The Wyoming Health Council works to ensure that all people can access safe, unbiased, high-quality sexual and reproductive health care. | |
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Flat funding July 27, 2023
Senate Committee Passes Flat Funding for Title X
July 27, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed (25-1) its fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health & Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS). The bill includes flat funding of $286.5 million for the Title X family planning program. The Senate funding proposal marks nine years of flat funding for Title X, at a time when demand for care continues to grow across the country and in our state.
NFPRHA's President & CEO Clare Coleman issued a press statement expressing disappointment with this low funding amount.
“NFPRHA is deeply disappointed the Senate squandered its opportunity to responsibly invest in the nation’s family planning program today by proposing flat funding for Title X in the fiscal year 2024 Labor-HHS appropriations bill released today.
Every day, more and more people are forced to confront the nightmarish reality of restrictions on reproductive health care in this country. A ninth straight year of flat funding for Title X not only fails to address this deepening reproductive health crisis but will hamstring providers’ capacity to meet a growing demand for care. Safety-net family planning providers are desperate for more resources to keep preventive health care services available in their communities.
NFPRHA remains committed to advocating for increased funding for Title X and other policies that ensure that every person, regardless of their income, coverage or any other factor, has access to the care they need from providers they trust.”
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Title X Across The Country
Learn about the role Title X Family Planning Plays in Wyoming
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Despite decades of improving public health outcomes achieved through funding patient-centered, high-quality care, the Title X family planning program remains woefully underfunded and continues to face significant legal and political challenges.
Review more fact sheets demonstrating the importance of Title X programs in all 50 states and US territories.
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Women have made great strides since we won the right to vote in 1920, which is why we celebrate Women's Equality Day, but we still have a long way to go. In fact women have fewer rights than they did a year ago, as their reproductive freedoms were stripped after the fall of Roe v. Wade. So perhaps it's safe to assume that many women do not feel like celebrating Women's Equality Day this year. However, we can celebrate the strength and tenacity of the women before us and continue their mission by recognizing the ongoing struggle for equal rights and that we will not give up until we win.
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Women’s Autonomy, Equality and Reproductive Health
Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls
The Working Group reminds readers of women’s human rights, which include the rights without discrimination to: equality, dignity, autonomy, information, bodily integrity, respect for private life, the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual and reproductive health, and freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
The right of a woman or girl to make autonomous decisions about her own body and reproductive functions is at the core of her basic rights to equality, privacy, and bodily integrity.
Equality in reproductive health includes access, without discrimination, to affordable, quality contraception, including emergency contraception. The decision as to whether to continue a pregnancy or terminate it may shape a woman’s entire future personal life as well as family life. The decision has a crucial impact on women’s enjoyment of other human rights. The decision is therefore fundamentally and primarily the woman’s decision.
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This Activist & Founder Is Using Social Medial To Champion Reproductive And Sexual Rights
Deja Foxx wants to create a world where young people are in charge of their own futures.
Foxx’s drive to become a role model to young people everywhere began in high school, when she lived in Arizona and was experiencing housing insecurity. She knew that birth control was key to securing her future and attending college, but her school’s curriculum did not provide enough information about how contraception works or how young people could access it.
“I was sitting in a sex education classroom that didn’t mention consent and that was medically inaccurate, knowing that I didn’t have a parent at home to fill in the gaps for me,” Foxx told Global Citizen. “That was the spark for my activism — sitting in that classroom and saying, ‘This isn’t right. I deserve better than this.’”
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We're Going to Make Our Presence Known: 5 Teems On The Bill to Ban Period Talk
In public schools in Florida, books are banned and you better not talk about your period. A year after Gov. Ron DeSantis (FL–R.) signed into law the controversial bill that opponents dubbed "Don’t Say Gay," which limited conversations about sexual orientation or gender identity through the third grade, a bill aimed at restricting the state’s already limited sex education may be headed to the governor’s desk.
Detractors are calling House Bill 1069 the "period ban" after the lawmaker who proposed the legislation, Rep. Stan McClain (FL-R.), said the bill would prohibit conversations about menstrual cycles between students who are younger than the sixth grade.
The bill is the latest in a wave of proposed legislation from Florida Republicans aimed at restricting reproductive health education, gender-affirming care for minors, and the books students can read.
