The United States, as the world’s foreign assistance leader, must play a key role in safeguarding a comprehensive and integrated approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights for young women. This fact sheet outlines policy challenges that deny young women their sexual and reproductive rights and puts forth policy actions the U.S. government should take: expand family planning funding, repeal the damaging Helms Amendment, permanently repeal the Mexico City Policy (also called the Global Gag Rule), and continue to work toward a progressive sexual and reproductive health agenda in platforms like the International Conference on Population and Development and the United Nations.
Region: US and Canada
How U.S. Foreign Policy BLOCKS Women’s Access to Safe Abortion Overseas
This factsheet provides an overview of the Helms Amendment and how it harms the world’s most vulnerable women by denying them access to safe abortion services.
New Polling Shows Majority of Voters Favor Overturning Helms
This memo summarizes key findings from an online survey among 800 registered voters nationwide conducted by Hart Research on behalf of Ipas.
Key Messages on the Harms of the Helms Amendment and the Case for Repeal
When talking about the Helms Amendment and U.S. foreign assistance for safe abortion, these key messages are simple and represent what voters feel, according to 2020 polling results.
A research agenda for moving early medical pregnancy termination over the counter
Given the overall safety profile and increasing availability of medical pregnancy termination drugs, we asked: would the mifepristone–misoprostol regimen for medical termination at ≤10 weeks of gestation meet US Food and Drug Administration regulatory criteria for over-the-counter (OTC) approval, and if not, what are the present research gaps?
Trump’s domestic gag rule will silence, shame, and stigmatize women
The domestic and global gag rules stigmatize a simple medical procedure by disconnecting it from other health care services and by forcing doctors not to offer women the whole array or reproductive options available to them.
Don’t forget women’s reproductive health in the wake of Harvey
In a state where access to contraception, abortion and other reproductive health care is already hard to get, how likely are women to get that care in the wake of Hurricane Harvey?
Using the reproductive justice framework for message development in the Latin and Central America Region
This publication defines reproductive justice (RJ) and its strategies, and identifies organizations using the RJ framework in the United States as well as documents and tools developed by those organizations. In addition, this publication summarizes opportunities for Ipas to use the RJ framework in the LAC region
How Nikki Haley’s ambassador appointment threatens the spirit and intent of the UN
Helms and Hyde Amendments: More than 40 years of human rights violations
Confronting abortion stigma
Every day of every week several state legislatures are hard at work creating more and more restrictions to punish both women in need of abortion and the medical professionals providing safe abortion care. What do all of these actions across the country share? They’re all rooted in abortion stigma.
Green (with envy) about the gay rights movement
More than half the population supports gay marriage and families. So when will abortion and women’s rights to reproductive self-determination be a cultural norm?
Abortion stigma and the case of Purvi Patel
What Komen v. Planned Parenthood teaches us about abortion stigma
Two major women’s health organizations, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood, battled for women’s respect and donations. Two days later the dust is settling and we’re left to wonder what we should take away from the tangle? Was it about fundraising? Women’s health? Politics? I suggest it is about stigma, specifically abortion stigma that has been deliberately attached to a beloved national institution and household name, Planned Parenthood.
Denying women their rights, criminalizing doctors
At a time when the pool of abortion providers is shrinking and abortion clinics are closing, medical abortion can truly increase women’s access, particularly to those in underserved areas. For legislators who want to end access to abortion under any circumstances, medical abortion is an obvious target.
Abortion, the states and the World Health Organization
The new WHO recommendations make it painfully clear that, nearly 40 years after Roe v. Wade, we’re doing everything wrong here. Whether it’s gestational limits, ultrasounds, counseling or human rights, nearly every policy proposed by anti-abortion legislators directly contradicts the new WHO guidelines, which are based on years of consultation and discussion, incorporating scientific evidence and international human rights standards.
Correlates of perceived and internalized stigma among abortion patients in the USA: An exploration by race and Hispanic ethnicity
Combating abortion stigma requires more than just storytelling
Certainly, sharing abortion stories can be a powerful act and may reduce self-stigma. But I fear that it distracts from the structural inequalities of race, poverty, age, and education by placing too much emphasis on the individual. And I worry that it lets our politicians and policymakers off the hook.
Bad all around: Attacks on women in NC
Taken together, the [NC] state Republican attacks on unemployment benefits, Medicaid, education, women’s rights and racial justice amount to what the rest of the world considers human rights violations.