On October 4, HHS announced a final rule to undo a horrible Trump administration action that resulted in the Title X family planning program’s capacity being cut in half.
For more than four decades, each spending bill Congress passes has contained a discriminatory and harmful rider: the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or life-endangering pregnancies. A House Appropriations subcommittee hearing addressed its harms, which disproportionately fall on Black and Brown women.
The Title X family planning program has long provided voluntary, high-quality, evidence-based care to clients with low incomes, but its ability to uphold standards of care and its own programmatic requirements is under threat.
New figures from CDC give an updated look at the awful racial disparities in US maternal mortality, while new proposals offer solutions.
It’s Black Maternal Health Week. Actions in Congress and state Medicaid programs can help address the awful racial disparities in maternal mortality, but we also need comprehensive solutions to racism and inequity.
The annual “March for Life” this year tries to claim science is on their side, but it isn’t. Commentators are calling them on the contradiction between this claim and the anti-science policies pushed by organizations that aim to ban abortion.
A new report from a wide-ranging group of organizations describes threats to the use of science in government decisions regarding public health and recommends steps Congress can take in response.
Last week, two opinion pieces highlighted solutions to the US’s shameful rates of maternal mortality, and the appalling racial disparities in risk of death during and after childbirth.
The New York Times reports this week on the experiences of pregnant employees of XPO Logistics in Memphis. Their doctors recommended no heavy lifting, but the women’s managers refused to accommodate their request. They suffered miscarriages.
Senator Harris’s bill to reduce racial disparities in maternal mortality has won praise, but several commenters have also noted that much larger steps will also be necessary to fix the conditions that put black women at elevated risk of a range of health problems