Earlier this year, we noted that Princeton University would be hosting a conference on abortion, “Open Hearts, Open Minds and Fair Minded Words,” with the goal of approaching the topic from different sides and looking for common ground. Frances Kissling has written a piece for Salon, How to Think About Abortion, on her experience of the event (Kissling was one of four organizers, and is the former President of Catholics for a Free Choice). She writes:

The singular focus of each side, one on women and the other on fetuses, was a complicating factor in achieving understanding at the Princeton meeting. It is perhaps an eternal divide, but it is becoming a richer and less polarized division as more partisans recognize that there are blind spots on both sides of the divide.

Kissling, essentially, indicates that we need to hear and think more about *both* the “value of fetal life” and the “coarseness toward women that has developed among those opposed to abortion as they pursue efforts to make it illegal.”

Amanda Marcotte has a fiery response to Kissling at RH Reality Check, calling arguments that anti-choice folks aren’t really anti-contraception and anti-woman “dishonest.” Marcotte writes:

It is understandable that anti-choicers would rather front like they’re pro-fetus instead of anti-woman, since the latter just doesn’t poll as well. But we can’t simply take people on just their word and leave it at that. We have to look at the whole picture, and if we do that, we have to see that their agenda is about far more than their concerns about the sufferings of pre-conscious fetuses. The actual actions against contraception, the actual rhetoric that casts grown women as children who need to be forced into motherhood for their own good, and the actual willingness to employ lies and other nefarious tactics for their ends should be considered.

Meanwhile, William Saletan at Salon seems to argue that all that’s needed for more peace, love, and understanding about abortion is for the pro-choice to just concede more extremely contentious ground. Backing up the suggestion of one conference attendee, Saletan writes:

Imagine a deal…in which pro-choicers accept restrictions on second-trimester abortions in exchange for pro-life support of contraception. Both concessions would hurt, but that’s what makes the deal fair. Many stalwarts on both sides would reject the trade—most notably, the Catholic Church—but their cooperation might prove unnecessary. Abortion would remain safe and legal, but it would be rarer. And in exchange for a 12-week deadline on elective abortions, women would get better options for avoiding pregnancy.

Or, you know, we could work on giving women better options for avoiding pregnancy while not stripping them of their right to be the ones negotiating their own choices about their bodies and pregnancies. But it’s probably easy to bargain away that decision-making power when you don’t have a uterus.

Saletan’s other suggestions for pro-choicers for achieving “common ground” include “Treat[ing] contraception as a moral practice,” “Reclaim[ing] stigma,” and “Target[ing] repeaters.” In his parallel piece for the anti-choice, he also urges them to “Trade abortion for contraception.” Yeah, right. As one of the bloggers at Abortion Gang points out in an open letter to Saletan, “these recommendations are not ‘common ground,’ but points of debate and contention.”

I couldn’t agree more. Positions on stigma and morals are going to be exceptionally polarized, not easy areas for finding common ground. The “offer” to trade a 12-week limit for better access to contraception would be a tremendous fight, and ignores a whole host of relevant factors, including access to providers and geographic constraints, mandatory waiting periods, time off from work and access to childcare, contraceptive failure, intimate partner abuse, rape, and more. The Abortion Gang writer urges Saletan to explore these factors by spending time actually talking to women, and learning about how informed consent scripts, forced ultrasounds, health insurance coverage, and other issues – aside from simple contraception access – influence the debate.

These are the real trenches in the abortion fights. Before talking about common ground between pro-lifers and pro-choicers why not spend some more time figuring out what these so-called unimportance nuances actually mean?

Indeed.

Next July, SisterSong – an organization that focuses on women of color and reproductive justice – is hosting a Let’s Talk About Sex Conference in Miami, FL.
The conference announcement explains that the program will include:

workshops and plenary sessions on topics such as birth control, senior sexuality, STDs, microbicides, gynecological health and wellness, erotica, militarism, youth sexuality, and more, all through a reproductive justice lens.

Discounted early registration is open through January 31. The call for papers/workshop proposals is open through January 30, and the scholarship application is open through March 1.

