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Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) are reintroducing the Reproductive Well being Care Accessibility Act at the moment.
The invoice, first launched within the earlier session of Congress, would make reproductive well being care extra accessible for disabled folks and improve the variety of disabled folks within the reproductive well being workforce. Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) are introducing companion laws within the Home.
“Individuals with disabilities have lengthy confronted discrimination and actual roadblocks to getting the well being care, together with abortion care, that they want—and it’s grow to be a full-blown disaster within the 12 months after the Dobbs determination overturned the best to abortion, particularly for the practically 3 million disabled ladies who reside in states with out entry to reproductive well being care,” mentioned Murray, referring to a current report from the Nationwide Partnership for Ladies and Households (NPWF).
NPWF, which endorses the invoice, discovered that greater than 36 million U.S. ladies of reproductive age reside in states which have banned abortion or are possible to take action. The practically 3 million of these ladies who’re disabled characterize a disproportionate 52 p.c of girls of reproductive age in these states.
“As we proceed to struggle again towards Republicans’ escalating assaults on reproductive well being care throughout the nation, there’s a lot extra we have to do to make sure ladies and other people with disabilities can entry high-quality care from suppliers who perceive their distinctive health-care wants,” Murray mentioned. “My laws with Senator Duckworth would make an enormous distinction in serving to folks with disabilities entry the high-quality reproductive care they deserve—and I’ll be preventing to go it this Congress.”
Nationwide, there are 4.1 million disabled dad and mom. However disabled individuals are extra prone to expertise being pregnant issues, and 11 occasions extra prone to die from pregnancy-related causes. They’re additionally twice as prone to reside in poverty, with disabled folks of coloration bearing an much more disproportionate poverty danger. In consequence, 1 in 4 disabled adults don’t have a daily health-care supplier and have unmet well being wants as a result of the price of care, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
All of this, together with america’ lengthy historical past and current actuality of reproductive coercion and compelled sterilization of disabled folks, makes looking for reproductive well being care deeply fraught—and probably even harmful—for disabled folks.
“For too lengthy, People with disabilities have confronted persistent boundaries to health-care companies, tools, and suppliers—and with right-wing efforts underway to go even additional to undermine these rights within the wake of the overturning of Roe, many are rightfully fearful about having an excellent more durable time accessing the reproductive care they want,” Duckworth mentioned, including that she desires to make sure “all of us within the incapacity group aren’t left behind in getting the care we want, after we want it.”
The invoice consists of:
$10 million to fund coaching applications for health-care professionals;
$10 million for instructional applications targeted on the reproductive well being wants of disabled folks;
$10 million to determine a brand new technical help heart to supply suggestions and greatest practices relating to sexual and reproductive well being take care of folks with disabilities;
$15 million to increase the health-care workforce by rising the illustration of disabled folks within the doctor and nursing professions;
$15 million to fund an in-depth examine on reproductive well being take care of disabled folks by the Division of Well being and Human Providers.
“This invoice marks a significant push ahead in addressing among the vital boundaries disabled folks face in pursuing reproductive well being care and makes clear that there’s a dire want for laws and insurance policies to redress disabled folks’s proper to culturally competent reproductive well being care,” mentioned Mia Ives-Rublee, director of the Incapacity Justice Initiative at Middle for American Progress, which endorses the invoice.
The Reproductive Well being Care Accessibility Act can be endorsed by a protracted listing of reproductive well being and rights teams, together with the Middle for Reproductive Rights, Deliberate Parenthood, the Nationwide Ladies’s Regulation Middle, the Nationwide Abortion Federation, Energy to Resolve, the Reproductive Well being Entry Mission, and the Nationwide Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice.
The invoice was first launched final 12 months within the wake of the Supreme Courtroom’s determination in Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group, however didn’t make it out of committee. Within the 12 months since, greater than a dozen states have banned abortion totally, with extra prone to comply with. As boundaries to abortion and all reproductive well being care proceed to mount, the invoice’s sponsors say the time to go it’s now.
“There was a every day assault on entry to reproductive well being care, and our siblings with disabilities are deeply impacted by boundaries to care,” Pressley mentioned. “Now greater than ever we want complete, culturally congruent, and accessible reproductive well being take care of the incapacity group. I’m proud to affix this bicameral effort and reintroduce the Reproductive Well being Care Accessibility Act. Lives actually rely upon it.”
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