Tag Archive for "Low-income women"

Posts Tagged Low-income women

Quote of the Day: Colorado lawmaker says IUDs stop “a small child from implanting”

Colorado has a very effective program that provides IUDs to poor and uninsured women at no or low cost. The public health department estimates it has helped cut the teen unintended pregnancy rate by 40 percent and saved the state more than $20 million in Medicaid funding.

By Verónica Bayetti Flores • 11 years ago

Mind the gap: September is Abortion Access Month

This post has been co-written by Eesha Pandit and Verónica Bayetti Flores.

What does it really take to get an abortion in America?

September is Abortion Access Month, and an important time to think about this question. As it turns out, it takes quite a bit to get an abortion in this country, and as states across the nation pile on waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, bans, and other barriers, accessing safe and legal abortion care is becoming more difficult by the day. One of the biggest hurdles for folks seeking abortion care is the fact that, for many, it is quite simply unaffordable. Who are the folks that cannot afford abortion care?

Outside of our paid gigs, we serve on the ...

This post has been co-written by Eesha Pandit and Verónica Bayetti Flores.

What does it really take to get an abortion in America?

September is Abortion Access Month, and an important time to think about this question. As ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Quick Hit: Gosnell’s clinic and the cost of dignity in health care

As we’ve already mentioned, the conservative claims of a liberal media “blackout” surrounding the trial of Kermit Gosnell are totally ridiculous. Feminist bloggers and journalists, including us, have been covering this terrible story from the beginning. Our own Lori wrote an article in the Grio two years ago on the racial segregation of Gosnell’s clinic and what this story says about safe abortion access for low-income women of color.

It’s a point that’s echoed in this excellent piece by Erin Grant:

But this case is about more than just a practitioner who did bad things. His case embodies the “off-the-grid” abortions we can expect to see in states like Mississippi and North ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Women need a raise in the minimum wage

In a far-ranging speech that covered everything from climate change to AIDS, President Obama presented a few proposals that are particularly important for women: Implementing universal preschool, passing the Paycheck Fairness Act, and raising the minium wage. As Bryce Covert notes, all three of these policies would help combat the gender pay gap, since “balancing children and work, making the minimum wage, and being forced into secrecy about paychecks” are all huge factors.

Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 per hour would affect approximately 21 million workers. About two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and they are disproportionately women of color. At the current rate–which is lower than it was a few decades ago and hasn’t ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

Texas willing to throw 130,000 poor women under the bus to stick it to Planned Parenthood

Via KYBOOMU, it seems that Texas, in its stubborn quest to deny funding to Planned Parenthood, is willing to sacrifice an effective and much-needed program that provides reproductive health care to 130,000 thousand low-income women.

Last year, the Texas legislature passed a law making it illegal for the state to provide Medicaid funds to any organization that is even affiliated with one that provides abortions. That means that even the many Planned Parenthood clinics that don’t offer abortions at all would be denied funding to provide contraception, cancer screenings, and basic preventive health care through the state’s Women’s Health Program. As it did when Indiana and other states pulled the same stunt, the Obama administration cried foul, saying ...

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By Rose • 14 years ago

More Bad News on the Motherhood Penalty

A new study that evaluates the motherhood penalty, or the average wages women lose over their career after they become mothers, reveals that low-income lose again and women who enjoy family friendly benefits aren’t usually mothers. Via today’s New York Times Economix blog:

In a startling new look at the “motherhood penalty,” however, two sociologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Michelle J. Budig and Melissa J. Hodges, show that mothers with lower earnings suffer the biggest percentage loss in hourly wages…Women with lower earnings are more likely to cycle in and out of jobs, forced to quit if child-care arrangements fall through or they experience a family health crisis. ...