Earlier this year, we wrote about the Center for Reproductive Rights’s efforts to bring attention to young women’s continued lack of over-the-counter access to emergency contraception, despite a lack of evidence for the current age-based cutoff.

In March of 2009, a judge ordered the FDA to extend over-the-counter access to 17-year-olds, and also to reconsider these age restrictions in general. Last week, the Center filed a motion for civil contempt against the FDA arguing that the agency has failed to reconsider the age restrictions for women younger than 17.

The Center has background materials and more information at http://reproductiverights.org/en/feature/the-center-takes-the-fda-back-to-court. The group is encouraging supporters to contact the FDA asking the agency to “respect the findings of its own scientific review panel and take immediate action to end restrictions on emergency contraception.”

[In other we're-still-waiting news, almost two years after the administration announced that they were going to review the controversial "conscience clause," we still haven't seen any action. As far as I know, the proposed public comment period never happened.]

A few good commentaries on what last week’s midterm election results mean for reproductive rights:

Ms Magazine: Election 2010: Pro-Choice Sustains Big Losses; Abortion Not Deciding Factor notes that 13 of the Democratic house losses were anti-choice Democrats defeated by anti-choice Republicans; “Perhaps more telling, 24 House Democrats who lost had voted yes on the Stupak/Pitts Amendment.”

Lisa Hymas at Grist: What does the election mean for population and reproductive rights? points out that at least 10 governorships have flipped from pro-choice to anti-choice.

Miriam at Nuestra Vida, Nuestra Voz: 2010 Elections showed Latino/a impact, particularly in key Western races explains that:

In the aftermath of the election, the National Latina Institute will focus on saving the landmark health care law which will cover an estimated 9 million Latinos and increase funding for community health centers – a lifeline to many in our neighborhoods.

Will at Amplify: Bait-and-Switch Politics: Welcome to the 112th Congress. Will (depressingly) predicts:

The 112th Congress will be dominated by fights over social issues, from abortion to family planning to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Two years from now, we will look back on November 2, 2010, as the day that far-right Republicans used a wave of economic frustration to usher in the most anti-choice, anti-sex ed, anti-LGBT, anti-family planning, anti-contraception Congress in our nation’s history.

Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check: No Anti-Choice Mandate, But Don’t Worry, They’ll Make One Up. Jodi also has a bummer of a prediction: “We will see almost immediately a range of efforts to focus on restricting reproductive and sexual health and rights.”

Dionne Searcey at the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog: Colorado Voters Slam Personhood Measure (found via Reproductive Rights Prof Blog). The fetal personhood amendment in Colorado that we mentioned was defeated by a 3-1 margin. Searcey notes that a similar measure is on the ballot in Mississippi next year.

Nancy Northup at the Center for Reproductive Rights: Election Perspective from Nancy Northup, declares that “We will continue to work for the day when reproductive rights, like First Amendment rights, are protected from the outcome of elections.”

Former Democratic Representative Patricia Schroeder gave one of the plenary speeches at the recent Cochrane/Campbell meeting I attended. Her speech addressed the question, “Can Democracy survive?”

Schroeder spoke about the growth of angry rhetoric and of corporate funding in campaign advertising, as well as of some people’s apparent lack of belief in facts and science. She encouraged everyone to get MAD. But she’s not interested in inciting more shouting: Schroeder asked instead that we all work hard to Make a Difference.

That said, tomorrow’s election day. Get out there and vote. It’s the easiest starting point for engaging with democracy and making a difference!

While in Colorado, I heard a lot about the fetal personhood amendment on the ballot in that state. Amendment 62 defines a person as a person “from the beginning of the biological development of that human being” (a specific meaning for which has not been established).

A coalition of organizations has grouped together to oppose the amendment, which could possibly lead to restrictions not only on abortion, but also on common forms of birth control. A recent piece at Slate talks about the disturbing parallels to slavery being made by proponents of the amendment; continuing the problematic anti-abortion arguments targeting women of color that we’ve heard about elsewhere this year.

The abortion gang blog has links to a number of other ballot initiatives affecting women’s reproductive rights and access to healthcare.

