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Five Ways to Improve Reproductive Healthcare


January 12, 2009

With the new Congress – and with the Obama Administration in the White House – we hopefully enter a time of rational thought, based on science and the greater good.

Every woman should have the information and the services to avoid unwanted pregnancy – just as she should have the medical care to ensure her wanted pregnancy is safe. We re-doubling efforts to make sure that the looming question of healthcare for all Americans includes – and prominently – the critical aspect of reproductive health for millions of women who cannot now afford it.

We have set a five-priority strategy list for the Obama Administration:

1. Protect and expand access to reproductive health services.

17 million women in the United States cannot afford reproductive health care services. Some are mothers, who need to love and care for the families they have… some are not yet mothers, and hope to wait until they can afford the children they want… some don’t want to have children. But all of them need basic, preventive health care – breast exams, Pap smears, and annual check-ups.

The Religious Right has successfully forced the nation’s attention to the single issue of abortion – but reproductive health goes far beyond one procedure, and we betray all women when we allow that hot-button topic to define our treatment of our mothers, sisters, and daughters.

2. Make progress toward healthcare regulations that protect women and are founded on sound science and not on ideology.

The Religious Right has relentlessly promoted their ideological viewpoint during the last eight years, and they’re not going to give up now simply because the majority of Americans favor a more compassionate and science-based approach to healthcare. RCRC is determined to represent pro-choice Americans of faith in the development of national healthcare.

3. Confront the injustice of “refusal” policies that put the health of a woman second to the personal beliefs of a pharmacist or health care worker.

There are too many nightmare stories like that of the pharmacist who screamed at a woman that he wouldn’t fill her prescription for emergency contraception because he would have no part in “killing” her unborn child.

That such practices were ever allowed to gain a foothold says a great deal about the insidious influence of the Religious Right. We don’t ask anti-choice health care providers to act against their faith – but we do demand that our government take into account the patients who commit no crime when they attempt to secure legal and medically-approved care or a referral to a provider to help them.

4. Equip our young adults with knowledge and understanding as they confront sexual situations.

The tyrannical reign of “abstinence only” programs in our schools must end. The transformation from child to adult is confusing enough; it is irresponsible to deny teens information that can help them make informed decisions about sex, avoid unwanted pregnancies, and halt the spread of dangerous and deadly infections.

The Religious Right insists that if we don’t tell teens about sex, they won’t think about it. This “head in the sand” philosophy has been proved consistently wrong. Ignoring reality does nothing to change human behavior… but it does significantly expose our children to real harm. In this country, one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease, there are 750,000 teen pregnancies a year, and 9 million teens are diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections each year.

These trends must stop. Just as we want to help women and teens avoid unwanted pregnancies, we also must ensure that every teen knows about sexually-transmitted infections – and knows how to protect themselves.

5. Appoint officials who will protect quality and availability of reproductive healthcare services.

The Obama administration will appoint some 7,000 people to positions within the government. With so many positions to fill, it might be tempting to overlook holdovers from the Bush Administration or turn a blind eye to fundamentalist leanings – but the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has strong advocates in Washington, DC, who will watch out for you and me and all Americans to check the Religious Right's reign in the halls of our government.