Health care disparities at issue in abortion rates among black Americans
OAKLAND — The abortion rate in the African-American community is several times higher than any other group, but community members and health providers say a recent anti-abortion billboard campaign in Oakland is misguided and simplistic.
The billboards, financed and distributed by the anti-abortion organization Issues4Life have prompted outrage among abortion rights groups and women’s health care organizations who say the ads are inflammatory, racist and demeaning. But Walter Hoye, who directs the group, says the billboards are a way of bringing attention to what he has described as an abortion-created “genocide” in the African-American community.
Nationwide, African-American women receive approximately five times as many abortions as white women, according to U.S government statistics collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those numbers hold true across all income levels. In 2006, the CDC recorded 45.9 abortions per 100 births among African-American women, versus 16.2 for white women. The Gutmacher Institute, an abortion rights research center that focuses on issues around women’s reproductive health, said African-American women are three times as likely as white women to have an unintended pregnancy. California does not make abortion figures available to the public.
“This is a topic we ought to talk about,” said Hoye, a Berkeley pastor and Union City resident. “It’s the No. 1 killer in the African-American community.” Hoye’s efforts are part of a nationwide anti-abortion movement that has erected billboards in Atlanta, Chicago and New York, among other cities.
Women’s health experts, abortion rights groups and several prominent African-American activists have decried the billboards’ appearance as a simplistic and demeaning response to a complex concoction of social ills.
“It is reprehensible, and disrespectful to the African-American community,” said Lupe Rodriguez, spokeswoman for the Alameda County branch of Planned Parenthood. “They’re trying to single out one part of the overall health care of that community, and using a wedge issue to divide people.”
Rodriguez and others say the high number of African-American abortions is due to a widespread pattern of health disparities in low-income and minority communities that prevents women from obtaining effective contraception and then sustaining its use over long periods of time.
A 2008 report from the Gutmacher Institute showed that the vast majority of abortions in the U.S. were due to unintended pregnancies, regardless of race or economic status.
“Life events such as relationship changes, moving or personal crises can have a direct impact on (contraceptive) method continuation,” wrote Susan Cohen, the author of the report, “Abortion and Women of Color: The Bigger Picture.” “Such events are more common for low-income and minority women than for others, and may contribute to unstable life situations where consistent use of contraceptives is lower-priority than simply getting by.”
Moreover, say critics of the billboards, the high abortion rates are just part of the picture. More broadly, the abortion figures fit into a pattern of poor health outcomes for African-Americans and Latinos in a number of areas. In 2008, the CDC reported that black teens were more than twice as likely to have some form of sexually transmitted disease. The incidence of AIDS rates nationwide is eight times higher for African-American men than for whites. Meanwhile, across California, African-Americans represent 6 percent of the population, but 16 percent of the uninsured. In Alameda County, there are roughly four times as many uninsured African-Americans as whites, even though their population numbers are on par.
“This was a longer effort to shame and blame black women to make some tough reproductive health decisions,” said Toni Bond Leonard, a spokeswoman for Black Women for Reproductive Justice, a national group based in Chicago where billboards have also appeared. “At no point has anyone attempted to reach out to black women in the community to find out what we believe. They want to make this about abortion, but this is about health disparities.”
In Oakland, the billboards are prominently visible. One of the 60 or so scattered across the city sits above a liquor store in West Oakland. It shows a pastiche of an African-American infant below the words “Black is Beautiful.” At the bottom of the sign is a website address: toomanyaborted.com.
Across the street, a young woman named Nikki glances up and frowns. “We’re approaching it backward,” she said. “The message up there should say, ‘Do you have enough support?’ or ‘Do you have resources to help you during this pregnancy?’”
One young African-American man in the area said he supported the overall message, largely because of the two young daughters he works so hard to support.
“I don’t believe in abortion,” said Auntrell Brooks, 32, a carpenter. “I have two daughters, and once you see them grow up, you see what you have.” Brooks had his first daughter when he was 16. But he says he knows many women who have aborted their pregnancies. “They said it hurt, they couldn’t afford it, the baby’s daddy was gone, they just had sex and got pregnant.”
