Demand Native American Women Get Access To Emergency Contraception
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One in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime, but in many Native communities, women have little to no access to emergency contraception.
On most reservations, the only medical facilities are the Indian Health Service centers, federally administered divisions of the Department of Health and Human Services. But according to the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center, only 10 percent of the pharmacies in the IHS offered Plan B. Forty percent only provide Plan B with a prescription, and the other half don’t provide it at all.
Those are depressing truths, but as Colorlines reports, so far even in the face of that evidence IHS is doing nothing to address the fact that Native women effectively have no access to effective emergency contraception.
Given the high number of incidents of sexual assault and the fact that emergency contraception is only effective to prevent a pregnancy if taken within 72 hours–something functionally impossible if you are trying to secure a prescription from a short-staffed clinic or to travel to a clinic sometimes hundreds of miles away first–this story is a mounting civil rights crisis.
We can do something about this though. These kinds of bureaucratic injustices respond to pressure and daylight. Native American women deserve to have access to emergency contraception and that access shouldn’t be dictated by what appears to be now nothing more than institutional inertia.
Related Stories:
Sexual Assault Epidemic Against Native Americans: Will VAWA Help?
Read more: emergency contraception, native americans, plan b, rape, sexual assault
Photo from meddygarnet via flickr.
69 comments
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8:47AM PDT on Jun 30, 2012Got it signed & noted.
Wherever you go there once was a forest.
Plant & protect Danny's trees for life.
Trees are the lungs of the earth.
7:49AM PDT on Jun 30, 2012It shoulf be made avalable to all women.
Yes the U.S. is so two faced . We can tell other countries how to have human rights, but then we are so guilty of taking away rights. The U.S. is a laughing stock to most countries.
7:36PM PDT on Jun 28, 2012I can not sign because the thing
will not scroll down for me.
Is there somewhere else I can sign?Wherever you go there once was a forest.
Plant & protect Danny's trees for life.
Trees are the lungs of the earth.
9:51PM PDT on Jun 27, 2012native American women deserve to be treated the same as other Americans, I dont know how America manages such blatant discrimination while telling other countries how to run their own citizens lives
6:25PM PDT on Jun 27, 2012Native American Women Have Just As Much Right To Make Choices As Any Other American Citizen! And They Should Be Given That Right Honestly And Fairly!
2:36PM PDT on Jun 27, 2012signed. As a multiple rape survivor and two resulting in children they deserve it
12:03PM PDT on Jun 27, 2012I love how the great white father "lets" Native Americans be sovereign nations when it's convenient and controls everything when it's not. This is so very bogus it's depraved.
9:34AM PDT on Jun 27, 2012this is a disgusting situation! ANY victim of rape should have access to Plan B without having to jump through hoops.
Native American women are being treated wrongly by the government (no surprise) and we need to let IHS know we will not tolerate this.
more must be done to prevent rape and to prosecute rapists on reservations.
7:00AM PDT on Jun 27, 2012Most women don't report being sexually assaulted so not to allow them access to emergency contraception under any circumstance, is unconscionable. Once again, the religious right interfering with social justice by pushing their own archaic agendas. This is sickening and women must stand united because if we do not, all women will lose rights they've fought long and hard for.
6:28AM PDT on Jun 27, 2012How dare anyone interfere with the Native American women's rights? Haven't they suffered enough?
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