Abortion

For over 50 years, the National Partnership for Women & Families has been working to ensure that all women have access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion care.

Since laws restricting abortion access were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, abortion access has improved Americans’ lives in enumerable ways. Women and couples are able to have children when and if they want, to better care for their children, to end unhealthy relationships, and to participate more fully in employment and civic life and all aspects of our society.

But abortion access has never been in so much jeopardy. Lawmakers at the state and federal levels have worked relentlessly to take away women’s right to abortion and women’s access to safe abortion services, making it more and more difficult for women to obtain abortion care. For many women both because of income and geographical barriers — abortion, although legal, is virtually unavailable. Clinics are being regulated out of existence. Mandatory waiting periods and funding shortfalls force women to seek abortion care later in pregnancy or under otherwise less than ideal situations. Abortion providers and their patients face dangerous, sometimes deadly harassment. Formerly legal health care procedures have been made illegal.

The need to protect and expand abortion access is more important than ever. The National Partnership believes strongly in all women’s right to abortion care and that abortion decisions should be made by individuals, their families and their doctors, not by the government. That is why we are working to get politics out of the exam room, to ensure public and private insurance coverage of abortion for all women, and to change the public dialogue on this issue.

Key Resources

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