be used to require insurance plans to offer contraceptives and other family planning services to women free of charge” thereby providing greater access to birth control for women who cannot afford the cost.

ACA requires insurers to provide all preventive health services at no cost to the insured person.  Because scientific evidence has clearly established that access to contraception and family planning services not only improves a woman’s overall health but increases her life span, contraception should be covered under ACA.

Nonetheless, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with other conservative organizations, is predictably objecting to science based reasoning, telling the New York Times “[p]regnancy is not a disease to be prevented, nor is fertility a pathological condition…So birth control is not preventive care, and it should not be mandated.”

The Department of Health and Human Services will likely issue the preventative health care guidelines for women’s health care by August 1^st.  NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, the National Partnership for Women and Families, the Guttmacher Institute, and the National Women’s Law Center all support no-cost birth control along with the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics and many other obstetricians, gynecologists, pediatricians, and public health experts.

Take Action Now: Right now, the federal government and medical experts are deciding if no-cost birth control will be part of the new health-care system.

We are working hard to make no-cost birth control a reality. Our campaign is called BC4ME.  Get more information and sign our petition in support of no-cost birth control.

Stay tuned for updates on the War on Women and how you can get involved in protecting women’s rights and health.

Choice News

Abortion Access

Anti-choice Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has issued an opinion in which he argues for stricter regulations for the state’s abortion clinics.  Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, said, “These so-called regulations are only an attempt to shut down abortion clinics in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Tarina Keene discusses the regulations on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Salon’s Tracy Clark-Flory comments on Cuccinelli’s opinion, writing that “the great irony here is that by making it more difficult to access early abortions, the state would actually be putting women in greater danger.”

The Washington Post editorial board argues that additional regulations on abortion clinics are not needed in terms of improving women’s health, as Attorney General Cuccinelli claims, and that his opinion is a clear attempt to circumvent women’s rights with a “regulatory sleight of hand.”

RH Reality Check’s Robin Marty writes that women who lack health insurance coverage are increasingly turning to dangerous do-it-yourself abortions.

Yesterday Alaska voters approved an anti-choice ballot measure that requires parental notification for minors seeking abortion care.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is seeking an injunction to prevent an aggressive anti-choice protester from entering the driveway leading to the Presidential Women’s Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.  This is the first time that anyone in Florida has been charged under the 1994 Federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

2010 Elections

Clint Didier, who made an unsuccessful bid in the Washington Senate primary and is backed by Tea Party activists, said he would endorse Republican Dino Rossi only if Rossi pledges to take more conservative positions on a number of issues, including abortion.  Rossi declined to yield to Didier’s demands.  NARAL Pro-Choice Washington executive director Lauren Simonds comments that “Rossi’s strategy has always been to appear as a moderate,” and that NARAL would continue “educating voters about how conservative and anti-choice he is.”

Statewide turnout in the 2010 Primary Election was 40.41%, the highest turnout in a midterm primary in 40 years.

Other News of Note

The Obama administration is appealing a federal district court ruling challenging the legality of the administration’s guidelines on embryonic stem cell research.

Strong Pharmacy Access Rules at Risk

The Washington Board of Pharmacy has issued an official notice that they intend to draft a new pharmacy rule, and no longer require pharmacies to provide the medications you need, including emergency contraception, without hassle, delay or judgment.

The rules that we worked so hard to pass in 2007 that require pharmacies to fill patients’ prescriptions on site and on time, regardless of an individual pharmacist’s personal beliefs, have been challenged in court by anti-choice activists. That case has been put on hold because the state sided with the anti-choice plaintiffs and filed a motion to delay the trial to give the Pharmacy Board time to change the rules in question and allow pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription and refer patients elsewhere.

Do not let the Pharmacy Board backtrack on its support for patient access. Here are two important ways you can speak out and protect our strong pharmacy access rules:

• Contact the Board of Pharmacy and urge them to keep the current rules in place. These rules protect patient heath by making sure that all Washingtonians can access the medications they need, when they need them. This message will also go to Gov. Chris Gregoire, who has been a strong supporter of the existing rules, thanking her for her advocacy and asking her to work with the Pharmacy Board to continue to protect access to medications.

• Sign up via email to join us at one or both of the Pharmacy Board meetings on September 17 in Renton and September 29 in Kent. (meeting details below)

We need as strong a showing as possible at these meetings to make sure the Pharmacy Board knows that it is not acceptable for sexual assault survivors, people who have disabilities or people who live in rural areas to be told they have to travel 40, 50 or even 60 miles to get the medications they need.

Your access to health care should not be based on whether a pharmacist thinks the medication your doctor prescribes is right or wrong!

Help us spread the word! Make sure the Pharmacy Board gets the message loud and clear that Washingtonians support the existing pharmacy access rules!

Pharmacy Board Meetings:

Friday, September 17, 2010
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Blackriver Training and Conference Center
800 Oakesdale Ave SW
Renton, WA 98057

Wednesday, September 29, 2010
1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
CenterPoint Commons – Conference Center
20809 72^nd Avenue South
Kent, Washington  98032

RSVP to Alison Mondi if you can attend one or both of these meetings. Questions?  Call (206) 624-1990.

Choice News

2010 Elections

Today is Washington’s Primary Election, and mail-in ballots must be postmarked by today in order to be counted.  NARAL Pro-Choice Washington’s voter guide is available here, and PubliCola posts the number to call for voters who lost their ballots.

EMILY’s List has a new video lampooning Sarah Palin’s “Mama Grizzlies” as part of their “Sarah doesn’t speak for me” campaign.  The pro-choice group is pushing back on Palin’s assertion that she has a monopoly on women’s support.

The anti-choice political group Susan B. Anthony List is taking a bus tour of swing districts, targeting anti-choice Democrats who supported the federal health care reform bill.  The anti-choice group has been greeted by protests from Catholics United, which supports health care reform, as well as by pro-choice activists.

Sex Education

Arkansas officials are considering abandoning dangerous and ineffective abstinence-only programs and applying for money from the federal government to teach comprehensive sex education programs.

Other News of Note

Slate’s Sharon Lerner discusses the realities of state and federal maternity leave laws.

Boston Globe columnist Joanna Weiss argues that the insufficient maternity leave policies in the U.S. reflect societal values about childrearing.

Amanda Marcotte praises Mad Men, the AMC television show set in the 1960s, for its realistic portrayal of a woman who has had abortions at a time when abortion was illegal.