abortion restrictions

February 7th, 2012

Falling between the cracks

Falling Between the Cracks: Why Abortion Funds Exist and How You Can Help Them Help Women, by Eesha Pandit and Steph Herold, was originally published in RH Reality Check on February 6, 2012

Melissa is 26 years old. She has a husband serving in the U.S. military overseas and a young daughter with numerous special health care needs. When they learned that she was pregnant, Melissa and her husband considered their limited resources and decided to seek an abortion. The ban on federal funding for abortion meant that this basic medical service was not covered. Melissa managed to raise half of the cost of her procedure by delaying payment of non-essential bills. The New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF) pledged the other half.

Erika is a 19-year-old college student with an infant. When she became pregnant, her boyfriend had recently been laid off, leaving their family uninsured. She called NYAAF for help when her family refused to offer assistance. She’d saved $100 dollars from her student loan check. NYAAF pledged the remaining $250 and Erika received the abortion care she needed.

Since 2001, the NYAAF has helped 764 women from 25 states, including Melissa and Erika 1,  gain access to safe abortion care. In fact, the need for abortion funding is so great that over 100 grassroots abortion funds exist across the country, all members of the National Network of Abortion Funds. NYAAF, a member of the Network, is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization that provides financial assistance to low-income women in New York state who can’t afford to pay for an abortion. This year, we’re celebrating a decade of ensuring accessible, funded abortion care in New York State.

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Categories: abortion restrictions, Funds, New York Abortion Access Fund

January 27th, 2012

Canada's abortion fund: helping women to access care

On January 28, 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada decriminalized abortion in the case of R. v. Morgentaler.

The Court found the country’s restrictive abortion law unconstitutional because it infringed on a woman’s right to “life, liberty, and security of the person” under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was adopted in 1982.

Unlike the United States and most countries, Canada has no operative legislation on abortion.

How did Canada get here?

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Categories: abortion restrictions, Funds, unfair laws, TakeAction

December 8th, 2011

Letter from the reproductive justice community opposing PRENDA

Hearing on H.R. 3541, The Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass
Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) of 2011

Written Testimony from the Reproductive Justice Community

December 6, 2011

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Categories: abortion restrictions

October 12th, 2011

URGENT: House to vote on bill to ban abortion in insurance plans! CALL TODAY!

UPDATE: H.R. 358 passed on a 251-172 vote on Thursday, October 13, 2011. Thank you so much for all your phone calls and support. We will keep you updated on how to ensure that this bill does not pass the Senate!

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Categories: abortion restrictions, economic justice, health care reform, TakeAction

October 3rd, 2011

Remembering Rosie Jiménez, honoring her life through our work

On October 3, 1977, Rosaura Jiménez died in Texas of an illegal abortion, becoming the first known woman to die because of the Hyde Amendment, which eliminated federal Medicaid funding for abortion.

Congress first adopted the Hyde Amendment on September 30, 1976, but it did not go into effect until August 4, 1977. Within just two months, it had driven a woman to take desperate steps that resulted in her death.

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Categories: abortion restrictions, Hyde Amendment, unfair laws, Medicaid, TakeAction

September 26th, 2011

The Hyde Amendment at 35: lessons for activists

Marlene Gerber Fried, founding president of the National Network of Abortion Funds, looks back at 35 years of the Hyde Amendment. What have we learned? Where do we go from here? (Cross-posted at RH Reality Check.)

The Hyde Amendment turns 35 this month. This provision, prohibiting federal Medicaid coverage of abortion in almost all circumstances, was the beginning of the anti-abortion movement’s post-Roe, all-out effort to ban abortion. It was a gateway bill, opening the door to the flood of restrictions which today constrict a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion, forcing women to “choose” between paying for other basic necessities and having an abortion, and, in too many cases, making abortion impossible. It became the precedent for all other denials of abortion funding, and reinforces our discriminatory, two-tier health care system in which people without financial resources cannot get the care they need.

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Categories: abortion restrictions, economic justice, Funds, Hyde Amendment, immigrants' rights, unfair laws, Medicaid, TakeAction

September 16th, 2011

Good News! Senate Committee passes budget without ban on DC abortion funding

Thank you to all who took action this week and called your Senators! The Senate Appropriations Committee met on Thursday, September 15th and passed the District of Columbia spending bill without any additional riders or bans on spending local funds on abortion.

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Categories: abortion restrictions, DC Abortion Fund, economic justice, Funds, unfair laws

September 13th, 2011

TAKE ACTION: Senate Committee meeting THIS WEEK!

This April, the House of Representatives balanced the budget on the backs of low-income women in a last-minute backroom deal that abruptly stripped the District of Columbia's ability to use local funds to pay for abortions for poor women. This outrageous new abortion ban overruled the authority of DC's own elected officials, denying Medicaid-eligible women vital reproductive health care and gambling with their lives.

Now the Senate Appropriations Committee is preparing to extend this dangerous ban in the 2012 appropriations bill.

Don't let it happen again!

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Categories: abortion restrictions, economic justice, Funds, health care reform, unfair laws, TakeAction

September 7th, 2011

Do Idaho's abortion laws discriminate against the poor?

Jennie Linn McCormack is a mother of three living on less than $250 a month in southeastern Idaho, hundreds of miles from the nearest abortion provider. Arrested for terminating a pregnancy with pills she bought online last year, now she's fighting back: she has filed a lawsuit saying that Idaho's 1972 law against self-induced abortion discriminates against low-income women who are left with no other options.

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Categories: abortion providers, abortion restrictions, economic justice, unfair laws

August 23rd, 2011

Another setback...and how you can help

"I know what impact this decision will have on Austin women." ~ Shailey Gupta-Brietzke, Board Member of Texas' Lilith Fund

Cross-posted from Hay Ladies

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Categories: abortion restrictions, Funds, health care reform, unfair laws, TakeAction