Family Planning Issues

(most recent item first)

• "Women's Health Matters!"

Future Choices TV episode
aired May 2009

In the face of continued attacks on reproductive rights, New York’s laws need to be strengthened to protect women’s health and safety, asserts Tracey Brooks, President & CEO of Family Planning Advocates of New York, in “Women’s Health Matters!” Unless we press our state legislators to enact the Reproductive Health Act, New York women risk losing some basic reproductive rights which we need to protect women's health and safety.

  • Nurse Family Parnership Program for Low-Income Women Attracting Bipartisan Support

    • National Partnership for Women & Families
    April 17, 2009

    Supporters of President Obama's proposal for a nurse home-visitation program for low-income women who are pregnant or have recently given birth are "optimistic" that bipartisan support for the plan in Congress will help ensure that it receives funding this year, CQ HealthBeat reports. The proposed initiative was inspired by the Colorado-based Nurse-Family Partnership, a similar program for low-income women that research shows has led to improved prenatal health, fewer subsequent pregnancies and a decrease in childhood injuries, according to David Olds, the founder of the program and a professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. |MORE

    “Family Planning: Critical Safety Net in Hard Times”

    Future Choices episode
    aired April 2009

    Federal dollars invested in family planning is “smart government at its best,” asserts Rachel Benson Gold, the lead author of a 2009 report from the venerable Guttmacher Institute. “Publicly funded family planning is basic health care that empowers disadvantaged women to decide for themselves when to become pregnant and how many children to have,” she adds. “It reduces recourse to abortion. And it saves significant amounts of taxpayer money.” Family Planning: Critical Safety Net in Hard Times, which aired on local access TV in Westchester County during April 2009, gave Ms. Gold the podium for a succinct rundown of the high points of her Guttmacher report.|MORE

    Parroting Propaganda on Family Planning

    by Julie Hollar
    RHRealityCheck.org
    Created Apr 6 2009 - 7:00am

    Of all the supposed "pork" in the proposed economic stimulus bill, perhaps none got so much media attention as the provision to extend family planning to more low-income women. As the House struggled to pass the legislation, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) issued a press release (1/23/09) claiming that the plan "includes taxpayer funding for contraceptives and the abortion industry." Two days later, Boehner railed on NBC's Meet the Press (1/25/09), "Spending...over $200 million for contraceptives, how [is] this going to fix an ailing economy?" |MORE

    Contraception and economic wellbeing

    Recent sales data showing that consumers are spending more money on all types of contraception -- including more requests for vasectomies -- indicate that the "embrace of family planning appears to be a critical step in financial planning," Cristina Page blogs in the 3/27/ 09 Huffington Post. She continues, "So much for family planning being a non-sequitur in discussions about the economy." |MORE

    Family planning a priority for more in tough economy

    One couple spends the cable money on contraception.

    By Heather May
    The Salt Lake Tribune
    Updated: 03/25/2009 10:02:44 AM MDT

    The economy is affecting Utah women's most private decisions: More are seeking help with planning their families, from seeking subsidized birth control to getting abortions.
    "We certainly see an impact on the number of people looking into contraceptive services," said Karrie Galloway, CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. |MORE

    Progress on Family Planning

    March 14, 2009
    New York Times
    EDITORIAL

    Tucked into the big spending bill just signed by President Obama is a welcome provision designed to make affordable birth control available to millions of women across the country.
    The provision is not a subsidy and will impose no burden on taxpayers. It will restore a limited exemption from Medicaid pricing rules that was in effect for nearly 20 years. It allowed pharmaceutical companies to supply contraceptives to college health clinics, all Planned Parenthood offices and other family-planning centers at an extreme discount that could be passed on to patients.

    Family planning may suffer as economy declines

    Cost may increasingly become a factor in making decisions about pregnancy, reproductive service agencies warn

    By Deborah L. Shelton
    Chicago Tribune reporter
    March 10, 2009

    As the economy worsens, providers of reproductive services say they are fielding more calls from distraught women facing difficult decisions about pregnancies they didn't plan and can't afford.

    The interviews also suggest that more women are struggling to afford contraception and that, in some cases, they are risking their physical and emotional health by delaying abortion procedures for weeks as they seek a way to pay the cost. |MORE

    President Obama takes first steps to remove the harmful 'provider refusal' regulation imposed by his predecessor

    While President Obama has taken the all-important first steps to overturning the Bush administration's harmful rule, the process for undoing the rule is exasperatingly long and tortuous. You are urged to add your name to the Planned Parenthood list of people who oppose Bush's dangerous move against women's health. |MORE!!

