Women in particular should pop the champagne and celebrate. Of those millions of uninsured, 19 million are women. Up to 10.3 million of the low-income among them will now be covered by Medicaid by 2014 when the law goes into full effect. Although the uninsured tend to use less medical care, and therefore spend less than the insured, altogether they spend about $2.64 billion out of pocket each year. (Not to mention that being uninsured leads to a greater risk of death.) They can rest assured that the Supreme Court won’t get in the way of their insurance coverage, which should mean more accessible and affordable care.

Women are big financial winners in this decision in other ways. The first is the elimination of gender rating, or charging women more because they’re women, pure and simple. The National Women’s Law Center recently found that in states that haven’t banned the practice, over 90% of the best selling plans charge women more than men, even though only 3% of them cover maternity services. In fact, even when maternity care is excluded, almost a third of plans charge women at least 30% more than men for the same coverage. One plan even charges 25-year-old women 85% more than men. All told, the practice costs women about $1 billion a year.

That will now become illegal in 2014, after the ACA is fully implemented. Insurers will no longer have free rein to charge women whatever they like for no discernable reason. That extra $1 billion in our pockets sounds pretty good.

…

On top of all this, much of women’s preventative care, including contraception, Pap test, mammograms, and domestic violence screenings, will be covered without copay. An 18-year-old woman can expect to shell out $11,842 over her lifetime in copays for hormonal birth control and mandated doctor’s visits, but now she can put that money in her pocket next to the money saved from gender rating and medical expenses.

…

Other gains women will make now that health care reform will stay on the books: Maternity care is a required coverage area. Meanwhile, nursing mothers will be given mandated breaks and a private place to express breast milk at places of employment that have 50 employees or more.

rabbleprochoice:

newwavefeminism:

Stay classy, Mississippi

I’d also like to point out that Mississippi has one of the top teenage pregnancy rates in the country. In 2010, it was in the top five states with the highest teen pregnancy rate*. Teenage are the demographic that is least likely to terminate a pregnancy but for those teenagers in Mississippi who DO want to terminate, what are they supposed to do?

Mississippi is just going to increase it’s teenage birthrate, which is already the highest in the country according to the CDC.

Love,

Rabble

*Not that this is the pregnancy rate, not teen birthrate. Those two thins are not the same. The study that is linked goes into more detail if anyone is interested in it.

14kgoldnyc:

divineirony:

abaldwin360:

christiantheatheist:

In a continuing effort to both curb access to abortion and reiterate their own opinion that there is never any situation where abortion could be necessary for a patient’s well-being, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has decided in favor of revoking Dr. Ann Neuhaus’s medical license. Neuhaus, a colleague of Dr. George Tiller, assisted him by providing second opinions for mental health exceptions for late abortions.

According to the Associated Press, Neuhaus was hoping to have her full medical license restored after spending years only allowed to provide limited medical care for charity work. Instead, an ongoing investigation into 11 patient cases obtained by Operation Rescue became the center of a movement to have her license stripped all together.

The cases all involved girls who sought abortions due to mental health issues from depression to suicide, with an age range from 17 years old to as young as 10. The board alleged that Neuhaus’s exams were not thorough enough based on the available records provided, and that her follow up care was inadequate, as she did not recommend counseling or hospitalization afterwards.

Neuhaus called the accusations ridiculous. She said she refused to put too much identifying information in the records because she knew that they could eventually end up in the hands of outsiders and violate the patients’ privacy. As for abortions not being necessary, Neuhaus found that laughable as well.

“To even claim that isn’t medically necessary qualifies as gross incompetence,” said Neuhaus. “Someone’s 10 years old, and they were raped by their uncle and they understand that they’ve got a baby growing in their stomach and they don’t want that. You’re going to send this girl for a brain scan and some blood work and put her in a hospital?”

Sadly, the findings of the board were nearly inevitable. One of anti-choice Governor Sam Brownback’s most recent appointments to the board was Richard Macias, a former Operation Rescue attorney, showing the Governor’s obsession with getting anti-abortion activists key administrative spots for regulating the procedure. “I’m more concerned about the standard of care, particularly the aftercare,” Macias told the AP. “That’s the issue that bothers me the most.”

Standard of care is a pretty loose term for a group that believes that later abortions were being used as “birth control.” Offering their own expert witness during the board hearing, the witness claimed repeatedly that there is never any case in which providing an abortion could be seen as beneficial to a patient’s mental health.

On cross-examination by Neuhaus’ attorney, Robert Eye, questioned Dr. Gold about standard of care for mental health evaluations for late-term abortions. Gold replied that there is no such thing. She explained, “Late term abortion is not a treatment or intervention for any psychiatric condition.” That statement was initially stricken from the record at Mr. Eye’s request, but Dr. Gold continued to repeat her opinion on the record when asked.

When questioned about whether she had ever admitted a patient to the hospital for a late-term abortion Dr. Gold responded, “It would be inappropriate for a psychiatrist to admit a patient to a hospital for abortion services.” That comment was also stricken from the record.

When asked if an unwanted pregnancy put a teen at risk for developing psychiatric disorders, Gold was emphatic.

“Teen pregnancy is not a risk factor for psychiatric disorders,” she said.

Neuhaus will appeal the ruling. If she loses, she will not only have her license permanently revoked, but also nearly $100,000 in court costs.

Can you believe this?

Unfortunately I can believe it. Pro-lifers are fucking disgusting. 

A ten year old girl is raped by her uncle and pregnant and all they think the abortion is the traumatizing part.

They wouldn’t be willing to do shit for her if she hadn’t gotten pregnant. They wouldn’t have been willing to do shit for her if she’d carried to term. They wouldn’t have been willing to do shit for her if she’d had complications from attempting to carry to term. All they care about is using a 10-year-old rape victim as a tool with which to limit reproductive choice.

kateoplis:

“American society has a remarkable ability to resist change, or to take whatever change has taken place and attempt to make it go away. Things are different for you than they were for us. Just the fact that you chose to come to a single-sex college makes you smarter than we were — we came because…