Protecting Reproductive Health Care for Low-Income Women
NARAL Pro-Choice New York's Low-Income Access Program and our partner NHeLP put together an organizing guide for reproductive health care advocates, low-income health care advocates and legal service organizations.
The report includes information on a number of issues, including:
- Access to family planning care under Medicaid
- Restrictive laws regarding public funding for abortions
- Attacks on Title X family planning funding
- Obtaining family planning care under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
- Access to translation services at reproductive health care appointments.
Protecting Reproductive Health Care for Low-Income Women: An Advocate’s Organizing Guide provides background information on a number of these barriers, and includes profiles of state advocacy campaigns and key facts. Each section concludes with a detailed resources section including publications, websites and organizations that can aid advocates.
The guide also includes a section geared specifically towards legal service organizations, who typically receive federal funding through the Legal Service Corporation. Organizations that accept this funding are forced to comply with in their advocacy work, particularly around abortion issues. According to a survey by the National Health Law Program, these limitations have been misinterpreted by many legal service advocates who incorrectly believe that accepting this federal funding prevents them from addressing any reproductive health care issues. Lourdes Rivera, Managing Attorney at the NHeLP, contributed a detailed analysis of the Legal Service Corporation restrictions, how they apply to abortion and reproductive health care, and the wide-range of activities that are permissible under the LSC rules. According to Lourdes Rivera, “The guide will help organizations who take LSC money know how they can join in the effort to protect low-income women’s access to family planning and other reproductive health services, while not risking their federal support.”
To order a hard copy of the guide, please email info@prochoiceny.org
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