Olson Women's Center Case Study

The fertility rate is an important factor when evaluating the health of the public. Despite the United States having one of the best healthcare systems in the world, approximately 13% of women between the age of 18 & 44 have trouble conceiving. Although the US has implemented the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a landmark policy, assisting millions of Americans in obtaining health insurance, unless altered, the policy could hurt the 3 out of 20 women who struggle with infertility. After evaluating the core essential benefits of the Affordable Care Act, the views of stakeholders, and the state mandates, an easy solution can be established to assist those suffering from impaired fecundity.

Public health researchers with the UC San Francisco group, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, conducted a longitudinal study of 956 women who sought an abortion and were turned away. Diana Foster’s study reveals what happened to the women’s economic standing, health and relationship status after being denied their right. She claims that, “When a woman is denied the abortion she wants, she is statistically more likely to wind up unemployed, on public assistance, and below the poverty line” (Newitz). This is clear because one of the major factors in a woman’s decision to abort, is because of her awareness that she will not be able to financially support her child. One of a woman’s most formidable fears is to fail to adequately raise her child and provide him with his greatest odds to succeed. Naturally, a mother’s ultimate goal is for her children to have a better life than she did. This fuels the majority of people’s ambition and determination to obtain a comfortable and promising life style, to then pass on to their offspring. Women living in poverty seek abortions because they do not want to bring a child in a life of misery and suffering. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is not just blindly decided, all aspects of the mother’s and child’s life are considered. In fact, after initially being denied the right to abort, the survey demonstrates that 45% of the women were on public assistance (Newitz). However, Foster concludes, “a year later, they were far more likely to be on public assistance — 76% of the turnaways were on the dole…67% percent of the turnaways were below the poverty line” (Newitz). Therefore, it is evident that not allowing women to legally have abortions creates more strain on the state because of these mothers' increased dependence on social assistance programs.

A key argument that has been propagated by the opponents of Planned Parenthood’s continued funding and government support is that the money spent on it could be used on other community health facilities. The caseload and the large number of patients make it difficult for community health centers to provide the services efficiently. The situation in Texas presents a good case study for analysis of the effects. The state cut Planned Parenthood out of its family planning networks in 2013. They started excluding Planned Parenthood from its network of clinics where women from low-income communities got STI screening, contraception, and other reproductive health services (Muchmore 2015). The state has a significant focus on abortion restrictions and the decision to defund the Planned Parenthood federation. The other clinics available in the areas argued that they could take care of the workload if Planned Parenthood stopped and they would only have to increase their capacity.

- The overwhelming majority of abortion clinic—88%—experienced at least one form of harassment in 2008. 87% reported picketing, 42% were picketing with patient blocking, and 21% cited incidents of vandalism. And more shockingly, nearly one-fifth of all of the largest abortion facilities reported a bomb threat. (Jones, 2011)

Planned Parenthood Federation of America is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health services both for females and males. Services include screening for and treating sexually transmitted diseases, infections, and providing contraception. Another service they provide is abortions; although controversial in 2014 the organization reported that only 3% of their services were for abortions. The organization manages more than 820 health centers in the United States, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Peru, Nigeria, South Sudan, Senegal, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Nicaragua, and Kenya. Planned Parenthood helps over five million patients a year: most of the patients are impoverished and more than a quarter of the patients are under the age of nineteen years old. According to a latest yearly report, the organization supplied around 860,000 screenings a year for breast and cervical cancer. They also issued nearly 4.5 million examinations and medical care for sexually transmitted diseases. Approximately one-third of its resources are supplied contraceptives. In particular, in its latest yearly report, Planned Parenthood stated that it supply’s knowledge of birth control and services to three million people annually. If Planned Parenthood is defunded there will be less convenience of contraceptives will mean additional undesired pregnancies and more abortions. Out of the three hundred and thirty of the countries, Planned Parenthood helps at least half of the patients who

Researching things to find for this assignment was difficult. After thinking about things, a big concern that has been as issue for southeast Iowa is the closing of planned parenthoods. After reading some different articles, the article that seemed to have some noticeable fallacies was, “Closing Of Planned Parenthood clinics a victory for Iowa women” in the Des Moines Register. This article was written by Maggie DeWitte, the executive director Iowans for Life . Although this article is very controversial and effects the people of our community, it has many fallacies within it.

Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides healthcare and education to both men and women, having over 650 health centers that provide healthcare to countless communities around the world. Shockingly, 78% of those who use Planned Parenthoods services live at or below 150% of the federal poverty line, showing how important this organization is to low-income families (Topulos, Greene, Drazen). Their mission statement is “A Reason for Being”, which is shown through their efforts to provide health care, advocate public policies, create educational programs, and endorse research. There are those who do not believe Planned Parenthood should be funded by the government, though, due to the fact that they provide abortions to women in need. Studies show that the effects of not having Planned Parenthood available are disastrous, causing low-income families to lack a healthcare provider and the number of those who are infected with STD’s and STI’s to rise. The biggest concern communities have about the government defunding Planned Parenthood is the effects that it would have on low-income families who would no longer have access to something that many people take for granted: health care. Although many believe that Planned Parenthood mostly provides abortions, in reality, only 3% of the people that seek help from them receive an abortion, while 97% receive affordable and, in many cases,

The limits of this proposal will encompass women between the ages of 18-64 living in the El Paso area. Language in legislation restricting reproductive health care is specifically targeted at women, so they will be the focus of this study. The Texas “Healthy Texas Women” Program defines women of reproductive age as women 18-64 (Texas Health and Human Services, n.d.). This standard will be used because “Healthy Texas Women” is the state Medicaid Program for women’s health, and was greatly impacted by funding cuts (White et al., 2012). The services provided by “Healthy Texas Women” also create a standard of reproductive care.

Planned parenthood has been a topic of controversy the last couple of years, as people throughout the nation ask whether or not the healthcare organization should be defunded. When video footage was released in 2015 of “Planned Parenthood medical officials discussing the sale of fetal tissue to researchers,” it seemed likely that federal funds would be revoked as backlash from the public was noted (Welch). Although the nonprofit organization does offer the termination of unplanned pregnancies, the organization offers many more services to women and men, such as free birth control and yearly health checkups “backed by medical experts and more than 100 years of research in reproductive health” (Planned Parenthood). As many people struggle financially to provide for their families, Planned Parenthood’s services are a relief to those who otherwise would not be able to afford healthcare, which is why the organization should not be defunded.

One important health disparity is the lack of prenatal care amongst women in socially disadvantaged populations. These predominately include women of minorities, women who have a low income, and the location these women live in. This health disparity is important to address because research has shown that women who receive prenatal care are more likely to conceive babies of a healthy birth weight and have low infant mortality rates than those women who do not receive this prenatal care ("Putting Women 's Health Disparities on the Map," 2009). Therefore, health disparities amongst women in need of prenatal care have lead to preventable infant mortalities amongst women in vulnerable populations. Three reasons why this health disparity is important to address include the following: health disparities in prenatal care lead to lack of access to prenatal care to women in vulnerable populations, there are increased adverse health outcomes for both the infant and mother, and there are excess medical expenses that could otherwise have been prevented. Because “prematurity is the leading cause of newborn death in the United States” (“Healthy Mothers and Healthy babies,” 2013), finding and developing a solution will be extremely beneficial and needs to begin with addressing prenatal care.

After majority of the Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas closed there was an increase in births among low income women. The women who were in an area where a Planned Parenthood clinic had closed at some point in time had received some

The target population may be Planned Parenthood (PP) as an entity, but the policy will affect the clients that depend on PP for services. If House Bill 294 passes, it will end federal funding to Planned Parenthood (House Bill 294, 2015). Planned Parenthood provides services to Medicaid recipients and other individuals with little to no income. The services provided by PP include providing free or low-cost contraceptives, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment (Planned Parenthood, 2016). The population who loses if this policy is passed are the individuals living in poverty and medically underserved areas since they are over half of PP clients (Heisler, 2016). They are already disadvantaged by not having sufficient medical services in the area; Planned Parenthood is one of the key resources that are specifically planted in low-income areas to be accessible to this diverse population. With the easy access to contraceptives being lost, pregnancy will be on the rise along with STDs, since treatment will no longer be provided in a quick and easy manner. For an already impoverished and oppressed community these consequences could be dire.

A total of 730,322 abortions were reported from the Centers for Disease Control in 2011. This could easily be resolved with proper usage of birth control. But the fact of the matter is that only 62% of women are actually using proper birth control, now this may seem like a lot of women, but there is 158.6 million women in the United States alone so 58.5 million are currently not on any birth control which is a huge amount of women. Birth control needs to be free and accessible, because the benefits of having women on birth control easily outweigh any of the cons that may come. My goal for this paper is to talk about the pros of having free and accessible birth control, which would be lower abortion rate, lower teenage pregnancy rate, and the many health benefits. I will also touch on the opposing side of this argument, which will be that, it will be too expensive, that abstinence is key, and that if birth control became free and accessible women would no longer go the doctor.

Seeing how high the number of abortion is, it is the job of a public health official to provide both women and men with the education and necessary resources to make decisions about their sexual behavior. In 2010, 18% of majority of pregnancies in our nation sadly ended in an abortion. Even though this study was on such a wide age range, the 20s have been found to consistently majority of the abortions. It is key to keep observing the adolescent pregnancies and abortion rate. In hopes that with the education and the resources help the influence of abortions to decrease. From Abortion Surveillance, public health officials are able to observe changes, evaluate pregnancy rates, analyze the effectives of local programs throughout the U.S. and be able to recognize the types of common characteristics in women who are getting

A group known as FP2020 has been working to make family planning services available throughout the world. Through their efforts, they have avoided 77 million unplanned pregnancies in just three years. In the United States, a similar problem needs to be addressed. Although the costs and expenses associated with contraception is more accessible for the population, the locations are not. Having access to family planning services ensures that women can get the prenatal care they need for healthy pregnancies.