"So if little girls experience their menstrual cycle in fifth grade or fourth grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in the grade lower than sixth grade?" Rep Gantt asked.
"It would," Rep McClain said.
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What Stands in The Way For Equal Pay For Women?
March 14 is date this year when U.S. working women finally reach the wages white men earned by the end of last year.
And that’s only when all women are lumped together—Black women won’t meet white men’s last year wage benchmark until Sept. 21 (59 cents compared to white men’s $1), Hispanic women Oct. 8 (56 cents compared to white men’s $1), and Native women will have to wait until Nov. 30 (51 cents versus white men’s $1), according to a new Government Accountability Office report, “Women in the Workforce: Underrepresentation in Management Positions Persists, and the Gender Pay Gap Varies by Industry and Demographics.”
Twenty years ago, the wage difference between what U.S. women and men earn overall was 80 cents on the dollar. Now it’s 82 cents.
Mighty poor progress.
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The Senate Just Held It's First ERA Hearing in 40 Years
On Tuesday, Feb. 28, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)—the first Senate committee hearing on the ERA since 1984.
At the hearing, constitutional law scholars, ERA advocates and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle made the case for enshrining equality in the U.S. Constitution, and what Congress can do to make ERA ratification a reality.
The hearing focused on a joint resolution filed last month by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) in the House and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) in the Senate, which would remove the arbitrary timeline for ratification and recognize the ERA as part of the Constitution. (The House of Representatives has twice passed a similar resolution lifting the timeline—in February 2020 and March 2021.)
The proposed amendment reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
“Quite frankly, most Americans think this is already in our Constitution, but Congress needs to complete the job,” said Sen. Cardin in his opening remarks. “The ERA is all about equality—the most fundamental of American values.”
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10 Organizations That Support Black Moms and Their Families
The glaring disparities in Black maternal healthcare underscore the deep-rooted systemic racism in this country. According to the National Institutes of Health, non-Hispanic Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. This is one of the highest maternal mortality rates among industrialized countries—and what’s worse is that many of these fatalities are preventable.
Many organizations are taking action against the staggering statistics and working to support Black mothers and their families. While many—like the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, National Birth Equity Collaborative and US House of Representatives’ Black Maternal Health Caucus—are advocating on a federal level for expanded research and policy amendments, other groups are working to bring care directly to Black moms when they need it. Keep reading to learn more about these organizations, the services they offer and how they’re hoping to inspire change.
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10 BLACK-OWNED SEX WELLNESS BRANDS TO CHECK OUT NOW
Be an advocate—and feel sexy AF doing it
Few things in life feel as good as a really great orgasm, but putting your cash where it counts and helping support Black-owned businesses is right up there.
In addition to giving back to charitable organizations, shopping from Black-owned brands like Savage x Fenty, New York Toy Collective, and others is a powerful way to not only take agency in your sex life, but also put money directly in the hands of sex educators and entrepreneurs within the Black community.
So whether you’re trying to restock your goodie drawer with lubes and condoms or just find a really great dildo, here are 10 Black-owned sex and lingerie shops worth checking out to put a sultry spin on social justice and feel more radiant in your own skin.
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Let's Read....
If you’re looking for a way to celebrate Black History all year long, vote with your wallet or cultivate a more informed and relevant understanding of how health intersects with race in our culture (or, better yet, all all three!), filling out your bookshelf and your to-read pile with books by Black authors who are experts on the subject is the logical first step.
Whether it’s through talking about medical bias, mental health, combining activism with self-care or some thorough introductions and studies of reproductive justice — the Black woman-led movement that encompasses not only abortion access but access to all resources for raising happy, healthy kids — these are a few titles that can help you dig a bit deeper and give a more thorough foundation for being able to talk about health equity in the United States (and around the world).
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August is National Immunization Month.
Did you know that children in Wyoming may be able to receive low-cost vaccinations, and that hospitals and clinics across the state offer these services? The Wyoming Department of Health maintains a map of providers who participate in public vaccine programs, along with eligibility information, on its website.
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Your College Sexual Health Checklist
Your first year of college comes with a lot of change, like living away from your family, feeding yourself, making and keeping your own schedule, and not having that annoying midnight curfew.