The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health released a new report, Latina Immigrant Women’s Access To Abortion: Insights from Interviews with Latina Grasstops Leaders [PDF], a qualitative report describing comments from community activists in Texas, Minnesota and New York. The report includes comments on topics including immigrant youth, access to information and referrals, and program funding.

NLIRH describes the following findings in their press release:

• Far from the stereotype of Latinas being anti-choice, these Latina community health leaders said that Latina immigrants wanted information and in some cases services related to abortion along with other health issues.
• Some community leaders said that Latina immigrant youth need emotional and practical support in making a decision about an unplanned pregnancy, and some immigrant teens do not have consistent resources for medically accurate, unbiased, culturally relevant pregnancy options counseling.
• Program grant restrictions that prohibit discussing abortion and a lack of resources for pregnancy options counseling make it difficult for Latina grasstops leaders to provide women with the full information and resources they would like to regarding unplanned pregnancy options.

Princeton University is hosting a conference this fall (October 15 & 16), “Open Hearts, Open Minds and Fair Minded Words,” featuring speakers from around the country on the topic of abortion.

The stated goals of the conference are to:

1. Explore new ways to think and speak about abortion.
2. Approach issues related to abortion with open hearts and open minds.
3. Define more precisely areas of disagreement and work together on areas of common ground.
4. Get to know those on multiple sides of the issues more personally.

Speakers will include experts in law, bioethics, medicine, theology, and other topics. The full program is available online, and includes panels on topics including morality, prevention of unintended pregnancy, conscience clauses, Constitutionality, and other issues.

Early discounted registration ends September 8.

Last night, talk show host Rachel Maddow discussed tactics used by anti-choice activities to restrict women’s access to abortion. She focused on Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, who has issued an opinion [PDF] indicating that the state may impose additional restrictions on providers of first trimester abortions, including allowing the Board of Health to regulate them as “hospitals.” An article in the Roanoke Times explains:

Cuccinelli’s opinion notes that health centers specializing in reproductive services are characterized as physicians’ offices that are exempt from state hospital licensure requirements. Forcing those facilities to meet hospital standards would bring more demanding requirements for space, equipment and staffing that abortion rights supporters argue would limit access to legal, first-trimester abortions.

Maddow spoke to NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia President Tarina Keene about what this could mean for abortion access in that state. Keene indicated that such regulations could potentially close 17 of the state’s 21 abortion clinics (making our past discussions of the difficulties provider face integrating abortion into their office practices all the more relevant). The organization has issued a statement arguing that:

This move has nothing to do with upholding the law or protecting women’s health, and everything to do with ideology and politics. Attorney General Cuccinelli is trying to accomplish through brute force of executive power what he couldn’t accomplish through the democratic process in his time as a State Senator – restricting women’s access to reproductive healthcare by shutting down abortion providers. These targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP) laws have nothing to do with safety and have everything to do with ideology.

Those who support the change will inevitably ask, “Don’t you want women to be as safe as possible when they have abortions?” Of course pro-choice women’s health and reproductive rights advocates want abortion to be safe. But this seemingly innocuous question ignores the fact that those pushing for such changes are working to restrict abortion access, rather than responding to any demonstrated need for improved facilities.

As Keene observes in the interview, “They have hijacked the language, and, unfortunately, what they’ve also done is make people feel like abortion is dangerous and it’s also scary.”

In reality, the data shows that legal abortion in the first trimester is very safe — far safer than continuing a pregnancy.

View the full interview (with transcript) below:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The summer 2010 Guttmacher Policy Review includes a piece, Off Base: The U.S. Military’s Ban on Privately Funded Abortions, which describes current military policy on abortion, including the existing ban on public funding and debate about lifting the ban on privately funded abortions in military medical facilities.

For context, the piece explains:

Earlier this year, the Senate Armed Services Committee moved toward restoring abortion rights to some 200,000 active duty women in the U.S. military, by voting to reverse current policy prohibiting the performance of abortions in military facilities, even in cases when U.S. servicewomen pay out-of-pocket for the procedure.The amendment to change the policy was sponsored by Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) and is now attached to the pending Department of Defense (DOD) authorization bill.

