Even in New York and the 16 other states that provide Medicaid coverage for abortion, thousands of low-income women fall between the cracks. Many women may be too poor to pay for abortion procedures, but they are uninsured or not poor enough to obtain public health insurance coverage like Medicaid.
Global coverage of women's rights abuses in Afghanistan is critical to raising awareness and changing this reality. But what is being done on the ground and at the policy level? What is the good news? The picture is often larger, and more complex, than we see.
Looking back, I now realize that finding contraception at Fordham was kind of like trying to find a suitable mate through a wanted ad. Even though you know it's out there, you can't believe what you have to go through to get it!
I am a recent member of Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Young Women’s National Advisory Council, a previous director of Stony Brook University School of Medicine’s chapter of Medical Students for Choice, and a future family medicine physician. I was incredibly disappointed by Susan G. Komen’s recent decision to end its funding of breast health programs at Planned Parenthood affiliates across the United States.
The Komen Foundation’s statement says that it “will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.” But this is NOT a reversal of any kind.
We must stand with Planned Parenthood. But let’s not do so in a way that denies the extreme importance of all the services they provide. As advocates for reproductive justice, the last thing we can afford to do is allow ourselves to become complicit in the stigmatization of abortion.
