Healthcare Prof:
4.5 (2 votes)
Antiabortion-rights Republicans made large gains inside the midterm elections, but “the buck still stops together with the president,” the American Prospect‘s Pema Levy writes in an opinion piece. She continues, “The real threat, though, especially inside the long term, is that the Obama administration may not stand firm in its commitment to women’s reproductive rights.”
Levy writes that the “majority of federal-level reproductive well being decisions” are made by President Obama and the executive branch, “which oversees myriad programs and directs millions of dollars toward women’s well being services.” For example, Obama and HHS “have significant manage over sex education” and have made “significant effort[s] to redirect federal funding of sex education to science-based programs.” Obama in his 2010 budget allocated $114.5 million for programs to prevent teen pregnancy, support parenting teens and research prevention programs. James Wagoner, president of the Advocates for Youth, said that “vigorous presidential leadership” could help defend against political attacks on these programs which are overwhelmingly supported by the public.
Meanwhile, the federal well being reform law (PL 111-148) “gives the administration an unprecedented chance to improve women’s reproductive health” simply because HHS “has the power to define contraception as a preventive service that insurance programs must provide to girls totally free of charge,” Levy continues. This week, the Institute of Medicine will begin drafting recommendations on women’s preventive services to help HHS determine which services health plans really should required to cover without having cost-sharing.
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the possibility of no-cost contraceptive coverage “is huge” and perhaps the administration’s most significant opportunity for improving reproductive choice. Wagoner said the problem could rally Democratic support among female voters, making it “the ultimate line-in-the-sand for the administration.”
Although Obama supports reproductive rights, he has “earned the ire of progressives by stalling or seemingly abandoning causes,” such as health reform’s public selection and the repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service members, according to Levy. “Despite enormous public support for comprehensive sex ed, government support of family planning and affordable access to contraception, there’s no guarantee that reproductive rights won’t become the administration’s next broken promise,” she continues.
The Obama administration “controls one of the most effective ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies and support women’s wellness,” Levy argues. Obama’s “defense of — or retreat from — women’s health over the next two years will reflect how he interpreted the midterm results and how he’s shaping his overall electoral strategy leading up to 2012,” Levy states. “Ceding ground will mean Obama is moving to the center,” she adds, concluding, “But if Obama uses the executive branch to counter the forthcoming attacks on women’s reproductive rights, he will reaffirm his party’s commitment to those who elected him” (Levy, American Prospect, 11/12).
The Nation Examines #ihadanabortion Twitter Campaign
Reproductive-rights advocates are anticipating an “amped-up assault on women’s rights” as a result with the midterms, although the “full extent with the damage” will not be known for months or years, The Nation reports. Antiabortion-rights Republicans picked up 53 House seats and five Senate seats inside the election.
In response to the Republican gains, reproductive-rights advocate Steph Herold started a Twitter campaign to encourage females who have had abortions to publicly speak out, using the hashtag #ihadanabortion in their tweets. The social networking site was soon “swarmed” with “first-person accounts of women’s abortion experiences,” as properly as responses from advocates on both sides of the debate, based on The Nation.
On Friday, the magazine included a discussion about the Twitter campaign with Herold and Aspen Baker, founder of Exhale, an online community for girls who have had abortions to privately discuss their experiences. Herold and Baker discussed the importance of girls openly sharing their abortion experiences, and the risks and benefits of using the Internet to raise consciousness of abortion (Douglas, The Nation, 11/12).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the whole Every day Women’s Well being Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Well being Policy Report is really a cost-free service of the National Partnership for Females & Families.
? 2010 National Partnership for Girls & Families. All rights reserved.