The ban on privately funded abortions was apparently put in place in 1988, lifted by former President Clinton in 1993, and reinstated by Congress in 1995. According to the author, the ban particularly affects servicewomen stationed overseas, where legal abortion may not be available in the country’s own facilities. The author makes an argument that the policy against privately funded abortion in Department of Defense facilities not only strips women of their right to an abortion and endangers their health and safety, but that the policy may have negative effects on the military through the loss of women who would otherwise choose abortion.

As the review’s author states for a related press release:

This debate is not about the morality or legality of abortion, but whether women who enlist in the military, and especially those who are living overseas, should be discriminated against as a result…It’s time that we stop treating women in uniform as second-class citizens by denying them timely access to a legal, Constitutionally protected health care service their civilian counterparts can freely obtain.

Readers may also be interested in another piece from the same policy review, The Potential of Health Care Reform to Improve Pregnancy-Related Services and Outcomes.

As we know, the majority of U.S. counties lack an abortion provider, and ensuring that proper training in the procedure is available to future healthcare providers is one key aspect of making and keeping abortion available. As the new school year approaches and new medical and nursing students are arriving at campuses all over the country, we thought we’d list resources for students interested in organizing to promote and protect abortion training in their programs. Two organizations working hard to provide information and resources on abortion training and availability are Medical Students for Choice and Nursing Students for Choice.

Medical Students for Choice provides student organizing resources including tips on curriculum reform and tools for student leaders, a list of U.S. and Canadian ob/gyn and family practice residency programs that offer abortion training, recommended reading, and other tools and support. The organization is also on Facebook and Twitter.

Nursing Students for Choice is a relatively new organization that focuses on reproductive health training for nursing students. Their website provides resources for getting involved and for starting campus chapters. The organization also has a new blog as well as Facebook presence.

Via @NLIRH, we learned that the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice and the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights have teamed up for the first annual Latina Week of Action for Reproductive Justice, starting today and running until August 15th.

As part of the week, the groups are asking supporters to contact their Congressional representatives “to ask the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support comprehensive family planning services that include contraception as a key women’s health service under the Women’s Health Amendment.” As with many online action campaigns, you can put in your zip code to identify your Representative and Senators and send them a letter explaining that “Latinas, immigrants, and women of color will be disproportionately affected if contraception is not made affordable and accessible.”

There is also an online conversation about Latinas and contraception happening all week, with an inaugural blog post, My-So-Called-Sex-Education, up at Nuestra Vida, Nuestra Voz (NLIRH’s blog) on the need for information about and access to contraception. Further discussion will happen on Facebook, via Twitter (#latinaRJwk), and on partnering blogs such as VivirLatino. There are in-person events taking place in a few cities; check out this page for details.

Earlier this week, the so-called “Pro-Life Freedom Ride” (alluding to the civil rights freedom rides) arrived at the King Center in Atlanta to demonstrate in opposition to abortion rights. The “freedom ride” campaign is being organized by Priests for Life to “build…on a method that the Civil Rights Movement used effectively forty years ago,” and consists of anti-abortion activists taking a bus to cities “with strategic significance for the movement” (such as Atlanta and Birmingham) to demonstrate against abortion.

The “ride” to Atlanta follows up on previous efforts in the state targeting women of color with the goal of restricting abortion. Atlanta was the target earlier this year of an anti-abortion billboard campaign targeting Black women by referring to Black children as an “endangered species.” Also this year, race-focused anti-abortion legislation was defeated in the state; it was opposed by groups of women of color including SisterSong, SPARK, and SisterLove, who were also active in organizing protests of the “pro-life freedom rides.”

Loretta Ross of SisterSong filed this report {PDF] from their protests of the “Ride” at this week’s events, writing that:

…it was surreal seeing all these white folks carrying signs that said “Abortion is the #1 Killer of Black America.” Can you imagine the optics of the scene? Here’s a group of white folks claiming to save Black babies being protested by mostly African American women and men who are shouting “Trust Black Women!”? Once we saw their signs, Paris instantly created a new chant: “Racism is the #1 Killer of Black America, not Black Women!”

