Reproductive Rights

Progressives believe that controlling fertility is every woman’s right and that there is more to reproductive freedom than insuring access to safe and legal abortions. A wide range of issues affect how women experience this right, including availability of contraception, availability of information through comprehensive sex education and access to family planning clinics that provide reproductive health services.

Ohio has some of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws, and a recent study by women’s health advocates ranked Ohio and Kentucky last among the states in reproductive health rights. In the availability of contraception, the Guttmacher Institute Ohio ranks 39th among the 50 states.

Our goals include:

•Affordable and readily available contraception for all women, regardless of their marital status, age or sexual identity.
•Insurance coverage for birth control prescriptions and public funding to assist women without health insurance coverage.
•Reducing the number of abortions with an increased emphasis on pregnancy prevention.
•Access to emergency contraception and an end to practices that allow pharmacists to deny women access to such contraception based on their own religious beliefs.
•Comprehensive sex education in public schools and an end to Ohio’s abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum that researchers said contains false and misleading information, perpetuates destructive gender stereotypes and misrepresents religious convictions as scientific fact.
•Protection of women’s confidentiality in a doctor/patient relationship and respect for the medical choices made by women and their doctors.
•Protecting abortion providers against violence and harassment from anti-choice groups.
•Unmasking crisis pregnancy centers and other so-called fake clinics that provide misleading and inaccurate information to women about reproductive health issues.

LIBRARY

State-by-state ranking of reproductive health rights.

SIECUS summary report on Ohio.

See a Guttmacher Institute report on how Ohio meets the needs of women for contraceptive services.

Case Western Reserve study on Ohio’s abstinence education program.

General Accounting Office study on the accuracy and effectiveness of federally funded abstinence programs.

NARAL’S report on Access to Emergency Contraception in Ohio’s Emergency Rooms.

A poll showing broad support among Ohioans for access to contraception.

Pro-Choice America Foundation’s “Reproductive Rights & Health of Women of Color.”

The public cost of teen child bearing in Ohio.

Planned Parenthood’s Prevention First Agenda.

Find a Planned Parenthood Health Center