Today, the Blueprint for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice published a full-page ad in the Washington Post highlighting top priorities for the Biden-Harris administration to expand and protect access to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. The Blueprint represents over 100 progressive organizations.
The ad enumerates four tangible policy actions that progressive groups and activists expect the administration to enact swiftly. First, the administration must revoke the global gag rule and provide clarity on the law to restore and extend health care across the globe, including abortion care. Last week, Biden announced a plan to rescind the global gag rule in the coming days.
Second, the administration must rescind the domestic gag rule on Title X, the federal program dedicated to making birth control affordable, as well as the refusal-of-care rule, rules that restrict the ACA birth control benefit, and other rules that limit access to sexual and reproductive health care.
Next, the Biden-Harris administration must lift restrictions placed on medication abortion that expose patience to needless risk during the pandemic. These restrictions are medically unnecessary and dangerous.
Finally, the administration must demonstrate its commitment to reproductive health care for all by issuing a budget proposal to end the racist, classist Hyde, Helms, and Weldon amendments that keep low-income people from accessing abortion.
The ad reads, “as we work together to rebuild from the devastation of the pandemic, the economic crisis, and centuries of systemic racism, reproductive health, rights, and justice cannot be an afterthought.
“For women, Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, LGBTQ+ people, young people, and people with low incomes, personal freedom and access to health care is the foundation for a better future. It’s how we build families, careers, and communities.”
Sources: Blueprint for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice; Feminist Newswire 1/22/21