In a statement [PDF] prior to the event, the organizations wrote that the “rides” were “no more than a ploy to turn back the clock on Black women’s right to reproductive freedom,” and Ross got to the heart of the offense of the event, including the appropriation of an important civil rights legacy in the service of restricting the rights of women of color:

We are offended by their cynicism, opportunism, and outright distortions of historical facts. Both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King firmly supported reproductive justice for women. Lies by anti-abortionists, no matter how often repeated, cannot change those historical facts.

As Dazon Dixon Diallo of SisterLove stated:

The actions planned by Priests for Life [the group organizing the rides] are insulting, disrespectful, and completely antithetical to the struggle for women’s human rights. They should be ashamed of themselves, and it is our job as Black women and people of color to shame them!

We would expand that to it being the job of *all* people who are pro-choice advocates for human rights and reproductive justice to resist these campaigns.

For more, see:

• SPARK Reaffirms the Agency and Power of Black Women and our Civil Rights Legacy
• SisterSong has photos from the event on their Facebook profile
• Anti-choice “Freedom Rides” Distort the History and Message of Civil Rights Movement – from the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

Last week, Christine blogged about a New York Times article, “The New Abortion Providers,” that provides a detailed look at “the struggles of individual medical students and doctors to make abortion an accepted, integrated part of healthcare.”

For those interested in an even more thorough exploration of this topic, Lori Freedman’s “Willing and Unable: Doctors’ Constraints in Abortion Care” is a great resource. In fact, the Times piece mentions Freedman, in the context of a study she co-authored.

In the study, researchers interviewed 30 OB/GYNs with abortion training who said they wanted to provide abortions after residency. Once they were in practice, though, most of the OB/GYNs were not providing abortions, and the study examines the professional, personal and social reasons why they weren’t.

“Willing and Unable” provides more detail on these discussions with providers, focusing on the providers who are trained to provide abortion and not opposed to the practice — the willing — but who for various personal and structural reasons are unable to do so.

Freedman discusses the isolation of abortion into freestanding clinics, and the physicians she interviews describe the barriers to integrating abortion into normal medical care in group practices and hospitals, including group practice owners, personal attitudes, fear of stigma, financial and professional vulnerability early in their careers, HMO referral rules, and Catholic hospital networks that have made them unable to provide abortion to patients.

Ninety-seven percent of non-metropolitan U.S. counties lack abortion providers, and dedicated abortion clinics currently provide 93 percent of abortion procedures. Looking at these statistics, Freedman concludes that “threats, overt abortion prohibitions, and a medical culture of practice that distances itself from abortion” results in a “multilevel, institutionalized buck-passing that marginalizes abortion practice.”

She explains that “ultimately, willing and even highly motivated physicians find the current organization of health care all but prohibits abortion practice within mainstream medicine.”

In some cases, providers were more ambivalent and simply did not feel a degree of personal responsibility for providing abortions that would lead them to tackle certain barriers and inconveniences that could be overcome. In other cases, however, the providers would have liked to provide abortion but were prevented from doing so by strict policies and conditions of their employment or other structural barriers.

Freedman examines not only the reasons for but the outcomes of these barriers — such as cases encountered by interviewees who currently work in Catholic hospital networks and have been frustrated by their inability to provide abortions, even to women whose pregnancies were clearly unsuccessful and, in some cases, life-threatening.

Freedman makes the following recommendations for advocates to move beyond increasing access to abortion training (a key focus in previous decades):

• Target physicians later in their careers, as they may experience less financial and professional vulnerability;
• Work to increase the number of advanced practice clinicians (such as nurse practitioners and CNMs) who provide abortion services;
• Call on HMOs and private physician practices to stop outsourcing abortion care to dedicated clinics and reduce the segregation of this service from mainstream medicine.

Overall, I found “Willing and Unable” to be a nuanced and fascinating exploration of the reasons why providers who are trained in and willing to provide abortions may not be doing so, which in turn contributes to the high percentage of U.S. areas with no local abortion provider.

While I have personally been more attuned to the issue of medical student training with regards to the provider portion of the access equation, Freedman’s work was quite informative in pointing out other important ways in which trained and willing physicians are currently prevented from reducing the provider shortage in the United States.

