women's health care

Here comes the next generation of leaders.

Ever since the Stupak amendment forced students nationwide to wake up from their complacency surrounding the fight for choice and comprehensive women’s health care, there has been a reinvigoration of student passion, verve, and drive to act. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the first Students Stop Stupak rally (http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/Leah627/2009/11/15/STUDENTS-STOP-STUPAK) that we planned here at Harvard University. That event proved a success: upwards of a hundred people, undergraduates, graduate students, and engaged passersby, joined in to protest. Shouting, “Health Care YES, Stupak NO” and “Stop Stupak Now!” we forced Cambridge residents, Harvard students, and local and national media to listen to us.

In July 2009, 12 young leaders from Florida joined over 200 of
their peers from across the nation at the Planned Parenthood Youth
Organizing and Policy Summit. A sea of bright pink health care
T-shirts took over Capitol Hill, as Planned Parenthood young activists
visited members of Congress to ensure that access to women's health
care is included in health care reform. Watch the video here...

The president and his staff have been reluctant to take on reproductive rights in health reform. But that has not prevented anti-choicers from using the issue to activate their base against reform.

Adolescent refugees from Burma living in Thailand rely on community-based organizations, pamphlets and posters for sexual and reproductive health information and supplies like condoms.

No woman should be deceived into visiting a CPC. So I am working on my campus to make sure women know where they can go to get comprehensive and un-biased reproductive health care and to warn them about fake clinics in our community.

In her reader diary, Josh Truitt reports that Senator John Kerry has introduced the Women's Health Insurance Fairness Act, legislation that would prevent insurers in the individual market from charging more based on gender.

Abortion providers have been threatened, attacked, and even murdered by anti-choice extremists. If the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recognizes them as women's rights defenders, would providers be better protected?

The presidential candidates have been challenged with the same question again and again: In our unprecedented economic crisis, what programs or services will you cut? If they cut family planning services, other reproductive health costs are sure to spiral leaving "Jane the plumber" without the critical health services she needs.

Critical maternal health interventions can be funded without overhauling health systems. What's missing is the political will.