January 2018

 

End of Year Recap

Thank YOU! You helped us surpass our fundraising goal and raise over $80,000! Your support and what it means to clinicians and patients everywhere overwhelms us with joy. Your commitment to expanding access to reproductive health care provides us with the encouragement to continue the fight. Everyone deserves the right to access reproductive health care whenever and wherever they want it.

Training clinicians to comprehensively manage early pregnancy loss is a step forward for patients experiencing a miscarriage. Patients are able to select the treatment option that feels right for them and their situation. Studies have shown that people experiencing pregnancy loss who are able to select their treatment option fare better emotionally after miscarriage than those left out of the decision-making process. Thank you for giving people agency over their bodies during what can be one of the most heart-wrenching experiences of their lives.

 

Running for RHAP

This year, the Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP) is participating in the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon on Sunday, March 18! We have an amazing team that has already hit the ground running with their fundraising efforts.

Meet two of our five runners Meghan Tizzano and Sylvia English, and learn more about what sparked their interest in our organization and how they got involved! Look out for the remaining team members’ bios as we update our blog in the coming months. Check out our runners’ fundraisers on our Crowdrise profile and please support their efforts.

This is just one of many different ways that you can support expanding access to reproductive health care. If you want to do something like this in support of RHAP, contact our Development Officer, Rosanna Montilla-Payano at rosanna@reproductiveaccess.org.

 

Reflecting on 2017, Looking Ahead to 2018

 A year ago, we really had no idea what the future would hold for our organization or our movement. We feared the worst after the 2016 election—a roll back of federal rights and advancements made with regard to reproductive health care and an increase in state-level anti-abortion, anti-reproductive rights laws and policies. What we didn’t expect was the HUGE outpouring of activism and support for our work.

We were inundated by people wanting to volunteer their time with us, so much so that we started a volunteer program and now have more than 420 volunteers registered! We experienced an influx of nearly 2,000 new supporters and 500 new donors—which helps us expand our influence and reach. We’ve also received new, significant support from several foundations.

Most importantly, we experienced a huge increase in activism from clinicians all around the country. For the past eight years, we have been doggedly reaching out and connecting with pro-choice clinicians all across the country to build a strong Network of clinicians we can call on to work with us to improve access to reproductive health care.  Over the past 12 months, our Network has expanded to more than 1,600 members and many are deepening their involvement. We now have 20 active local “Clusters” in states like Idaho, Georgia, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina, and Vermont.

Our organization grew as a result of the past year. We have a more robust programmatic team managing our programs, and we took steps to strengthen our infrastructure. We are now able to more easily communicate with supporters and have the capacity to develop online advocacy and educational campaigns. We also moved into a new office.

Here are some other highlights from the past year:

• We celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Reproductive Health Care and Advocacy Fellowship, and added a new site to our fellowship program in 2018: Minneapolis, Minnesota!
• We’ve taken on a new Miscarriage Care Initiative site, the Community East Family Medicine Residency Program, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• We have continued to develop strong relationships with our coalition partners and ally organizations. This year, we’ve signed onto several letters of support for protecting reproductive rights from the Coalition on Liberty and Justice, joined social media storms to support our partners’ efforts, and attended Netsroots Nation and SisterSong’s 20th anniversary conference in hopes of expanding and diversifying how we approach our own work in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement.
• We continue to update and develop new patient education materials. We translated 33 of the most popular patient handouts into Hindi and Vietnamese. Of our newest materials, we are especially excited about our new miscarriage-centered offerings, such as What Is a Miscarriage? We’ve also updated our website to make these materials more easily searchable and accessible. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already!

Our work in 2018 and beyond is to build on and harness the increased activism and support we experienced in 2017. We have seen that grassroots involvement is what is needed to hold back regressive and oppressive policy change, both nationally and at the state level. We will use our unique position, as an organization working directly with primary care clinicians, to resist policies— local and national—that limit access to reproductive health care. Expect more outreach from us to engage in critical actions like our recent Net Neutrality campaign.

We also reaffirm our commitment to expanding our core clinical training and support efforts such as the Reproductive Health Care and Advocacy Fellowship, and are working to expand to other sites in 2019 and beyond. We will continue to support primary care providers and organizations to integrate abortion and manage pregnancy loss. 

Thank YOU for being part of the movement to make reproductive health care accessible to everyone. 

 

Focus on a Network Cluster: Idaho

2017 was a busy year for the Reproductive Health Access Network, with 11 new Clusters meeting for the first time (in addition to our 7 previous Clusters!). In recognition of the efforts of the Cluster leaders and members, we will highlight different Clusters throughout 2018, starting with Idaho.

RHAP’s Idaho Cluster, led by Sarah, a family physician, and Hannah, a licensed and board-certified women’s health nurse practitioner and midwife, began developing in September of 2017. As a new provider in Idaho, Sarah wasn’t fully plugged into the reproductive health care community in the Boise area; she felt that connecting with providers who were already doing reproductive health work would allow her to better understand the Idaho landscape, as people are generally quiet about reproductive health care—especially abortion care—in the state. Sarah also thought that connecting with other providers doing this work would help her set up referral systems for her patients and inspire her to find ways to offer this care herself. Thanks to Sarah and Hannah’s efforts, there are at least 20 clinicians who have already joined the Idaho Network Cluster. As Cluster leaders, Sarah and Hannah each bring a different clinical perspective to the Cluster, as Sarah practices in the community and Hannah works at a family medicine residency program.

The Idaho Cluster met for the first time in November of 2017.  Cluster members were able to put faces to names, sit down with each other to share a meal, and talk about their priorities for expanding access to reproductive health care in the state. “Everyone left the meeting feeling excited about where to go next; there were so many different ideas.” Moving forward, the Idaho Cluster plans to continue building their community of providers and advocates by focusing both on social activism and clinical care. Part of this includes finding ways to bring in folks from other regions of the state. For this Cluster, as well as other RHAP Clusters in larger states, incorporating the use of technologies such as video conferencing and email listservs is a critical piece of their organizing efforts.

Idaho is the first state where the Cluster is co-led by an advanced practice clinician, reflecting both the diversity of the area and the importance of cross-discipline collaboration. There aren’t may reproductive health care providers in Idaho, so it is especially important that anyone who is involved in reproductive health care be a part of this community. The group feels very strongly that including non-physician providers such as physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners, RNs, and other clinicians is critical to their mission of expanding access to reproductive health care in the state. As Sarah noted, “In general, people who work in reproductive health care—especially in more conservative areas—enjoy being part of a community with others who have shared experiences.” We are grateful to Hannah and Sarah for all of their work, and look forward to supporting the Idaho Cluster moving forward!