Blog Posts

Highlights of health insurance reform for pro-lifers

Jen R

Starting today, people in the U.S. who need health insurance can go to healthcare.gov to enroll in a plan through their states’ new exchanges.

There’s a lot for pro-lifers to love about health insurance reform. All plans offered on the exchanges must cover prenatal care, delivery, and care for mother and baby after birth. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, most individual insurance plans didn’t cover maternity care, and women who were already pregnant often couldn’t get insurance at all.

In addition to the reform of maternity care coverage, the ACA requires insurance plans to cover a number of preventive services with no cost-sharing. These include, but are definitely not limited to:

Having these vital preventive services available without a co-payment will help more women and children live healthy lives as well as making it easier for women to avoid unintended pregnancy and abortion.

* These are currently required to be covered for women but should be available without cost-sharing to everyone, in my opinion.

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act protects life, health, and jobs (photo by wunkaiwang on Flickr)
Blog Posts

On this Labor Day, stand with pregnant workers and their children

Jen R

U.S. supporters, if you haven’t already, please take this opportunity to email your members of Congress to ask them to cosponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (H.R. 1975 in the House and S. 942 in the Senate).

Better yet, email them today and then follow up with a phone call to their offices tomorrow!

Here are some talking points you can use in your email and phone call:

      • Women make up about half of the U.S. workforce. Two-thirds of women who had their first child between 2006 and 2008 worked during their pregnancies. Workers are not machines to be shaped to suit jobs — we are people who deserve to have our needs accommodated.
      • The PWFA relies on a reasonable accommodation framework already familiar to employers accustomed to the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
      • Most of the required accomodations are small and inexpensive for the employer — such as allowing employees to use a stool instead of standing or to have a water bottle with them as they work — but they can make a huge difference for the employee and her child.
      • If your Representative or Senator identifies as pro-life, remind them that they would be helping to protect the lives and health of unborn children as well as their mothers.

See our previous post about the PWFA if you want more information. Please let us know how your call goes, or if you get a response to your email!