Dear Colleagues,
I woke up this morning with a migraine. I'm 9 days post-double mastectomy surgery and generally recovering well, but things felt off.
When I picked up my phone and saw alerts about the SCOTUS decision overturning Roe v Wade, my heart sunk. Tears began to fall. Why am I crying? Is it because my body has had a traumatic surgery and I'm a bit off? This is plausible, but I knew it was more than that. Should I stay silent or send out a message? Then, I thought about CBHA's board-approved policy priorities and the work we have been doing around health equity, trauma, and human rights. As I read and reread CBHA’s statements, I thought, "How can I stay silent?" I am a leader of an organization that represents behavioral health providers, a psychologist, a daughter of a pastor, and a survivor of sexual assault during college, and I had immediate choices after my assault - choices that many women will not have now. This IS a behavioral health issue and I am choosing to speak out.
Regardless of one's belief about abortion, we cannot ignore the psychological impacts that this reversal will have on behavioral health clients and their communities. Though there is research citing that participating in an abortion can be in itself a traumatic event, there is also research underscoring that people who are denied abortions are more likely to experience higher levels of anxiety, lower life satisfaction, and lower self-esteem compared with those who are able to obtain abortions. And, as recently cited by Dr. Frank Worrell, the President of the American Psychological Association, “A person’s ability to control when and if they have a child is frequently linked to their socioeconomic standing and earning power. Therefore, restricting access to safe, legal abortions is most likely to affect those living in poverty, people of color, and sexual and gender identity minorities, as well as those who live in rural or medically underserved areas.”
The fundamental issue is allowing a woman to make a choice about what she believes is best for herself and her future, and we must be prepared to deal with how removing that liberty will impact the clients CBHA members serve and the disparities it may exacerbate in their communities.
I commend all of our allied behavioral health advocacy organizations that continue to fight for health equity and justice. I commend the behavioral health providers CBHA represents who serve so many individuals during some of the darkest moments of their lives. We will keep highlighting issues that impact behavioral health - even some of the most controversial ones. This is why we exist- to use our platform to bring awareness to issues that impact the behavioral health of those who reside in all regions of California and beyond.
In Service,