Planned Parenthood and a number of other local health organizations have begun responding to the billboards by meeting with community leaders and doing outreach programs to counter Hoye’s message. “It really boils down to people not having access to care, not being able to prevent those unintended pregnancies,” Rodriguez said.
Access is not the real issue, counters Hoye.
“One side is comfortable taking the life of a human being, and one side isn’t,” he said. “That baby should be protected by love and by law. If there’s any confusion about that, we can wait and find out.”
Ultimately, the billboards may be more of a distraction than a help, said Belle Taylor-McGhee, national communications director for Trust Black Women, an abortion rights advocacy group.
“Across the country, you’re going to find a majority of African-American women support a woman making a private decision about when and whether to be a parent,” she said. “But you have to engage people to assess that.”
Kansas abortion law awaits ruling
Two of the three remaining abortion businesses in Kansas continue their battle against tougher licensing standards outlined in a new state law that was supposed to go into effect July 1, seeking and receiving a temporary restraining order in federal court.
Just hours after the standards went into effect, U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia temporarily blocked the state from enforcing the new rules until a time when the court could rule on the matter.
Aid for Women (AFW) in Kansas City, Kan., and the Center for Women’s Health (CWH) in Overland Park claimed the new regulations caused unnecessary hardships on their businesses, which they said would require extensive renovations in order to comply. They also complained that they did not receive the final licensing regulations until June 17, which did not give them enough time to come into compliance by July 1.
The Kansas City Star reported that Murguia issued the preliminary injunction because the plaintiffs would likely succeed in their claim that they were denied due process.
“There is absolutely no way that they could have complied with those requirements,” Teresa Woody, an attorney for the two CWH abortionists, argued in federal court. “There is an undue burden both on the doctors and the patients.”
The new regulations include what drugs and equipment providers must stock, require them to make medical records available for inspection, set standards for room sizes and temperatures, and require patients to remain in recovery rooms at least two hours after an abortion.
“Abortion clinics and the abortion staff hate being regulated and inspected,” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman. “It is no surprise that these shoddy abortion clinics refuse the most basic standards.”
Other supporters add that the new regulations would protect patients and often cite South Carolina’s similar set of regulations for abortion providers as a good model that’s already survived court scrutiny.
The state’s third abortion provider, Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri in Overland Park, was initially denied an abortion license after an inspection by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) and had also filed suit to block implementation of the new law. But after a second inspection, Planned Parenthood received its license a day before the new law went into effect.
CWH, run by a father-daughter team, Herbert Hodes and Traci Nauser, canceled its scheduled KDHE inspection, deciding to file suit instead. Previously, when asked by the Associated Press about the law’s new safety regulations, Hodes said, “We’re doomed.”
AFW was denied its license based on information provided in a written application, prompting it to join CWH’s lawsuit on June 29.
According to the new regulations approved by the Kansas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Sam Brownback, the KDHE must annually license facilities that perform more than five non-emergency abortions per month.
“A review of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment records shows that not one single abortion has ever been performed on a woman in Kansas to save her life,” Operation Rescue’s Newman pointed out.
Exponential Rise in Hospitals Seeking Guidance of Spirit of Women Health Network
Spirit of Women Health Network today announces that nearly 20 U.S. hospitals and medical centers have decided to join forces with Spirit of Women Health Network within the past year in an effort to advance the cause and business of women’s health, and to energize the passion and profitability of women’s health. Hospital executives from more than 170 Spirit of Women member hospital facilities and health systems in 35 states from coast to coast will gather at the Spirit of Women annual National Executive Meeting in Scottsdale to focus on the challenges and successes facing the hospital and healthcare industry.
“The key to successful healthcare is improving prevention, patient navigation, physician engagement and clinical integration on the local and national levels, and that’s exactly what we do,” said Spirit of Women President Tanya Abreu. ”Our strong, vibrant national network provides us with opportunities to improve the lives of women and their families and make a profound impact on the success of healthcare today and into the future.”
