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Health Care Reform
As the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate continue to discuss their respective bills to reform our country's health care system, anti-choice Members of Congress are pushing for restrictions on abortion coverage. Abortion care is basic health care for women and should not be treated differently from any other health service. In addition, a study by the Guttmacher Institute found that 87% of typical employment-based health plans cover abortion. Efforts to prohibit insurance plans from covering abortion would mean that many women would lose coverage they currently have.
The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court plays a critically important role in protecting a woman's right to safe and legal abortion care, and NAF has been closely following the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor over the past several weeks. When responding to questions from Senators, Judge Sotomayor consistently and correctly stated that Roe v. Wade is settled law and that the Constitution contains a right to privacy. However, Judge Sotomayor has never ruled directly on the issue of a woman's right to access abortion care, and the hearings did little to further illuminate her views on this issue. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently voted 13-6 to send the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the full Senate for consideration. The Senate is expected to vote on this issue before the August recess.
Abortion Funding Restrictions
On July 16, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to lift a longstanding ban that prohibits DC from using its locally raised revenue to help low-income women obtain the abortion care they need. Since 1977, the Hyde Amendment has restricted states from using federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortion care for most low-income women, except in very limited circumstances. However, while all 50 states are free to use their own funds to expand coverage for abortion, Congressional interference prohibits DC from doing so. This DC restriction interferes with the rights of DC residents and has effectively prevented the DC government from assessing and meeting the needs of its community. We will continue our efforts and urge the Senate to follow the House's lead when it considers this issue in the coming weeks.
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NAF's Risk Management Seminar
Fall, 2009
For more information, please e-mail meetings@prochoice.org
Association of Reproductive Health Professionals
Los Angeles, CA
September 30-October 3, 2009
Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health
Providence, RI
October 14-17, 2009
Medical Students for Choice*
Salt Lake City, UT
November 14-15, 2009
*Nursing students are encouraged to attend. For more information on nursing students' attendance, please see below or visit the Nursing Students for Choice website at www.nursingstudentsforchoice.org.
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Providing Abortion Care: A Professional Toolkit for Nurse-Midwives, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants
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Certified nurse-midwives (CNMs), nurse practitioners (NPs), and physician assistants (PAs)1 provide health care to millions of women in the United States. Many of these clinicians provide safe, compassionate abortion care as part of their reproductive health and primary care practice. But outdated laws, restrictive regulations, and politically-motivated challenges impede clinicians' ability to provide the full range of reproductive health care services that their patients need.
In states across the country, advanced practice clinicians, physicians, reproductive rights advocates, and attorneys have joined together to support the provision of abortion by CNMs, NPs, and PAs, thus protecting both women's access to abortion and practitioners' rights to provide appropriate care for their patients.
CNMs, NPs and PAs are uniquely positioned to provide women with the accessible care they deserve. With knowledge of and support from professional associations and pro-choice communities, CNMs, NPs and PAs hold the potential to expand access to abortion care within the context of comprehensive reproductive health services.
Providing Abortion Care: A Professional Toolkit for Nurse-Midwives, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants informs, supports, and catalyzes efforts to promote the provision of abortion by all clinically competent health care providers committed to women's health. |
Providing Abortion Care: A Professional Toolkit for Nurse-Midwives, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants is for clinicians, administrators, and advocates who would like to advance their existing practice as well as those who are experienced in abortion care.
The Toolkit:
- Includes essential information and statistics about abortion and access, professional regulation, competencies, and responsibilities, the roles of state and national professional organizations, and state licensing boards;
- Provides an evidence-based organizing framework along with professional competencies and strategies for assessing and/or integrating abortion care as an essential part of women's health care services and APC scope of practice; and
- Guides clinicians in the development of a professional portfolio, documenting their basic and abortion-specialty education, knowledge, and training, and the clinical and professional standards they use in providing safe care.
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If you are would like more information about how you can access the Toolkit, please contact Emily Kane-Lee at naf@prochoice.org.
1 Collectively referred to as advanced practice clinicians or APCs
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Nursing Students for Choice is a collaborative, nationwide organization that works to promote women's health and reproductive rights through advocacy, activism, provider education, and training. NSFC welcomes any undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral level nursing student who is interested in ensuring that nurses are fully trained to meet the reproductive health care needs of women and their families.
Nurses are vital clinicians in reproductive health care. They provide much of the pregnancy testing, birth control counseling, options counseling, and post procedure care that affect women daily. Nurses counsel women both formally and informally in emergency rooms, in provider's offices, and in campus clinics. Certified Nurse-Midwives (CNMs) and Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are also increasingly providers of abortion services. (Please see CFC's website, www.prochoice.org/cfc, for more information on the role of advanced practice nurses and physician assistants in abortion care.) Significantly, many NPs work in rural areas, where they help fill the rural health care and abortion provider gaps successfully.
NSFC's national goals are rooted in the belief that nursing students across the country can be inspired to join the cause with organizational support from current NSFC student leaders. Utilizing the skills of nurses and improving their education will improve the total health care experience of patients nationwide.
The founders of the current national NSFC attended two nursing schools: Winona State University (WSU) and Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). NSFC on the WSU campus in Winona, Minnesota was founded in 2006, by three nursing students who wanted to be involved in a pro-choice student club that was geared directly to nurses and that would work to bring awareness of pro-choice issues to the campus and surrounding community. NSFC at WSU has held panel discussions, participated in demonstrations, attended pro-choice lobby days, and raised money for the local family planning clinic through "Rock for Choice" concerts and the women's resource center.
NSFC on the OHSU campus was founded in 2005, by one student as a way to supplement missing reproductive health curriculum. NSFC at OHSU has radically changed this situation: Members have served as patient advocates in the Center for Women's Health during IUD placements, sterilization (Essure) procedures, follow up appointments for abnormal yearly screening for women, and abortions. They have also held information sessions on options counseling, sexuality, and abortion care. Recently, NSFC members taught every undergraduate at the nursing school how to teach their patients to properly use a condom. NSFC collaborates with Medical Students for Choice (MSFC) on campus to hold a "reproductive health choices" elective to fill in curriculum gaps. They have joined with Sexual Minorities Youth Resource Center (SMYRC) to educate students about transgender sexuality issues. Because Oregon allows Nurse Practitioners and Certified Nurse-Midwives the opportunity to provide abortions, NSFC is also currently seeking clinical and training placement options for students who are furthering their nursing education.
NSFC will be holding their first annual Nursing Students for Choice organizational meeting at this year's Medical Students for Choice annual conference in Salt Lake City, Utah this November. Conference content will benefit all levels of nursing students. All are welcome to attend! If you need financial assistance to attend, please contact the NSFC leaders (listed below).
Please visit the NSFC website at www.nursingstudentsforchoice.org if you have an active campus group or would like to start one, if you have a training opportunity for a NP or CNM student in your health care center, and/or if you would like more information about NSFC.
Erika Staub, BSN (Winona State), EMStaub5171@gmail.com
Rebecca Ek, BSN (Winona State), becky23ek@yahoo.com
Jacqui Quetal, FNP (OHSU), nsfc_jacqui@yahoo.com
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Welcome Nadia Shamsuddin, MA, NAF's new Training & Education Director! Nadia brings with her many years in the reproductive health field and we are thrilled to have her on the NAF team.
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CFC wishes the best of luck to outgoing Advisory Committee member Francie Likis. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication to Clinicians for Choice. We will miss you! |
