The wheels have begun to turn on the American government’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act. But what does this mean for women, both in the US and worldwide?
Cutting the ACA (and Medicare) also cuts Planned Parenthood funding. Someone with Medicare or ACA coverage can go to a Planned Parenthood clinic, in the same way they go to other supported medical institutions, and get the care they need, covered by their government health care coverage. The current government plans to cut Medicare and ACA users’ abilities to use their coverage at Planned Parenthood facilities. Furthermore, other sources of government funding for Planned Parenthood are also in the process of being cut, something some Republican politicians had been openly discussing for years, but only now have the power to act upon. Why? All in the name of preventing “government-funded” abortions.
But here’s the thing: the Hyde Amendment has been keeping government money out of abortions since 1976, with an update done in 2013. It states that government funding can’t be used for abortions unless the pregnancy is life threatening to the woman, or resulting from incest or rape. So if cutting Planned Parenthood funding isn’t affecting all abortion funding, what is it affecting?
Planned Parenthood clinics are medical clinics, with a focus on women’s sexual health. According to a 2014-2015 annual report, their funding goes mostly to STI/STD testing and treatment (42%); contraception (31%); other women’s health services (13%), which includes regular check ups, ob-gyn appointments, and the like; and cancer screening and prevention (7%) (see page 31 of the report). For millions of American women dependent on Medicare or the Affordable Care Act, Planned Parenthood can literally save their lives.
Cutting government funding of Planned Parenthood just keeps poor women, of whom a majority are women of colour, from accessing the medical care they desperately need. Women making minimum wage who have a high risk of cancer and who are dependent on Medicaid or the ACA won’t be able to get checked. Homeless women who need to see a gynecologist won’t be able to anymore. Poor women with menorrhagia won’t be able to get the hormonal birth control that is keeping them alive and functioning.
But let’s zoom out. This kind of legislation affects much more than the women of the United States. In 2015, the Zika virus outbreak brought to light the gaping holes in women’s reproductive health care coverage in Latin America. Women throughout the affected nations attempted to get their hands on birth control. Those who didn’t have the money (or who didn’t qualify for government subsidising or who simply couldn’t use the very limited types of birth control subsidised by the government) and did get pregnant were forced to carry their microcephalic babies to term (although some women got the right to an abortion by declaring that the pregnancy was a risk to their health too, an exception that the government makes in its abortion laws).
As a Brazilian, I heard, first hand, the cries for better women’s health care access. Most of that platform was based on the argument that both Canada and America had greater access to abortion, reproductive healthcare facilities, and birth control than us. We created systems through which women could access reproductive health care resources because two major nations in the Americas had them already. This saved, and has continued to save, the lives of women in Brazil. Yet it might not have occurred if such major figures in the American continent (i.e. the USA and Canada) hadn’t taken that step already.
As much as it pains me to say this, a lot of other countries won’t move forward in providing life-saving women’s health care if the United States moves back. Which begs the question: how many women must die and how many more must suffer before the American government decides to let women have reproductive health care?