    National Partnership for Women and Families
    DAILY WOMEN'S HEALTH POLICY REPORT
    March 9, 2009

    The Obama administration on [March 6, 2009] moved to rescind the Health and Human Services (HHS) provider "conscience" rule, which "was pushed through by former president George W. Bush" and according to Bush administration officials was meant to interpret laws that accommodate workers who refuse to provide health services or information they object to on moral or religious grounds, Reuters reports (Fox, Reuters, 3/6).

    Detailing some of the concerns that have been expressed about the Bush Bush "conscience" rule Reuters explains that critics and HHS staff have said that it "was vague enough to let health professionals invoke the conscience clause to deny patients contraceptives, family planning advice, and even vaccines and blood transfusions."

    In its filing, HHS said it was "proposing to rescind" the rule "in its entirety," adding that it "believes that the comments on the ... proposed rule raised a number of questions that warrant further careful consideration" (AFP/Google.com, 3/7). The agency added that there were concerns that the rule "would limit access to patient care" and that some people, especially those in rural and underserved areas, could be denied access to care. "It is important that the department have the opportunity to review this regulation to ensure its consistency with current administration policy."

    See further: responses from the health care and women's rights community.

    NFPRHA warns that so-called conscience clause may be promulgated momentarily

    December 5, 2008

    NFPRHA has recently learned that the final version of the provider refusal rules proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services on August 26, 2008, is under review at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at OMB is one of the last required steps in the regulatory process before an agency may issue a proposed or final rule.

    "As of this moment, we do not have new information as to the date a final rule will ultimately be issued; review by OMB is merely an additional indicator that the administration plans to issue a final rule in the relatively near future."

    Opinion pieces decry the potential for harm which would result from the imposition of the so-called "conscience clause."

    NFPRHA Launches Ad Campaign Against Bush's Anti-contraception Regulations

    The Administration has issued new regulations they claim will protect workers, as a ruse to wage war on mainstream family planning services like counseling and contraception. Existing law carefully balances protections for individual religious liberty and patients' access to family planning services. |MORE

    In September 2008 the most recent and possibly the most vicious assault ever launched against women's health care rights was chronicled on Future Choices by Mary Jane Gallagher, President & CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association. Non-wealthy American women will face insurmountable barriers when they seek basic health care if the Bush administration succeeds in imposing new regulations on federally funded health facilities. In “Fighting the War on Contraception in America,” Ms. Gallagher reveals the dimensions of this unconscionable attack on American family planning and contraception.

    Calif. AG, Family Planning Advocates Say Proposed HHS Rule Would Overturn State Birth Control Law

    Aug. 21, 2008

    California Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) and some family planning advocates on Wednesday [8/20/08] said that a draft HHS regulation would prohibit the state from enforcing the state law requiring insurance coverage for birth control to women, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, 8/21). Also on Wednesday, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and MoveOn.org Political Action submitted a petition with more than 325,000 signatures urging HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt to withdraw the draft rule from consideration, ABC News reports (Barrett, ABC News, 8/20). | MORE

    An affront to women and families

    A last-ditch effort to redefine birth control as abortion isn't a matter of conscience; it's just unconscionable

    Michael Leavitt feels misunderstood, or so he hints on his blog. The Bush-appointed secretary of health and human services isn't sure how some people, somehow, got the crazy idea that the government intends to redefine birth control as a form of abortion. READ MORE in The Oregonian's editorial 8/12/08

    Redefining abortion:
    Federal officials considering a rule allowing health care workers to refuse to provide contraceptives

    The Bush administration has consistently opposed providing funding for international birth control programs, but until now has not tried to limit the use of contraceptives inside the United States.

    That could change in the president's final months in office. Read more: Houston Chronicle editorial 8/10/08

    Birth Control: They're at it again

    The Bush administration has heard the outrage over a proposed regulation that would dishonestly define birth control as abortion. Read MORE in SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL 8/10/08

    Treating the Pill as Abortion,
    Draft Regulation Stirs Debate

    Set aside the fraught question of when human life begins. The new debate: When does pregnancy begin?

    The Bush Administration has ignited a furor with a proposed definition of pregnancy that has the effect of classifying some of the most widely used methods of contraception as abortion. Read more: Wall Street Journal 7/31/08.

    More Uninsured Women of Reproductive Age

    Guttmacher Institute reports that in the past five years, the "proportion of women of reproductive age covered by one-third...Yet, this increase -- of nearly two million women -- was matched by an increase in the proportion of reproductive-age women who were uninsured." For full article and state by state statistics, see Guttmacher's report online.
    Implications are manifold when you consider the number of women without coverage for health care of any sort: no contraception, no prenatal or delivery services, no STD detection or treatment. In New York State that means three-quarters of a million!