Obama Staff Already Reviewing HHS Conscience Clause Expansion
The Bush administration will likely finalize an HHS regulation expanding provider conscience clause protections this week, but Obama staffers are already looking at ways to undo the regulation, reports the Wall Street Journal. That regulation is only one of many Bush-era policies harmful to women's health that Obama will address during his administration. The Journal reports:
Decisions that the new administration will weigh include: whether to cut funding for sexual abstinence programs; whether to increase funding for comprehensive sex education programs that include discussion of birth control; whether to allow federal health plans to pay for abortions; and whether to overturn regulations such as one that makes fetuses eligible for health-care coverage under the Children's Health Insurance Program.
Women's health advocates are also pushing for a change in rules that would lower the cost of birth control at college health clinics.
Though Connie Mackey, senior vice-president of Family Research Council Action, says that her organization's "No. 1 concern would be the [Freedom of Choice] bill," the Journal points out that FOCA is not on the list of priorities reproductive health advocates have set out for the first 100 days of Obama's administration. "We're going to be smart and strategic about our policy agenda to bring people together to make progress for women's health," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "The Freedom of Choice Act is very important...but we have a long list of things to get done that I think can address problems immediately that women are facing, that are really immediate concerns."
What Does "Common Ground" Really Mean?
In The American Prospect, Sarah Posner examines the "abortion reduction" efforts of pro-life "progressive" evangelicals. Posner reports that pro-life "progressive" evangelicals like Rev. Jim Wallis like to claim that their support for "abortion reduction" - which amounts to policy encouraging women to bring pregnancies to term, and discouraging abortion - is a "common ground" position:
Abortion reduction, framed as a package of incentives to encourage women facing unintended pregnancies to carry them to term, "is the new common ground," says Wallis, who claims that "people on the edges, on the left, and the right, won't support it." Wallis frequently accuses those of not agreeing with his anti-abortion "common ground" of restoking the "culture wars," but there are other ideas of where the common ground lies.
But others say common ground can be found somewhere else:
According to Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, "Americans want to move beyond the divisive political attacks that defined the debate over abortion during the Bush era. The public wants lawmakers to find common ground -- to focus on policies that improve women's access to birth control and ensure that teens receive accurate sex education -- all of which helps prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion without undermining a woman's right to choose."
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said that her organization "does more than any other organization to prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion. One in four women in this country has been to a Planned Parenthood clinic, primarily for prevention and contraception care."
Planned Parenthood Partners with Shelter to Bring RH Care to Homeless Women
Homelessness leaves women particularly vulnerable, reports the Santa Barbara Independent, so three Santa Barbara social service organizations established a "biweekly walk-in clinic and day center with confidential reproductive health services, counseling, shower facilities, laundry, child care, and lunch." Planned Parenthood will supply the reproductive health care services:
For the first few months, reproductive services will be limited to what Planned Parenthood dubs "express exams." They include birth control and testing for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) without that physical exam many women find intimidating. Within a few months though, the clinic will ramp up to a full-service Planned Parenthood satellite clinic, capable of gynecological exams and the more invasive birth control device Implanon, which is surgically inserted under the skin and lasts for three years.
"We really wanted to look beyond our four walls and work collaboratively with more community-based organizations," Pat Fajardo, Planned Parenthood's vice president of clinical services, told the Independent.