From July 13 – 15, hospital executives will gather to exchange best practices, explore a range of care models, and learn strategic solutions for re-energizing and expanding women’s service lines as part of the National Executive Meeting of the Spirit of Women Health Network taking place in Scottsdale this year.
“Women are the largest and most influential consumer group for every hospital in the nation, and because the health care needs and demands of women are so vastly different than those of men, it is critically important to get it right,” said Tana Sykes, Communication Director for St. David’s North Austin Medical Center in Austin, TX. “We joined Spirit of Women this year to build upon a comprehensive women-centric business strategy to enhance the services we offer the community, to better engage women and to further strengthen our hospital system.”
Spirit Expansions
During the past year, Spirit of Women Health Network has seen astounding growth, with the following hospitals and health systems becoming part of this effort to transform women’s health across the country:
St. Joseph Hospital, Chicago, IL
Medical Center of Lewisville, Lewsville, TX
Northwest Hospital – LifeBridge Health, Baltimore, MD
Susquehanna Health, Wiliamsport, PA
Forsyth Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC
Medical Center of Trinity, New Port Richey, FL
Catholic Healthcare West – Sacramento Region North, Sacramento, CA
Catholic Healthcare West – Sacramento Region South, Sacramento, CA
St. Joseph Medical Center, Reading, PA
Baptist Medical Center South, Montgomery, AL
Gulf Coast Medical Center, Panama City, FL
Capital Regional Medical Center, Tallahassee, FL
Thompson Health, Canandaigua, NY
Las Colinas Medical Center, Irving, TX
Schneck Medical Center, Semour, IN
Mercy Hospitals of Bakersfield, Bakersfield, CA
Willis-Knighton Health System, Shreveport, LA
ABOUT SPIRIT OF WOMEN
Spirit of Women is a national network of hospitals dedicated to advancing the cause and business of women’s health. The Spirit of Women business strategy packages and promotes women’s health across all hospital service lines resulting in increased volumes and market share, successful new patient acquisition, enhanced physician relationships, amplified national and regional media attention, and improved community health status. Spirit of Women offers turnkey educational, outreach and business development tools including targeted clinical programs, signature events, publications and year-round digital and print communication strategies to hospitals seeking market leadership in women’s services.
Women in Favelas Broadcast Peace
Local women’s voices have begun to be heard over a community radio station now broadcasting in Complexo do Alemao, a clump of favelas or shantytowns on the north side of this Brazilian city that were ruled until recently by armed drug gangs.
Gender issues, social and health matters, local environmental problems, employment and women’s rights are the focus of Radio Mulher, or women’s radio station, which began to broadcast this month.
Before going on the air, the participants received a year of training about the workings of a radio station, including general courses for all as well as specific training in different areas depending on each woman’s role in the station, as determined by each individual’s strengths and talents.
The new community radio station operators are aiming to “exorcise” difficult experiences that plague many girls and women in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and other cities in Brazil. “What are our ghosts? Sexual abuse and rape,” Anatalia dos Santos, one of the first 28 women to receive the training, responds to IPS without hesitation.
The radio stations wants to tackle these and other thorny issues “that no one wants to talk about, like beatings from husbands, economic dependency on men, mothers who have to raise their children on their own,” she said.
“Women appear to be more resilient and combative, but they weren’t raised to get a job, to be successful, to make it on their own,” said dos Santos, who works as a nursing aide.
Because of this, she said, many women in Complexo do Alemao and other favelas are trapped by the reasoning that “better to live badly with him than worse off without him.”
Dos Santos belongs to Mulheres da Paz (Women of Peace), as do the rest of the women at the radio station, which broadcasts in the Complexo and surrounding areas on 98.7 FM.
Women of Peace, a Ministry of Justice programme, recruits community leaders to mediate in conflicts among local residents and try to create a peaceful haven in the favelas.
Anthropologist Solange Dacach, Women of Peace field coordinator in Rio de Janeiro and at the radio station, told IPS that one major focus of the initiative is working with young people in the favelas, because they are the chief victims of violence in Brazil.
