chart of barriers to repro health
By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 8 years ago

Chart of the Day: Half of Texas women struggle to get reproductive health care

According to a new survey by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, over half of women in Texas face at least one barrier to accessing reproductive health care. 

chart of barriers to repro health

“Poor, Spanish-speaking women with low educational attainment report the most barriers to effective contraception use and being unable to use their contraceptive method of choice,” the researchers note. Over 60 percent of women using less effective birth control, like condoms or withdrawal, would prefer to use a more effective method, like the pill or IUD, if they could afford it.

This crisis is mostly thanks to the state’s devastating cuts to family planning programs over the last few years, which began when state lawmakers slashed the budget by two thirds in 2011 and forced 76 clinics close their doors.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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