Salon.com > Reproductive Health Care

For raped Peace Corps volunteers, little choice

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:35:00 +0000

Update, 7:30 p.m.: A Peace Corps spokesperson responds:

"The safety and security of Peace Corps Volunteers is our highest priority. Over the past few years, we’ve put in place a number of new, significant practices and safeguards to reduce the risks for Volunteers and ensure victims of crime receive compassionate and effective support.

The Peace Corps supports Senator Lautenberg’s bill and the President’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget, which extends the same rights and protections to female Peace Corps Volunteers as many of their federal colleagues by applying exceptions on abortion restrictions as outlined in the Hyde Amendment."

Original post:

As Mary Kate Shannon waited to find out if she was pregnant after being raped for the second time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, the healthcare coordinator told her her options were limited. "If I were pregnant, the Peace Corps could not pay for the abortion due to some kind of federal law," Shannon recalled in an interview with Salon. They would, however, pay for parenting classes.

"I felt betrayed," Shannon said. "I felt like it was a decision that was going to be made for me. I wasn't in a place financially where I felt like I could pay for it."

Democratic lawmakers: Getting birth control should be as easy as “ABC”

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 20:32:00 +0000

While the White House and the Catholic Church continue to slug it out over whether private, for-profit companies like Hobby Lobby should have to provide their employees with federally mandated birth control, two Democratic lawmakers are hoping to ease one roadblock to women's access to contraception: Pharmacists.

In an effort to standardize pharmacies' procedures for filling prescriptions for birth control, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have reintroduced the “Access to Birth Control (ABC) Act." It's the same bill the politicians tried to get through previous legislative sessions, but these two are clearly Charlie-Brown-and-the-football types, and are optimistically giving it another shot.

Catholic hospital argues fetuses aren’t people in malpractice suit

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 20:53:00 +0000

There is something a little off about the Internet gloating surrounding a malpractice lawsuit that got a Catholic hospital to do a 180 on fetal personhood.

Sure, it is hypocritical for a Catholic hospital to reverse course on their "commitment to the unborn" just because there is money at stake. But by rejecting the wrongful death claim filed after two 7 month-old fetuses died in the womb, Catholic Health Initiatives, a nonprofit that runs roughly 170 health facilities in 17 states, is finally following the law, rather than fighting it. And that's a good thing.

Another reason gloating is a less than palatable option? There is a real tragedy at the heart of this lawsuit. As reported in the Colorado Independent:

2012 was a banner year for antiabortion laws

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:02:00 +0000

According to a policy review released by the Guttmacher Institute, 2012 saw the second-highest number of abortion restrictions ever enacted. The ranking comes as little surprise in a year when politicians like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock became household names, and one of the House's staunchest antiabortion members got second billing on the Republican presidential ticket.

During the year, 19 states enacted 43 provisions to restrict access to abortion services, whether mandating invasive ultrasounds, blocking health insurance coverage, shuttering women's health clinics or limiting access to the morning-after pill and contraception. The record for most restrictions was set in 2011 with 92.

The worst offenders? Arizona ranked No. 1, enacting seven antiabortion restrictions, and Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin followed close behind with at least three restrictions each.

Is Texas’ reproductive health care in jeopardy?

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Texas health commissioner Kyle Janek said Wednesday that errors in a state-crafted database intended to help women find reproductive health care providers are “a real problem.”

As the state attempts to implement a rule barring Planned Parenthood clinics from participating in the government-funded Women’s Health Program, the health commission has directed low-income women to use its online database to search for a new provider.

Nearly half of the women served by the program currently rely on Planned Parenthood. The commission says that more than 3,000 providers are available to serve these women, but many experts are skeptical that these facilities will be able to accommodate the women displaced by the new rule.