Another big change for a lot of people? Many folks begin (or continue) to explore their sexuality in college. This is normal and completely ok!
However, it’s important to understand how to take care of your and your partners’ health. If you’re going to be starting your first year of college in the fall and are having, thinking about having, or want to be having any kind of sex, do these 7 things to take care of your sexual health.
First, though: It’s also completely normal and ok if you’re not dating or having sex at this point in your life! You may feel like you’re the only one not having these experiences, but you’re definitely not alone.
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College Students May Neglect to Initiate, Complete HPV Vaccinations
Study findings show that most participants were aware of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, but had limited knowledge about the infection and the need to complete the whole series of shots.
Even though many college students recognize the importance of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to their health, other factors may prevent them from initiating or completing the full vaccination series, according to a study published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention.
HPV, a group of more than 200 related viruses, is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. HPV can cause several types of cancer, including cervical, oropharyngeal, and anal cancers. Fortunately, there is a highly effective vaccine, Gardasil9, to prevent primary infection of the 9 most common strains.
Despite widespread availability and health care provider recommendations, national rates of HPV vaccination lag far behind the desired objective of 80% coverage of boys and girls aged 13 to 17 years, the authors noted. The 2019 National Immunization Survey-Teen (NIS-Teen) reported 54.2% of adolescents as up-to-date with the HPV vaccination series.
“College-aged individuals are an ideal population on which to focus catch-up efforts as the majority of HPV infections occur during individuals’ late teens and early twenties,” the authors said.
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An Old Drug Offers A New Way To Stop STIs
A promising line of attack against sexually transmitted infections puts a cheap and widely available medication to a new use.
The treatment – a form of post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP – is a dose of the antibiotic doxycycline taken in the hours immediately after sex which works to extinguish an STI before it leads to symptoms or spreads to others.
A growing body of research shows using doxycycline in this way can substantially lower the risk of contracting three of the most common bacterial STIs — chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis.
Called doxy-PEP, the preventative treatment has instilled enough confidence that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to roll out guidance later this summer to give doctors and public health departments a roadmap for how to offer it.
At this point, most of the research has focused on how well doxy-PEP works when offered to gay and bisexual men, and transgender women — groups that have disproportionately high rates of STIs.
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Sens. Murray, Duckworth Reintroduce Reproductive Health Care Accessibility Act
The bill, first introduced in the previous session of Congress, would make reproductive health care more accessible for disabled people and increase the number of disabled people in the reproductive health workforce.
Nationwide, there are 4.1 million disabled parents. But disabled people are more likely to experience pregnancy complications, and 11 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes. They are also twice as likely to live in poverty, with disabled people of color bearing an even more disproportionate poverty risk. As a result, 1 in 4 disabled adults don’t have a regular health-care provider and have unmet health needs due to the cost of care, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
All of this, in combination with the United States’ long history and present reality of reproductive coercion and forced sterilization of disabled people, makes seeking reproductive health care deeply fraught—and potentially even dangerous—for disabled people.
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FDA Approves Opill, the First Over-the-Counter Birth Control In the U.S.
- The FDA has approved the first over-the-counter (OTC) hormonal contraceptive for use in the U.S.
- The daily oral contraceptive, Opill, is expected to hit shelves in 2024. There will be no age restrictions.
- Medical experts and organizations have been pushing for years for an OTC birth control pill.
- Making birth control medication available without a prescription could prevent millions of unintended pregnancies as more states continue to block abortion access.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Opill, the first over-the-counter oral contraceptive in the United States.
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Barbie can be anything she dreams of and so can you!
*Spoiler Alert*
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The summer blockbuster hit, the Barbie movie, ends on a surprising and important note on women's reproductive health!
“Having everyone see Barbie go to the gynecologist normalizes the experience. It solidifies the understanding that reproductive health is an integral part of overall health.
I hope that will be one of the main takeaways from the scene, which is that every girl, every woman, every person who has female reproductive organs should seek regular preventive care to address their reproductive health.”
So grab your popcorn, watch the Barbie movie and then schedule your annual exam today at your local Title X clinic today!
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WYOMING HEALTH COUNCIL
111 S. Durbin, Suite 200
Casper, WY 82601
Call Us: (307) 439-2033
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