Womenstake, NWLC's Blog

by Jen Swedish, Health Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

Three days ago, Steph Sterling wrote about Dr. Susan Orr, President Bush’s recent appointee to oversee the Title X family planning program, saying we’d be watching to make sure she doesn’t make any mischief in the coming months. You might have thought to yourself: With just over a year left in Dr. Orr’s tenure, just how much mischief could she really make? As it turns out, quite a lot!

by Julia Kaye, Health and Reproductive Rights Program Assistant
National Women's Law Center

(Cross-posted to Planned Parenthood Aurora)

Suddenly the 2010 Winter Olympics I’ve been eagerly anticipating since ’06 can’t take long enough to get here. Yesterday’s release of Making the Grade on Women’s Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card made it clear that there is serious work to be done in women’s health before our nation and its states achieve the benchmarks set by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2010 initiative. If we’re still going to achieve these goals within the Healthy People’s timeline, then 2010 better come “later,” rather than sooner.

The fourth of a series of health report cards released by the National Women’s Law Center, the 2007 edition of Making the Grade makes it particularly clear that interventions in women’s health and health care policy are needed on both the federal and state levels. The 27 status indicators assessed by the Report Card show that U.S. women are nowhere near as healthy as they should be, the reasons for which quickly become apparent when you look at the Report Card’s 63 policy indicators. These indicators reveal which states have chosen to implement policies that positively impact women’s health — and which states have not.

by Jill Morrison, Senior Counsel
National Women’s Law Center