Jessica Arons is the Director of the Women's Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, as well as a member of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative. Prior to joining American Progress, she worked at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, the labor and employment law firm of James & Hoffman, the Supreme Court of Virginia, the White House, and the 1996 Pennsylvania Democratic Coordinated Campaign. She currently serves on the boards of the DC Abortion Fund and the Virginia ACLU.
Jessica is an honors graduate of Brown University and William and Mary School of Law. At William and Mary, Jessica was an associate editor of the William and Mary Law Review, managing editor of the William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law, and a board member of the William and Mary Public Service Fund. She has been seen on MSNBC, Fox News, and ABC News; heard on Clear Channel radio; and featured in The Nation, Politico, HuffingtonPost ScienceProgress, and RHRealityCheck. Her publications include "More Than a Choice: A Progressive Vision for Reproductive Health and Rights" and "Future Choices: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law."
Until the Hyde Amendment is repealed and poor women receive adequate support for all of their reproductive health needs, rich and poor women will continue to live in two different countries with two different sets of rights.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) claims his bill would “only” codify, or make permanent, the Hyde Amendment. But it goes far beyond current law, seriously compromise women’s access to reproductive health care, and hamstring government operations.
The widely-celebrated court decision striking down Proposition 8 is important for many reasons, not least because it underscores that reproductive and sexual rights are integrally and intimately linked.
This week the Obama Administration placed a total ban on abortion coverage in Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans even though nothing in the law requires such action.
No more speculation. Now we know — universal health care coverage leads to a reduction in the abortion rate.
At the recent health reform summit, Minority Leader John Boehner again repeated the misleading canard that the White House’s healthcare reform bill would allow public funding of abortions.
Opponents and supporters of abortion rights agreed early on, in theory, to maintain the “status quo” in health reform with “abortion neutral” legislation. Unfortunately, neither the House nor Senate versions preserves the status quo.
An analysis of the criteria originally set out by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops as priorities for health reform finds that the Bishops have moved the goal posts on their original insistence that reform be “abortion-neutral.”
Opponents and supporters of women’s choices in childbearing agreed early on, in theory, to maintain the “status quo” with “abortion neutral” health care legislation. The Senate bill achieves this goal; the House bill does not.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was among the first to call for an “abortion-neutral” health care bill in July, defined as maintaining current policies on funding, mandates, and conscience protections. But then they reneged on the deal.
