The Texas state legislature has passed laws that are severely restricting access to abortion in the state. A recent study estimates that between 100,000 and 240,000 women in Texas have attempted self-induced abortions as a result of these strict restrictions on abortion provision. The Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP) medical director, Dr. Linda Prine has…
Linda Prine MD, Natalie Hinchcliffe DO, Shauna Gallagher MD How many times have we heard the refrain: “We don’t need to do abortions in our family medicine practice, we have a XXX (fill in the blank with the name of your local abortion care clinic) in town.”? Too many times. Comments like these reflect…
Anita Ravi, MD, MPH is a family physician engaged in clinical, research, and policy work focused on addressing the health care needs of marginalized populations, especially trauma-informed primary care interventions for populations involved in sexual coercion and violence. She recently started the PurpLE Clinic (Purpose: Listen and Engage), a safe health care clinic for anyone…
My name is Sophia Schilling, and I am a rising senior at the University of Iowa majoring in communications with a minor in nonprofit management. This summer, I was lucky enough to have been matched with the Reproductive Health Access Project through the 2015 Reproductive Rights Activists Service Corps (RRASC) summer internship program. The RRASC…
I did two abortions this morning (among other procedures) in our neighborhood family health center. The first was a 25-year-old professional woman who came in with her best friend, having been referred from her boutique practice that does IUDs but not abortions. She was pregnant with an IUD in place and had texted me yesterday evening,…
March 10 is Abortion Provider Appreciation Day. Abortion providers often face misunderstandings about the work they do and the environment they work in. To show our appreciation for abortion providers we are addressing one such abortion myth. At a recent organizational retreat RHAP’s Medical Director, Linda Prine, MD, fielded the following challenging question: “Do primary care clinicians…
Linda Prine, RHAP’s medical director, moderates the Access List, a clinical listserv with more than 1,000 subscribers all dedicated to providing abortion care within family medicine and primary care settings. This blog regularly features Linda’s postings to the Access List. I was shocked by the hurt in her voice when our patient started telling us…
I’m a pro-choice nurse practitioner and I am the only medical provider in the only clinic serving a community in the rural South. My clinic is run by a Catholic hospital. I want to share my story for a couple of reasons. One, I hope that other folks out there in similar situations (I know…
Our papaya workshop was on October 28, 2013. The date was rather fitting, as it was also on this day we learned that District Judge Yeakel found the increased abortion restrictions via the passage of HB2 unconstitutional. This news infused an extra bit of excitement into the evening’s workshop on manual vacuum aspiration. Judge Yeakel’s…
This post was written by RHAP’s field organizer in Texas, Jenny Horton. She was at the state capital during the July special legislative sessions to vote on a bill that contained sweeping restrictions on abortion access in Texas. Senator Wendy Davis’s filibuster to prevent passing the bill mobilized reproductive health/rights/justice advocates in the state and…