Morgan Moone
[dropcap]N[/dropcap]IFLA v. Becerra has sparked outrage as women’s rights activists across the board declare it to be the first step in overturning Roe v. Wade. With the recent nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the vacant Supreme Court seat, the concern is legitimate. Women’s lives are at stake.
Beyond the formal legal spaces of the Supreme Court lies the impact of the decision: inability of women to access information about their reproductive health. When access to information is denied, valuable social programs go unused, medical decisions are made without proper oversight, and lives are forever altered as the autonomous decision-making of a woman’s choice is constricted.
The target on women’s access to information is not a new one; from the Hyde amendment, the “global gag” rule, Mike Pence’s infamous stance against women’s rights, and the newest appointment of Brett Kavanaugh, women’s rights have consistently been on the chopping block. As the Supreme Court, United States government and anti-choice advocates position themselves for a battle to decrease access to reproductive services, the Becerra decision highlights the grave point that not all assaults on women’s rights will be full-frontal attacks. The push to deny a woman when, how and if she has children has been an ongoing battle, and is one that overtly targets low income women and women of color.
Background to Becerra Decision
California’s FACT Act required crisis pregnancy clinics (CPCs) that primarily serve low-income pregnant women to provide certain notices. Licensed CPCs were required to inform women that California provides free or low cost services, including abortions, through various social programs. Unlicensed CPCs were required to inform women that they were not licensed to provide medical services.
California legislators sought to protect and empower their citizens by requiring disclosures that informed women about state-sponsored programs including “contraception, health education and counseling, family planning, prenatal care, abortion [and] delivery.” California’s programs offered a holistic, comprehensive collection of services that provided care regardless of a woman’s final decision regarding her unintended pregnancy.
California, recognizing the predatory practices of crisis pregnancy clinics, enacted the FACT Act as a line of defense between skewed information and a woman’s desire exercise autonomy over her body. The FACT Act offered women notice of other neutral and more cost-effective options than the ones promoted by CPCs.
The groups and clinics that challenged the Act stated that the FACT Act forced them to tell patients about services with which they sincerely disagreed with on First Amendment grounds and, as a result, should be exempt from providing such disclosures.
“Freedom & full equality cannot be achieved until we all have the opportunity to control our lives. This includes access to real medical providers who provide medically accurate info about all pregnancy options.
#DefeatTheDeceit” @PPact
The Supreme Court found that California did not have the right to require FACT Act disclosures, despite recognizing that free-flowing information in the medical field “can save lives.” The disclosures, labeled as “unduly burdensome” were seen as forced speech that California was unjustified in requiring. The Court decided that the requirement did not advance California’s interest in promoting the dissemination of information to women in need of pre- and postnatal medical services. The Supreme Court’s decision directly implicates the ability of a woman to exercise autonomy over her body and future by restricting opportunities to learn about reproductive healthcare options.
Citing Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA v. Casey, the Supreme Court’s dissent rightly asked: “If a state can lawfully require a doctor to tell a woman seeking an abortion about adoption services, why should it not be able, as here, to require a medical counselor to tell a woman seeking prenatal care or other reproductive healthcare about childbirth and abortion services? There is no convincing reason to distinguish between information about adoption and information about abortion.”
Impact on Women’s Health
The ability of a woman to receive full, factual and easily attainable information about her reproductive rights is critical in not only receiving proper care, it is paramount to fully participating in social, economic and political life. The Supreme Court’s decision blatantly defies human rights laws. The consequences of restricting these rights is so significant, the United Nations included lack of access to abortion in their 2013 report on torture and inhuman treatment, noting that denial of abortion care is gender-based abuse. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) recognizes that women who have historically been marginalized based on their race, ethnicity or economic status face the most barriers in access to information and, as a result, access to sexual and reproductive health. Access to information ensures that women can make free, autonomous decisions about not only their bodies, but about their lives and the future of their families. For women who conceived through acts of violence or trauma, access to information means the ability to be free from violence
“Women need access to facts so that they can thoughtfully and autonomously make their own medical decisions,” Amy Collins, pediatrician and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, urges. “These [crisis pregnancy] centers argue that they are protected from providing comprehensive options counseling to patients. But who is protecting the patients from the dishonest practices of these crisis pregnancy centers? These clinics intentionally advertise themselves as neutral service providers. However, when women arrive expecting high-quality medical care, they are instead met by staff who are not medically trained and have a sole agenda– to dissuade women from making their own reproductive decisions.”
Denying accessible reproductive health care and pricing out patients while simultaneously denying women access to information about low-cost options constitutes economic warfare, and its consequences are serious. Yamani Hernandez, the Executive Director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, stated that “[a]bortion is legal for everybody, but it’s only affordable for some.” Nearly 70% of women who obtain abortions fall below 200% of the federal poverty line, or $48,000 annually for a family of four. For these women, the impact of restricting information has an even more drastic impact on their ability to seek economic equality and justice.
“Women need access to facts so that they can thoughtfully and autonomously make their own medical decisions.”
Poverty, violence and discrimination all contribute to environments that restrict women from fully controlling their reproductive health, particularly women of color. The cycle of lack of access stemming from lack of information is not new. And the Becerra decision falls directly in line with numerous other Supreme Court decisions, laws and policies that continue to oppress women and deny them access to healthcare.
“When seeking healthcare services, all people deserve to know whether they are being treated by certified medical professionals and that the information they are receiving is accurate and comprehensive.” @Latinas4RJ
The disproportionate impact on women of color and low income women is something that has been recognized for years as a result of the Hyde Amendment. Effective in 1977, the amendment was passed with acute knowledge of its implications. Representative Henry Hyde, seeking a way to limit abortions, stated that his amendment was going to impact low-income women the most because “the only vehicle available [to decrease access to abortion] is the [] Medicaid bill.” The amendment easily passed and barred the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape. The amendment is estimated to have impeded abortion for more than 1 million women in the past 40 years, and the University of California-San Francisco found that 85% of women who had difficulty obtaining abortion cited cost as their inhibiting factor.
Other legislation imposing mandatory waiting periods, defunding clinics and eroding insurance coverage are just continuations of government restrictions on information and access. Many clinics servicing low-income and rural communities have been forced to shut down due to decreased funding and hospital affiliation regulations. Insurance companies restrict the type of birth control women can access, with some covering only oral contraceptives and many refusing to cover a majority of the cost. For women facing unintended pregnancies, obtaining an abortion quickly and early is the only chance at affording it. As the pregnancy continues, prices for abortions increase, and as the prices increase, the fewer women can afford it.
“Women of color already struggle to access the information and services that we need to manage our heath and plan our families. We don’t need fake clinics that lie …!” @SisterSong
Crisis pregnancy centers have no vested interests in the women’s health issues. Positioned overwhelmingly as anti-choice, vulnerable women that walk through their clinic doors are receiving biased medical opinions. Without proper information and medical guidance, women are forced to make critical decisions about their bodies such as prenatal and postnatal care, options for terminating an unwanted and potentially dangerous pregnancy. Women are forced to take risks with their health by receiving incomplete health information. As a result, the Court sacrificed women’s health, and ultimately their lives. The five male Justices had an opportunity to increase transparency and stop the warfare on American women, and they chose not to. The five men on the court, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg so eloquently proclaimed, have a blind spot when it comes to discrimination against women and they just indefinitely prolonged it.
