In 2019 Illinois and Vermont passed bold legislation that protects and enshrines the right to reproductive health care. NIRH launched digital campaigns in Illinois and Vermont to celebrate this groundbreaking legislation and to guard against potential backlash by promoting accurate information about the laws.
In 2017, NIRH successfully fought for no-copay coverage of abortion and contraception for all state-regulated insurance plans in New York. However, many New Yorkers are covered by employer-provided self-funded plans which are governed by federal law and do not have to comply with state-level requirements. NIRH then urged the state to find a creative solution [...]
New York City made history for abortion access as the first city in the nation to directly fund abortion care! NIRH Action Fund and our partners in the #FundAbortionNYC Coalition worked with the New York City Council to ensure that financial barriers don't interfere with anyone's ability to control when and whether to become a parent.
With the implications of a gutted Roe, and fewer abortion clinics open and accessible, we now face the perfect storm for the criminalization of women and medical professionals for seeking or providing abortions. Archaic laws criminalizing abortion could become enforceable and states could introduce new legislation to ban abortion outright, as they have in Ohio. In 2018 and 2019, NIRH supported statewide campaigns in Ohio, New York, and Michigan to decriminalize people seeking abortions and providers who offer abortion care.
For more than 10 years, NIRH and the NIRH Action Fund led the advocacy campaign to educate the public, rally New Yorkers, and convince elected officials to update New York’s laws by passing the Reproductive Health Act.
After 5 years of NIRH’s advocacy, public education efforts and deep work with legislators, the Comprehensive Contraceptive Coverage Act (CCCA) became law in 2019. The CCCA ensures that all New Yorkers have access to the contraception that is right for them at no cost. Following years of grassroots organizing, the 2018 election delivered a pro-choice [...]
In October 2018 NIRH launched a month-long education campaign to inform the public about New York’s outdated abortion laws. Before the Reproductive Health Act passed in 2019, New York was just one of a handful of states with laws from the 1800s still on the books that criminalized self-managed abortion performed without a medical provider. [...]
On July 18, 2018, the Massachusetts legislature passed long-overdue proactive legislation to decriminalize abortion. This win is significant because it overturns archaic statutes that have been used to prosecute women who self-manage their own abortions. With this win, Massachusetts pushed back against a hostile anti-choice federal landscape, and laid the groundwork to push even further to [...]
On April 9, 2018, the Durham County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution calling for an end to the Hyde Amendment and calling upon President Trump and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper to support measures to ensure and protect the rights of women, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals everywhere to have unhindered access to safe [...]
NIRH’s white paper, “When Self-Abortion is a Crime: Laws that Put Women at Risk: An Analysis of Massachusetts Law,” raises awareness about the harms of criminal bans on self-abortion, with a particular focus on Massachusetts, which is one of a handful of states with criminal laws on the books that explicitly make self-abortion illegal.
