HBCU Student Project; Share Your Post-Roe Care Stories

View this email in your browser

NEWS FROM POWER TO DECIDE

Paid Ambassadorship Opportunity for HBCU Students: Apply Today!

Beginning January 2023, Power to Decide is launching a sexual and reproductive well-being ambassadorship for students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Students will work with a buddy on campus to launch an awareness campaign aiming to increase knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and increase access to free-or-low-cost birth control methods on their campus. With training and support from our team, ambassadors will work to relay critical information and resources that will empower their peers and promote reproductive well-being within their community.

As states restrict access to abortion, the sexual and reproductive health of millions of college students is under threat. We invite students to improve health equity on their campus and to help shape the future for the next generation of HBCU students.

Learn more about this ambassadorship, grab a buddy on campus, and apply today!

Share Your Stories of Clinical Care Post-Roe

Researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) are collecting stories of clinical management that has changed since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Through an anonymous survey, health care providers may leave a written narrative or a voice memo describing the case.

Examples of the type of stories they are seeking include:

Delayed provision of abortion care for people whose health may be compromised by continuing the pregnancy (including young adolescents).
Delayed management of ectopic pregnancy.
Delayed treatment for spontaneous pregnancy loss and preterm premature rupture of membranes.
Difficulty providing standard-of-care treatment due to the concern of causing an abortion, regardless of whether the patient was pregnant or not (e.g., chemotherapy, methotrexate, or misoprostol for a non-abortion indication).

If you are a health care provider who was involved in any part of the care of the patient, please submit your story. Any member of the health care team may submit a story. If you cared for the patient at any point—either initially or possibly after they traveled to another state—you may submit a story.

All submissions are anonymous, and IP addresses are not collected. If you would like to be interviewed about the case, you will have the option to leave your contact information, which is not linked to the clinical narrative submission. The study is approved by the UCSF IRB, and the researchers have obtained a Certificate of Confidentiality from NIH.

Go to CarePostRoe.com for more information about the study.

Our Newest Power Player

We’re committed to uplifting the many individuals supporting young people’s reproductive well-being. This month’s Power Player is Resident Fellow at R Street Institute, Courtney M. Joslin. Read her story.

New Year, New Approach

Ring in the New Year with our One Key Question^® (OKQ) online, interactive training! This patient-centered approach supports providers in navigating conversations and understanding patient goals about if, when, and under what circumstances they want to get pregnant and have a child. Our online companion training, Preconception and Contraception Pathways to Care, takes that conversation one step further by teaching providers how to offer follow-up care based on the client’s response, in a personalized, non-judgmental, and unbiased way.

Increase patient satisfaction and promote reproductive autonomy in 2023 by enrolling now! Simply visit our online shop to begin your training.

POLICY UPDATES

Congress Passes Final FY 23 Spending Bill

At the end of December, Congress passed, and the President signed into law a spending bill that funds the government through the remainder of the fiscal year (FY), which ends on September 30, 2023. Unfortunately, the bill fails to increase funding levels for key programs that provide reproductive health care services and education. It includes $286.5 million for the Title X Family Planning Program and $101 million for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. These programs have not received a funding increase in nine years. Please see Power to Decide’s statement on the FY 23 Omnibus Appropriations bill.

State Sessions Begin

All but five states will have started their 2023 legislative sessions by the end of January. If you haven’t already, begin building relationships with newly seated legislators. Check out Power to Decide’s Advancing Contraceptive Access Toolkit to see what proactive contraceptive access policies your state has and tip sheets on how to advocate for those policies your state does not yet have.

POWER UPDATES

Click here to see the top publications and articles on sexual health published in the last month.

Power to Decide CEO, Raegan McDonald-Mosley, and Senior Director, Research and Evaluation, Riley Steiner, published a commentary in Contraception highlighting over-the-counter (OTC) oral contraception as an important and safe strategy to increase access to birth control. They present survey data collected as part of Power to Decide’s annual Thanks, Birth Control campaign showing that 50% of young adults think contraception will be very (17%) or somewhat (33%) hard to get in the future. Moreover, when asked if the “the Supreme Court’s decision in June [that] allows states to set their own abortion laws” has changed their “opinion about how easy or hard it will be for people to get birth control in the future” the majority of respondents (57%) reported that they think it will be harder to access birth control. They note, “Availability [of a progestin-only pill] OTC has the potential to increase access to this specific method, particularly for people who face systemic barriers to accessing clinic-based care, such as adolescents and young adults and people of color. More broadly, such approval would signal the use of science to inform innovative service delivery strategies and hopefully pave the way for subsequent regulatory decisions that further expand contraceptive access.”

GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM OUR SPONSORS

It is 2023 and Power to Decide is doubling down on understanding and dismantling the many barriers that impact birth control access through The Contraceptive Equity Initiative. Through this effort we are expanding research efforts to better understand these barriers, bolstering our policy efforts, and even convening a shared learning collaborative of groups working in their communities to expand access.

Will you help us kick off the new year with a gift today?

Copyright © 2022, Power to Decide, the campaign to prevent unplanned pregnancy
1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036
email: [email protected]

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your p rofile or unsubscribe from this list.
To refine your newsletter subscriptions, please email [email protected].