“So many young people were being killed in drug-related turf wars,” she said.
That was the situation in the Complexo do Alemao, a complex of 13 favelas home to between 70,000 and 100,000 people, until November 2010, when the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro drove out the armed drug trafficking gangs that controlled the area, by means of a massive police and military incursion.
After regaining control over the favelas, the authorities established a permanent presence – which the government describes as a “social invasion” – with a focus on community policing and efforts to bring basic services like running water, sanitation and education to the poor neighbourhoods.
“No one wants to live surrounded by guns and seeing their kids left without any option but to pick up a gun,” dos Santos said.
Despite the ostentatious presence of an “army pacification force”, many residents of Complexo and other favelas in Rio de Janeiro where the authorities have regained control are afraid that the government will abandon them once again and the drug trafficking gangs will move back in and take reprisals.
The women involved in Radio Mulher realise that the cycle of violence cannot be broken overnight, and can only be combated by creating “a culture of peace.”
The community radio station is based on the concept of women as logical nurturers of that culture of peace, because of their mothering and caretaking roles, whether these are built-in or learned, said Dacach.
There are important precedents for this social leadership role taken on by women, said the anthropologist. “In Brazil there are a large number of movements of mothers: mothers of missing youngsters and children, of young people who were tortured by the (1964-1985) dictatorship,” which form part of the tradition of women involved in political and feminist struggles, community organising, soup kitchens and other initiatives.
Through the community radio station, the women in the Complexo want to make “peace” a tangible, day-to-day reality in the favelas.
The list of issues they plan to deal with include women’s health, sexually transmitted diseases, birth control and local environmental clean-up initiatives, said Marcia Rolemberg, head of educational communication in the state environment ministry.
With the support of other government and non-government institutions from the state of Rio de Janeiro, Radio Mulher aired its first programme, focused on the environment “as a whole,” on Jul. 2.
“Social questions are related to their environmental context, and because of this, the programme has a gender focus,” Rolemberg said, stressing that environmental issues are not limited to “plants or flowers.”
For these women, who come from poor, violent neighbourhoods, there is no shortage of issues to be addressed.
“Because of my life experience, I want to transmit to other women that they can’t be at the mercy of a pile of clothes,” Ivanir Toledo told IPS.
“They have to think of their family, yes, but also that their objective is to grow,” said Toledo, whose husband, head cook at a restaurant in a posh tourist area, is pleased with the changes he has seen in his wife.
“She’s more active and involved in her activities; she’s happier, and I am too,” Luiz Pereira de Sousa commented to IPS as he prepared a typical Brazilian dish with beef, rice and beans in the family’s home. “If we’re not close to our family, we as men don’t move forward either,” he added.
Toledo, who survived as a street child, homeless and on her own, wants the radio station to address an issue that still causes her pain: sexual violence.
Now happily married and the mother of a teenage daughter, Toledo, who is an active member of Women of Peace, has not forgotten that the streets are especially violent for girls.
“If you ask a man for a plate of food, you know the first thing that will pop into his mind. I started suffering violence as soon as I left home (at age nine). I’m talking about rape and abuse. And not just at the hands of one or two or three guys, but more. You’re there against your will, at that person’s mercy,” she said in a quiet voice.
Dos Santos, meanwhile, wants to discuss the question of work.
“In general, job training courses are especially focused on men, even though the highest levels of unemployment are among women, who in addition are often the heads of their families,” she said.
The radio station’s first programme dealt with an issue of special interest to the community: the launch of a campaign to prevent dengue fever and the reproduction of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads the disease. The radio station’s campaign has the support of the Health Ministry.
Structured as a friendly chat among neighbour women, the programme moved from issue to issue, ranging from advice on how to keep the neighbourhood free of garbage and standing water in which the mosquitoes breed to how to recognise the first symptoms of dengue fever.
Although the Women of Peace are the operators of the radio station, it will be open to all voices in the community, not only because that is its role as a community station, but also because it is their calling, they explained to IPS during one of the workshops in which they receive ongoing training.