In 2017, NIRH supported a partnership between NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut and Hartford GYN Center, a long standing health care provider in the Hartford community, to educate and mobilize a grassroots base about the harms caused by so-called crisis pregnancy centers or fake women’s health centers in their community. This was based in part on a [...]
NIRH is committed to expanding access to underutilized forms of contraception, including IUDs and implants. Though offering immediate postpartum LARC to patients who want this method is considered a best practice, barriers including policy, reimbursement, and lack of education for both providers and patients, and the challenges of implementing this service, have made it so [...]
Implementation is an integral part of expanding access to contraceptive coverage after successful advocacy for a policy change. Too often, a new policy is passed but its enactment is limited due to the difficulty that comes with vital work like ensuring that systems are created or updated and key stakeholders and informed and educated. As [...]
On November 20, 2017, the Pittsburgh City Council voted to pass a Will of Council calling for the passage of the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage (EACH Woman) Act, a federal bill that would reinstate abortion coverage in public insurance programs, and for the repeal of Pennsylvania’s ban on abortion coverage in private insurance plans [...]
The National Institute for Reproductive Health, in partnership with All* Above All, has supported advocacy in Chicago and the state of Illinois to expand public coverage of abortion since 2013 with our partners the ACLU of Illinois (ACLU of IL) and the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF). In 2017, NIRH supported the ACLU of IL as they [...]
The legal status of abortion has changed throughout American history – from legal to illegal and back to legal again. However, women seeking to end an unintended pregnancy have always done so, whether it is legal or not. Our white paper, “When Self-Abortion is a Crime: Laws that Put Women at Risk,” documents this history in New York and assess whether there is any justification for the state’s criminal abortion ban.
In 2017, Governor Andrew Cuomo and his agencies issued four different regulations that affirm access to insurance coverage for abortion and contraception in New York State, protect access to insurance coverage for all New Yorkers if the federal government repeals or restricts the ACA, and improve conditions for women who are incarcerated. The abortion and contraception regulations are wide-ranging [...]
In June 2017, the Seattle City Council and Mayor built on their 2014 resolution that called for federal lawmakers to repeal all bans on public insurance coverage of abortion, by passing a proclamation in support of policies that support insurance coverage of abortion and funding for reproductive health services for all immigrants. This effort was [...]
On April 20, 2017, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to pass a proclamation in support of policies that support insurance coverage and funding for all reproductive health care services for women, including abortion. This vote followed a hearing by the Board of Commissioners on March 29, 2016, that examined the landscape of [...]
Since the 1990s, many states have required insurers to provide “contraceptive equity,” meaning that insurance plans that cover prescription drugs must also cover contraception. However, insurance companies often limited the types of contraception that were covered or charged high copays for some or all forms. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) addressed some of these barriers [...]
