Eliminating Abortion or Women’s Reproductive Freedom?
Correction: Some early versions of this story may have erroneously attributed a quote to Reina Schiffrin, who is the President/CEO of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
U.S. Democrats and local women’s health care providers are calling on Republicans to stop pursuing legislation that they say would create historically drastic cuts in women’s health services and reproductive freedoms.
“Since the beginning of the year the Republicans haven’t put a single bill on the floor that would create a single job,” said U.S. Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) at a press conference in White Plains Monday. “Instead, Republicans, the majority in the house, have prioritized an extremist agenda that seeks to roll back women’s reproductive rights.”
Bills H.R. 3, H.R. 358 and H.R. 217—titled “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” the “Protect Life Act,” and the “Title X Abortion Prohibition Act”—will make it more expensive to pay for healthcare from providers who cover abortions and would eliminate the Title X federal funding program that funds healthcare providers who offer full reproductive services.
Democrats and women’s advocates say the bills would allow hospitals to leave pregnant women to die; prevent the funding of abortions for rape and incest victims; and block crucial preventative care services, like birth control and STD screenings. Republicans say the legislation will make abortion inaccessible, which will reduce the number that occur in the United States each year.
At the press conference, Reina Schiffrin, President/CEO of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, called the bills “the most devastating legislative assault on women’s health care in American history.”
“It’s not just about terminating pregnancies,” Lowey said. “These women who are struggling in the economy will have no place to go for their health care.”
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and several other Democratic senators also have spoken out against the bills and what they view as the Republican Party’s misplaced priorities.
“This agenda disregards women’s rights and restricts the ability of women to access affordable health care,” Gillibrand said in a press release. “Clearly, the Republican House is not focusing on creating jobs or growing our economy, but making the degradation of women’s health care a top priority.”
According to the press release, the bill would:
Redefine the definitions of rape and incest, according to the National Women’s Law Center. This would mean that states would no longer be required to offer abortions to poor women who were raped, were victims of incest or need the abortion to save their lives.
No longer require hospitals to save the life of a pregnant woman if it meant the fetus would die.
Eliminate Title X funding, which funds places like Planned Parenthood that provide abortions in addition to preventative services like mammograms and other cancer screenings, birth control, HIV and STD testing and treatment, and annual check-ups.
Restrict women from deducting the cost of purchasing health insurance that offers certain reproductive services.
Would prevent women and families from using pre-taxed dollars (via Flexible Spending Accounts) to pay for certain health care from providers who offer abortions.
Prevent small businesses from receiving tax credits if they choose providers who offer abortions.
Though federal law prohibits taxpayer money from directly funding abortions, federal funds can give aid to providers who offer a range of health care services, including abortion.
Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) said the bill he sponsored, H.R.3, “is designed to permanently end any U.S. government financial support for abortion, whether it be direct funding or by tax credits or any other subsidy.”
Smith says the abortion industry is a “multimillion dollar business,” and that Planned Parenthood raked in $1 billion in fees, local, state and federal subsidies, while killing 324,000 babies in 2008.
Congressman Fred Upton (R-MI) says H.R. 358 aims to ensure that private insurance companies and families aren’t forced to cover abortion if they don’t want to.
“Individuals who have strong moral objections are thereby forced to directly finance abortion coverage in order to purchase a health care plan they believe best provides for their needs and the needs of their family members,” said Upton, in a Feb. 9 committee meeting. “This is wrong and the legislation proposed by Mr. Pitts [Congressman Joseph Pitts (R-PA)] corrects this injustice.”
Smith said abortion is harmful to women, and that studies show women who get abortions are at higher risk for suicide and depression.
“The ugly truth is that women are victimized by abortion—wounded and hurt physically and emotionally,” said Smith, on Jan. 20. “Women deserve better than abortion.”
UCSF/UC Hastings Forum to Address Role of Hormones in Women’s Health
The UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science and Health Policy and the Hastings Women’s Law Journal will host an upcoming symposium titled “Frontiers in Women’s Health: The Role of Hormones in Aging and Disease.”
The symposium will take place on Friday, Feb. 25, 2011, at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Admission is free. Continuing Medical Education credit is available.
This unique event will draw together speakers and attendees from the medical, legal and policy communities, and will present opportunities for members of each community to interact with and understand the perspectives of the others.
Malegra Fxt
The morning will begin with an overview of the now-familiar topic of hormone therapy in peri-menopausal and menopausal women, with an in-depth discussion of the Women’s Health Initiative hormone trial data and the controversies the data have engendered since the trials were halted. This topic will be the starting point for a wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary set of panels, including discussions about health policy decisionmaking, informed consent, litigation over hormone use, and gendered medicine. Panel titles are as follows:
Morning Panels
Panel 1 – Introduction and Background
Hormone Therapy: What We Know (and Don’t Know) after the Women’s Health Initiative Trials
Panel 2 – Translational Research and the “Timing Hypothesis”
Panel 3 – Government Agency and Health Policy Decision Making and Recommendations in an Environment of Empirical Uncertainty
Afternoon Panels
Panel 4 – Public Support/Public Advocacy: Public vs. Private Research Funding, Grassroots Advocacy, Effects on Underserved Populations, Media’s Role
Panel 5 – Informed Consent/Litigation Related to Hormone Therapy
Panel 6 – Legal Relevance of “Real” Differences: Constitutional Issues, Work and Family, Healthcare and Aging.
