Women's Health Commons^™

Selling Life To Abortion-Seekers: A Content Analysis Of Passive And Active Persuasion In Crisis Pregnancy Center Marketing, Alexander Kocman

Masters Theses

For supporters of the pro-life cause, crisis pregnancy centers (or CPC's) have become the "darlings of the movement," according to the New York Times (Belluck, 2013), offering women with unplanned pregnancies free advice, information, classes, childcare, and needed supplies. For abortion advocates, such establishments are intended to seduce vulnerable abortion-seekers into a situation where they will be counseled out of an abortion and possibly even proselytized. Yet for as much controversy as exists in the news media, medical community, and legal realm about CPC's, there is an unsettling lack of understanding of how--and why--CPC's market themselves the way they do. …

Unintended Pregnancy And Abortion In India: Country Profile Report, Mary Philip Sebastian, M.E. Khan, Daliya Sebastian

Reproductive Health

A review of literature and analysis of large surveys were carried out with funding from the STEP UP consortium led by Population Council to build a coherent body of robust research-based evidence on the situation in India in the context of unmet need for family planning (FP) and safe abortion services. The study found that there is insufficient training of different cadres of health staff in the public health system on abortion provision, post-abortion care, FP counseling of young couples, emergency contraception, and IUD insertion/removal. Despite service delivery guidelines in India expecting providers to provide FP counseling during antenatal visits, …

Induced Abortions And Unintended Pregnancies In Pakistan, 2012, Population Council

Reproductive Health

The 2012–13 PDHS (Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey) shows that gains in contraceptive prevalence over the past decade have been small, and unmet need has remained high. Using data from a 2012 national study on post-abortion care, we estimate 2.2 million abortions occurred in Pakistan in 2012, and an annual abortion rate of 50 per 1,000 women. A previous study estimated an abortion rate of 27 for 2002. Even accounting for an underestimation of abortion incidence (private sector abortion services could not be included) in the prior study, the abortion rate in Pakistan has likely increased substantially between 2002 and …

Reducing Unsafe Menstrual Regulation Through Medication In Bangladesh, Ubaidur Rob, Ismat Ara Hena, Nargis Sultana, Md. Irfan Hossain, Reena Yasmin, Tapash Ranjan Das, Farid Uddin Ahmed

Reproductive Health

The Population Council and Marie Stopes Bangladesh, in collaboration with the Directorate General of Family Planning and with funding from the World Health Organization, tested the feasibility of introducing menstrual regulation with medication (MRM) in Bangladesh and assessed the acceptability of providing MRM using the combination drug regimen mifepristone and misoprostol in urban and rural public health facilities. As reported in this policy brief, the study demonstrates that it is feasible and safe to introduce MRM in rural and urban public health facilities. Given the choice, almost two-thirds of women preferred MRM to manual vacuum aspiration and women receiving MRM …

Access To Emergency Contraception And Safe Abortion Services For Survivors Of Rape: A Review Of Policies, Programmes And Country Experiences In Sub-Saharan Africa, Jill Thompson, Chi-Chi Undie, Ian Askew

Reproductive Health

This study examined how pregnancy prevention and management services (specifically, the provision of emergency contraception, pregnancy testing and counseling, and termination or referral for termination of pregnancy services) feature within post-rape care services in sub-Saharan Africa. The study drew on a range of sources via a desk review, as well as on information provided through key informant interviews. The existence of numerous national guidelines in the region demonstrates countries’ desire to respond to this public health and legal challenge. However, if left in their current state, the gaps and inconsistencies observed across most national guidelines contribute to a violation of …

Libertarian Patriarchalism: Nudges, Procedural Roadblocks, And Reproductive Choice, Govind Persad

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler's proposal that social and legal institutions should steer individuals toward some options and away from others-a stance they dub "libertarian paternalism"-has provoked much high-level discussion in both academic and policy settings. Sunstein and Thaler believe that steering, or "nudging," individuals is easier to justify than the bans or mandates that traditional paternalism involves.

This Article considers the connection between libertarian paternalism and the regulation of reproductive choice. I first discuss the use of nudges to discourage women from exercising their right to choose an abortion, or from becoming or remaining pregnant. I then argue that …

Money, Sex, And Religion--The Supreme Court's Aca Sequel, George J. Annas, Theodore Ruger, Jennifer Prah Ruger

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case is in many ways a sequel to the Court's 2012 decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The majority decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, is a setback for both the ACA's foundational goal of access to universal health care and for women's health care specifically. The Court's ruling can be viewed as a direct consequence of our fragmented health care system, in which fundamental duties are incrementally delegated and imposed on a range of public and private actors. Our incremental, fragmented, and incomplete health insurance system means …

The Consequences Of Abortion Restrictions For Women's Healthcare, Maya Manian

Maya Manian

This Essay challenges the false assumption that abortion care can be segregated from women’s medical care and targeted for special restrictions without any effects on women’s health more broadly. As a matter of medical reality, abortion cannot be isolated from the continuum of women’s healthcare. Yet policymakers and the public have failed to understand the interconnectedness of abortion with other aspects of women’s medical care. In fact, existing abortion restrictions harm women’s health even for women not actively seeking abortion care, but these impacts remain obscured. For example, antiabortion laws and policies have spillover effects on miscarriage management, prenatal care, …