Readers may also be interested in this RHRealityCheck podcast discussion with Freedman, and two articles in the June 2010 issue of the journal Contraception by Freedman and her colleagues.

Note: “Willing and Unable” is published by my larger workplace’s university press, and I know the press’s marketing and new media staff.

The New York Times has published online an extensive article about “The New Abortion Providers” (it will appear in print in Sunday’s Magazine), which I highly recommend reading. Such detailed reporting from a mainstream publication on the struggles of individual medical students and doctors to make abortion an accepted, integrated part of healthcare is quite welcomed.

The story provides both a historical and personal context for understanding the challenges — and the courageous dedication — of women’s health advocates on the frontlines of reproductive health for the past four decades.

Unfortunately, this ground-breaking journalism appears the same week in which we learned the Obama administration is denying abortion coverage for women whose pre-existing conditions will place them in “high risk pools” that have been established through the recent health care reform legislation.

More on that lack of courage in a moment.

But it’s worth pausing on Emily Bazelon’s story. She first outlines the depressing marginalization of abortion providers in the United States that occurred in the decades after Roe v. Wade. In 1973, hospitals made up 80 percent of abortion facilities. Fifteen years later, 90 percent of abortions were performed in clinics. At the same time, medical schools increasingly refused to make abortion training part of their curriculum. By 1995, “the number of OB-GYN residencies offering abortion training fell to a low of 12 percent.”

Even though it was the hard work of the feminist movement that made abortion widely available through clinics, those clinics were never intended to replace the key role of hospitals. And as we’ve seen all too often, clinics are ground zero for harassing patients and abortion providers.

As Bazelon notes, “This was never the feminist plan.”

This is a story, though, with an encouraging ending. While anti-abortion forces forced this marginalization through very public protests and acts of violence, a quieter, grassroots movement has taken hold that is starting to reverse these trends:

Over the last decade, abortion-rights advocates have quietly worked to reverse the marginalization encouraged by activists like Randall Terry. Abortion-rights proponents are fighting back on precisely the same turf that Terry demarcated: the place of abortion within mainstream medicine. This abortion-rights campaign, led by physicians themselves, is trying to recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one.

Its leaders have built residency programs and fellowships at university hospitals, with the hope that, eventually, more and more doctors will use their training to bring abortion into their practices. The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it’s a seamless part of health care for women — embraced rather than shunned.

The article goes on to tell many compelling stories and reveal complex personal negotiations and sacrifices.

The comments section of the article is also an essential read, as it provides some key corrective points and additional context. “sadpatient” points out that the article, despite its “sympathetic” stance, still participates in the demonization of second trimester abortions, even though “many women are driven to terminate a dearly wanted pregnancy due to poor prenatal diagnosis.”

“Jenny K,” a member of Nursing Students for Choice, was “disappointed” that the article didn’t mention the role of nurse practitioners and physician assistants. And “CM,” through a personal anecdote, discusses the continuing difficulties of terminating a pregnancy in hospitals that are unwilling to provide separate, specialized facilities.

But the gains noted in the article are undeniable. Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s decision this week to prohibit abortion coverage in Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Pools (PCIPs) — also known as high-risk pools — is a disheartening setback for all those fighting to make abortion accessible and affordable.

The Hill reports that the decision ”came as the National Right to Life Committee and others argued the pools being set up in Pennsylvania and New Mexico would cover elective abortions — something that wasn’t prohibited by the healthcare reform law or the president’s executive order on abortion.”

Jessica Aron, in her enlightening breakdown of the political machinations behind the decision, explains why denying coverage to women in this group is particularly devastating:

Women entering these plans are, by definition, those who have experienced serious medical conditions — so serious that insurers are unwilling to sell them insurance. In other words, those who get pregnant are already at a heightened risk for needing an abortion for health reasons when compared to the general population.

Aron also explains in detail why, even with the executive order that Obama signed as a compromise with anti-abortion Democrats like Bart Stupak, “nothing in the law requires such action” restricting abortion in PCIPs.