Women’s Health Experts Gather
The lunchtime keynote speaker is women’s health pioneer Marianne J. Legato, MD, an internationally recognized specialist in women’s health and the founder and director of the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University. She is the founder and editor of The Journal of Gender-Specific Medicine and a leading advocate for the inclusion of women in clinical trials.
Legato has devoted much of her research to the subject of women and heart disease. She is the author of several books, including Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine (for medical practitioners) and the general-trade books Eve’s Rib: The New Science of Gender-Specific Medicine and How It Can Save Your Life, The Female Heart: The Truth About Women and Heart Disease, and Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget (with Laura Tucker). Read more about Legato on the National Library of Medicine website.
Other panelists, in alphabetical order, include:
Roberta Diaz Brinton, PhD, R. Pete Vanderveen Chair in Therapeutic Discovery and Development, professor of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering and Neurology, University of Southern California; director, Los Angeles Basic Clinical Translational Science Institute.
Marcelle I. Cedars, MD, professor, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, director, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at UCSF; principal investigator, UCSF Women’s Health Clinical Research Center.
Marsha Cohen, JD, professor of Law, UC Hastings College of the Law; past president, California State Board of Pharmacy. Cohen has served on four National Research Council and Institute of Medicine committees, including the recent “Committee on Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake,” and has also served on the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Review Panel on New Drug Regulation.
David L. Faigman, JD, John F. Digardi Distinguished Professor of Law, Director, UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy, UC Hastings College of the Law; Author of numerous books and articles concerning the use, or failure to use, scientific research in legal decision making.
Baruch Fischhoff, PhD, Howard Heinz University Professor, Depts. of Social and Decision Sciences and of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University; member, Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences; chair of the Food and Drug Administration Risk Communication Advisory Committee.
Cynthia Gorney, professor, UC Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism; Contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and National Geographic; former national features writer, South American bureau chief and founding Style section writer for the Washington Post.
Cantor’s policy on women’s health shows his speech as empty rhetoric
In his Charter Day address to the student body, House Majority Whip Eric Cantor J.D. ’88 declared, “Our commonwealth, this region, is a place where our founding principles of liberty, democracy and limited government were cultivated.” Apparently, these founding principles do not extend to America’s women.
Under Cantor’s leadership, the House of Representatives has introduced a number of bills to severely limit women’s liberty, expand governmental power over women’s bodies and harm our democracy.
In 1970, Richard Nixon signed Title X, legislation to provide family planning services for Americans. Title X was passed three years before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, a clear and obvious testament to the fact that Title X never intended to provide federally funded abortions. Under current U.S. law, no abortion is provided at federal expense.
This blatant fact, however, does not appease those in control of Congress’ 112th session. Rep. Mike Pense (R-Ind.) introduced H.R. 217, or the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, to Congress on Jan. 7. The controversial bill has 164 co-sponsors, including three democrats, Michele Bachmann ’89 and our Congressman Rob Wittman. The bill would prohibit providers who perform abortions from receiving family planning grants.
If passed, H.R. 217 will have disastrous effects on the health of American women. The bill will cut $327 million in funding to Planned Parenthood. In 2008, Planned Parenthood provided healthcare to 3 million patients. According to its annual report for that year, 36 percent of Planned Parenthood’s total services went to providing contraception, 31 percent involved testing and treatment for STIs, 17 percent provided cancer screening and prevention and only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services were used for abortions. H.R. 217 will disconnect 3 million women from preventative treatment and vital healthcare annually.
On January 20, Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.), along with 121 cosponsors including 10 democrats, introduced H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act. As the law stands today, federal funds cannot be used for abortion services.
Plans that receive federal funds are required to keep those funds separate from funds used for abortion. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the Protect Life Act prohibits “federal funds from being used to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion services.” Even though federal assistance is not used to fund abortions, if H.R. 358 is passed, providers will be bribed into discontinuing abortion services.
Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) introduced H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. H.R. 3 similarly “prohibits federal funds from being used for any health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.” Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) has called H.R. 3 “one of our highest legislative priorities.” Abortion has been legal in the United States for 38 years, but Congress seems determined to revoke healthcare providers’ right to cover it at their own expense. Congress’ chief priority seems politicized and pointless in a time when Americans are faced with mounting debt, high unemployment and homelessness.
Rep. Cantor told us last Friday that America is “the world’s free-est [sic] and most prosperous nation.” Yet in terms of women’s health, our country is by no means the world’s leader. Amnesty International’s 2010 report, “Deadly Delivery; The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA,” outlines the danger of further sanctioning women’s health. The report declares the U.S. 41st in maternal health. Further limiting women’s access to vital health services such as family planning and cancer screening will improve neither women’s freedom nor American prosperity.
The sponsors of these bills claim to be both anti-deficit and pro-life, yet they have introduced no such measures regarding the defense budget. Of the world’s military expenditures in 2006, the United States accounted for 46 percent. According to the Center for Defense Information, defense related budget requests for 2011 total at around $1,048.9 billion dollars. An obvious way both to reduce spending and save lives would be to examine the defense budget; yet our leaders are focusing on limiting women’s access to pap smears. At our Charter Day assembly, Rep. Cantor proclaimed that “America is built on a culture of opportunity, responsibility and earned success.” American liberty and democracy are too important to be used merely as politicized talking points: We must extend these freedoms to our citizens before we can boast about them to the world.