It is understandable that the Administration might now feel the need to honor the “spirit” of the compromise that resulted in the Executive Order.  But the whole point of the compromise was to preserve the status quo, which included both restricted and unrestricted spheres of abortion funding.  Moreover, the terms of the agreement were carefully negotiated.  Abortion opponents who participated in the bargaining did not raise concerns about high risk pools or other specific potential sources of federal funding, and they should be able to live with the deal they made.

The worst of it is that the Administration could have at the very least set up something akin to the Hyde Amendment and the PPACA by giving states the option of using state or private money to cover abortion care costs.  Instead, the Administration cited the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan specifically as the controlling precedent for the PCIPs.

The reaction from women’s health advocates has been swift. Judith L. Lichtman, senior advisor of the National Partnership for Women and Families, released this statement:

For the next few years, temporary insurance plans for those with pre-existing conditions will be the best and only way that millions of Americans — including many women of child-bearing age — can get health insurance coverage. It is unnecessary and punitive for the Obama Administration to adopt rules that prevent women from using their own private resources to purchase coverage for abortion services in these plans.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, stated:

The very women who need to purchase private health insurance in the new high-risk pools are likely to be more vulnerable to medically complicated pregnancies. It is truly harmful to these women that the administration may impose limits on how they use their own private dollars, limiting their health care options at a time when they need them most. This decision has no basis in the law and flies in the face of the intent of the high-risk pools that were meant to meet the medical needs of some of the most vulnerable women in this country.

Raising Women’s Voices and the National Women’s Health Network are providing avenues for action and key talking points to use when contacting the White House (202-456-1111) and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (877-696-6775).

Earlier this week, we wrote about the groundbreaking “Friday Nights Lights” episode that dealt more honestly with abortion than most television shows in the past 30 years. We’re pleased to include this reflection by Gloria Feldt, activist, author, blogger and past president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. We hope you’ll follow through on her suggestions to thank NBC for allowing this episode to air.

On a personal note, it pleases me no end that this truth-telling episode appeared on “Friday Night Lights.” The show is based on Buzz Bissinger’s book of that same name, a sociology of the very West Texas town (Odessa, Texas) where I lived for 20 years and the high school (Permian) from which my three children graduated.

Not only do I know Dillon/Odessa and its hardscrabble culture all too well; it was where I moved as a 15-year-old pregnant teen with my new husband. We hailed from an even smaller West Texas town, where our football team was truly the only game around (my high school classmates still play the 8-millimeter film of our state championship game at every reunion, if that gives you a clue). At least Odessa has supermarkets and movie theaters!

Odessa was also where my growing understanding of the complexity of childbearing decisions came full circle — and why, though I loved my children more than anything, I came to realize I would have been a much better parent if I’d waited 10 or 20 years to have them.

My 30-year career with Planned Parenthood began when I became executive director of the fledgling affiliate there in 1974 — an affiliate now headed by a woman who was in my older daughter’s Permian High graduating class.

Sadly, I know from stories I still get from young women that the same time-warped pattern repeats itself: Teen girl wants to please football player boyfriend and gets pregnant. The good news is that these stories now — regardless of what the girl decided to do about the pregnancy — are much more likely to end in a statement of appreciation for having had choices in the first place.

This particular episode of FNL is a testament to the fact that regardless of the reactionary, shaming culture and a media with a rightward tilt, real life women will find a way to save their own lives — even in unlikely places like the fictional Dillon and the very real Odessa.

I’ve sent NBC a note of appreciation and urge all of you to do same. We’re good at reacting when we don’t like something, but less so when there’s a show worthy of applause. Here’s where you can go to send a comment: http://www.nbc.com/contact/general/

The series is executive produced by Peter Berg (the film “Friday Night Lights,” “Hancock”), who also wrote and directed the pilot. Joining Berg as executive producers are Jason Katims (“Roswell”), Brian Grazer (“Frost/Nixon,” “The Da Vinci Code”), David Nevins (“Arrested Development”), Sarah Aubrey (“The Kingdom”) and Jeffrey Reiner (“Caprica”). “Friday Night Lights” is a production of Universal Media Studios, Imagine Entertainment and Film 44, in case you want to target a specific individual.